Sunna and Callan threaded their way through thick ferns, brambles and sharp rocks to reach the edge of the Shy camp. Callan raised two fingers and mimicked a magpie call, aiming at the half-concealed watchtower of woven reeds at the perimeter, signifying an all clear.

"Niva's gonna gut me like a minnow when she finds out we snuck up on the human," Callan muttered, fidgeting with his belt pouch.

Sunna gave him a sidelong look. "She doesn't need to find out."

"She always finds out," he groaned, with the certainty of a man who'd tried otherwise.

They slipped through a curtain of hanging moss into the hushed heart of their camp, nestled just inside the cave's entrance. Smoke from the ember pit curled upwards in spirals, dissipating as it reached the cave mouth. A few Shy stirred in their hammocks and nests, but most of the camp still slumbered this early in the morning. Only the main lean-to showed signs of activity, a flicker of light bleeding through its seams. Wedged into a curve of the cave wall, its frame was a lattice of river reeds, layered with leaves and cloth scraps for cover. Further inside, Garret leaned back against a boulder, hands resting on his knees, sleepily watching over the Shy community. As Sunna and Callan entered, the human straightened with interest, shimmying over to squat near the lean-to.

Mara stood beside the old crab shell they used as a table, its surface worn smooth by river currents. Her fingers drummed on the tabletop as she scribbled work plans on dry leaves. Eryl sat nearby on a piece of driftwood, sipping on a steaming brew from a cup carved out of a hollow seedpod.

The two Sunbraves ducked through the entrance, prompting Mara to look up from her scribbling. "Well?" she asked.

Sunna stepped forward. "The human made camp by the riverbend, with hardly any effort to conceal it. She could barely get a fire going, surely no scout or soldier. Looks like she's on the run. But still no sign of her pursuers."

"And Veyran's with her," Callan added. "We hear… saw him. Clearly," He caught himself, almost letting slip how close they'd gotten.

Mara's gaze remained fixed, but her fingers paused their drumming. "How's he doing? What else did you see?"

"He looks fine," Sunna said. "He was tucked into her bag like it was his personal carriage. He even helped her start the fire with an arc-spark. He definitely has a shard. And isn't holding back from using it around the human."

"Where's Alvon?" Mara asked, noticing his absence.

"Stayed behind," Sunna said. "Holding watch."

"We came back ahead to get word to you quickly," Callan added. "But somebody needs to keep an eye on them. He'll signal if anything changes."

Mara's fingers drummed once against the crab shell. "Go on."

"The human is female, with dark, wavy hair, wearing a long, dark cloak. Her mount has a gray coat, white mane, responded to her like they're used to riding together," Callan continued.

"Her cloak is well-cut but stained, spattered with dust and blood, like she's seen trouble," Sunna added.

Garret spoke up, his best attempt at a soft whisper filling the space. "Gray horse, white mane…" His expression changed as recognition dawned. "That's Ashwind. The fancy mare at Greyhold stables. I used to muck her stall. She only ever took to one rider—Rhiannon, the overseer. The woman you're describing sounds a lot like her!"

Mara looked up sharply. "So, is she Veyran's companion, or captor? Figures that among the humans, she'd be the one he'd make a deal with."

"She didn't look happy about their current situation, but wasn't treating him badly," Callan shared.

Mara stepped back from the table, laid out a map of the area sketched on a scrap of cloth, and began laying tokens on key points. One stone at the cave camp, another near the riverbend where the human rested, and a third at the ruins the Sunbraves had gone to scout upstream.

"Great, just when most of our Sunbraves are away," she shook her head. "We need more info. We need to know what Veyran and the human are up to. Come up with a plan if they approach—"

"Mara!" Eryl cried, a shard cupped in her palm. She held it out and they watched as it pulsed once, then again.

"Alvon's signal!" Sunna explained. "They're moving."

Mara traced the path from the bend to the cave, ending at the ruins. Inevitably it seemed, their camp would need to move too.

"Veyran…" she sighed. "If you're bringing trouble, I hope you're ready to help us deal with it."

Beneath Menna's feet, the pod's movement shifted from a subtle swaying to a more erratic thrusting. The river rushed them along, its pull no longer measured, but insistent. The metal hull protested with groans that echoed ominously within their sealed confines.

Menna pressed her palm to the inner curve of the hull, feeling the river's chill seeping through the metal. She went up close to the viewing slit, breath fogging the glass, and wiped off the condensation with her sleeve. Bursts of green and brown swept past them in the water, too quickly to discern what they were.

The arclith shard in the socket continued glowing in steady pulses yet seemed completely uninvolved in powering their movement. "The shard's charge hasn't diminished since we've been in the water," Menna noted while checking on it. "Apparently, the pod isn't using arclith for propulsion at all."

"We're being pulled by the Silverthread's currents now," Vazko said behind her. He braced himself with one hand on the overhead rail. "That means we're… heading southward. Downstream."

"But we're completely untethered," Menna said, wiping her fingertips on the hem of her coat. Despite their predicament, her voice held a note of fascination. "No controls, no navigation. I never came across any mention that they shifted to passive transit. These ancient engineers either trusted the river implicitly or…"

"They never intended the passengers to have any say in their operation, if this pod ever did carry passengers," Vazko finished, watching Menna closely. "Do you think this was how they designed the system?"

"Letting the pod drift with the river's flow? That would save loads on arclith charges. But that means, wherever the pod is meant to go, the river is expected to just take it there."

Vazko said, "That puts us on track to exit the caldera."

Menna turned at that. "That's… true. Eventually. But I thought, based on my research and Veyran's, that the pods would cross the river, not be carried away by it!"

They were at the mercy of gravity, and the cryptic intentions of Shy long dead. Beyond the Sunveil, they would be completely at a loss. They knew of no maps detailing the river's course beyond the caldera's rim.

Menna and Vazko spent a while in silence save for the sound of water racing past the hull, and the creaking metal frame adjusting to pressure differentials. To break the tension and pass the time, Menna began teaching Vazko the Song of the Shy, figuring he may have more insights into the meaning of the verses. The Deepguard had a decent singing voice, which he explained away by having to perform marching hymns in perfect pitch while training.

A sudden lurch shook them from their seats. The pod tilted and surged forward, shoving Menna against the side rail. Vazko caught her before she could tumble head over heels.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Then light blazed across the slit—harsh and white, no longer filtered through layers of blue and green.

"Are we getting closer to the surface?" Menna wondered.

Vazko was already bracing himself against the wall, legs planted wide, staring into the light. "We could try to anchor," he suggested.

Menna shook her head. "The water's too deep."

The pod creaked again, the sound deeper this time. Menna crouched into a fetal position to better ride out the turbulence.

"We're bound to stop somewhere," Vazko said, offering a steadying hand to her shoulder.

From the bluff's edge, Sylven could see the Greystone River slicing a silver path southward across the edge of the Veilwoods.

"The trek back should take a couple days at least," Jerrik calculated. "Maybe longer."

Brynnal groaned from between Vikka's feet. "Ugh, it's not as fun when we've already trekked it all before. Hey… what if we all just ride your… big friend, Sylven? She walks fast."

Sylven shot him a look, silently refusing to translate for the kobold.

"If we cut inland through another section of the woods," Jerrik muttered, scanning the slope to the east, "we'd lose a day cutting through brush. And we'd still have a climb at the end."

Brynnal set his foot down on a flat rock. "I vote we build a raft and ride down. We can gather wood, tie it together with rope. If it floats, we're good. River'll do the rest."

Sylven stepped to the edge, watching how the current flowed and pulled fallen twigs along with it. It was relatively shallow here, but still too perilous for the Shy to risk. The river did run to where they needed to go. They'd have to weave through reeds, rocks, and bends in between, but nothing was impassable.

Sylven looked up, way up, at his big friend. "What do you think about floating downriver?" he asked the kobold.

Vikka had moved ahead while the Shy were talking. She walked up to a hollow log along the bank and knocked on the wood with her claws. "I'm for it, but let's build a proper boat. If you're looking for materials, this log's sound. We can split it and add something to steady it along the sides."

Sylven nodded, still readjusting to speaking to her more verbally. "Let's move it."

"Let me move it," Vikka said, lifting the log with just one arm. "Even with Uiska, it'd take you Shy too long just to rig a harness to pull it."

Brynnal sighed, feigning resignation. "If the kobold wants to do the heavy lifting, I'm all for it."

The workers moved in mismatched scale. Vikka dragged the heavy pieces, guided the frame, and used stones to hammer down whatever needed a pounding. Uiska also lent a paw, gathering sticks and reeds for the outriggers. The Shy wove vines and frog-gut string to lash the parts together, then plugged the gaps with mud and resin.

Brynnal tossed a vine over to Sylven, who caught it without looking up from his knot work. "You know," the Sunbrave said, "Without Vikka, we would've spent days building a raft half this size."

"And it would've been leakier too," Jerrik added, tamping resin into a crack.

Vikka's tail swished with pride as Sylven translated the Shy's gratitude for her contributions. "I wouldn't ever have thought of building a boat without you Shy," she cleared up.

Uiska squeaked in agreement, scampering all over their craft to 'test' its river-worthiness.

"It was a team effort," Sylven offered diplomatically.

Brynnal glared at the pika who was proudly standing tall at the prow. "Not if you ask Uiska. Give him a torch and he could pose as our figurehead."

The boat was broad enough for Vikka to kneel in without tipping, with a covered alcove at the rear featuring carved handholds where the Shy could hunker down and hang on, safely out of the splash zone.

By sunset, the boat nestled in the shallows, tethered to a root jutting from the bank. They finished their checks done, the last knot tied, the last crack filled. It wasn't elegant, but it wouldn't sink.

Uiska had already curled up inside, dozing on a bed of grass and reeds he'd piled up in a corner.

They had just pushed off from the bank, the current already tugging them into its embrace, when Jerrik's head snapped up. "Wait—" He pointed upstream. Sunlight glinted against something unnatural, a reflection too dazzling for anything other than glass or metal. There was even a hint of a magical glow. Then it was gone.

Vikka noticed it too. She craned her neck and stuck her tongue out at the rapids upriver.

"Did you also see that shiny ball floating in the water upstream, close to the ruins?" she asked Sylven. "I caught a whiff of copper and crystal."

"Yes, and it was leaking arclith," Sylven added, squinting into the foam.

"Whatever it was," Brynnal said. "Sela and Ilkin can handle it. Between them and Warby, they've got the shard-power to take on anything."

The pod burst forth from the water like a swallowed seed being spat back out. It skipped across the surface before slowing down and bobbing along atop the churning foam in its wake.

Sunlight bloomed across the fogged-up slit. Still adjusting from the transition between dim to bright, they struggled to process the strange scenery. Darting shapes resolved into fish scattering, tall shadows unfurled into unfamiliar trees or river reeds.

"There's the riverbank!" Menna gasped.

The current caught the pod sideways, pitching them toward the shallows.

Vazko steadied himself against the opposite rail. "Any landmarks?"

They skimmed over a submerged obstruction seemingly placed to intercept their path. The rough scraping against the hull caused the entire pod to shudder, the screech of stone against metal rattling their teeth.

Then they were spinning, caught in a vortex. As the pod rotated along with the eddies, Menna glimpsed the hole in the rock face they had just emerged from. "I think… we've been ejected from the caldera," she moaned, dizzy

"There," Vazko pointed. "Stonework, past that bend."

"I see it," Menna muttered, gripping the rail, face and knuckles pale from the strain.

Ruins emerged through the haze and spray as they spun, unwillingly, treated to panoramic views of the area as they both revolved and rotated, over and over. Half-submerged fragments of walls and ledges, their bases broken by invasive roots, poked from the mud and rocks. This was no grand architecture but undeniably built by skilled hands, and at Shy scale, or close to it.

"Hold on!" Vazko barked, tired of the spinning. He decided to turn the wheel in the middle of the pod, which clearly served a function for a certain point in the journey. As he turned it counter-clockwise, jets of compressed air hissed from a valve below, allowing them to hover above the vortex and nudging them toward the bank.

The glare from the river still stung their eyes, but shapes came into better focus—collapsed columns, moss-furred stonework drowning among clumps of reeds. This wasn't some random spot along the riverbank but likely one of the stations the records had hinted at, where ancient pods like theirs had once shuttled shards and Shy. But instead of crossing the river to the known dangers of kobold territory as she had originally expected, they were outside the caldera in truly alien lands.

They drifted toward a structure that resembled a primitive waypod station, or what remained of one.

"That looks like it could be a loading dock," Vazko said. "With anchoring stones, maybe."

As they bobbed in the water, they glimpsed three figures looking down on them from the ridge overlooking the ruins.

Their observers moved cautiously but purposefully. One dove into the water ahead, cutting a line through the current. The others followed along the bank.

"I wish we had a Sunshy with us, they'd know better what to do out here," Menna said.

"Menna, I admit these are unfamiliar environs for us Deepguard," Vazko agreed. "But I will do my best to keep us safe from any threats."

On the high bank above, Sela stood among the vines, her sharp eyes zeroing in on the gleaming round craft swirling in the river.

"Ilkin, look at this!" she shouted to the other Sunbrave.

He joined her, peering over the edge. "What's that in the water?"

Sela pointed. "Not driftwood. It's too smooth and shiny."

The sealed metallic ball was coated in algae. It revolved like a top, stuck in a small whirlpool, revealing a glass strip set into one side. After a flurry of bubbles erupted from its base, it started moving strangely, going against the current to drift toward the ruins in the reeds.

"Warby!" Sela called. A rustle came from the ferns and the water rat scampered out. He paused beside her, whiskers twitching, eyes scanning the river.

"Swim there." She gestured towards the unusual floating object. "Investigate."

Ilkin reached out and stroked the water rat's head before he dashed off to the bank. "Be careful, big guy."

Warby dove in with a controlled splash, cutting through water like a sleek projectile. Fur slicked, his streamlined body barely rippled the surface as he launched toward the drifting pod.

Sela stepped onto the worn slab of what may have been a guard platform. Her eyes followed the pod's slowing trajectory.

"If it came from upstream, then it's not from the cave camp, or the humans."

Ilkin nodded. "The caldera is all that's further upriver."

"Could that thing have come from inside?" she wondered. "Prep your gear. Just in case."

Inside, Menna and Vazko tracked the brown blur closing in on them fast.

"Something's swimming over," Vazko warned, unsheathing his sword.

He put himself between Menna and the hatch, his free hand gripping the shard pouch, ready to cast defensive magic. "Doesn't look like a fish. Stand back in case it's hostile."

But the shape didn't strike, it just circled the pod.

A wet snout and webbed paws pressed against the slit, whiskers splayed, dark eyes blinking into the glass. Then it pulled away, trilling a throaty warble that sounded more inquisitive rather than aggressive.

Menna squinted. "Is that… a scout animal? It looks trained, intelligent. Maybe bonded?"

Vazko focused on the leather strap around the animal's chest as it headed back toward shore. "Then someone sent it."

Sela and Ilkin watched the pod inch closer to the ruined quay. Warby scrambled up the ledge, shedding water in shimmering arcs. He shook himself, scattering droplets all around, then sat up on his haunches. His forepaws gestured in simple Shy signs adapted for his water rat digits. He chirped, miming a pair of upright figures, then tapped his paw against his chest, whiskers semaphoring for emphasis. Two Shy.

Ilkin's brow furrowed. "You're sure they're Shy, like us?" He asked the creature using the simplified Shy signs.

Warby cocked his head, nodded, then flicked his tail toward the approaching pod.

Sela exhaled. "Then we'd better meet them."

The pod eased sideways into the quay, making a sound like a bell as it bumped against the worn rim of the ruined dock. Then it held fast, as if the very stones exerted a pull on the hull.

"Are those magnets? That tracks. We shoulda checked!" Ilkin wondered aloud.

The river transport system had finally completed its centuries-delayed return trip. A mechanical click followed by the whine of metal rubbing against metal could be heard from the craft. From where she stood, Sela saw the hatch begin to rotate.

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