The forklift fit through the warehouse doors.

  Barely.

  I mean barely. The sides scraped against both door frames at the same time, making this horrible screeching sound that the hare absolutely hated.

  Kitten Cowboy was sitting on the hood. He'd climbed up there when we left the showroom and just... stayed there. Tail wrapped around his paws, staring out at Iron Ravine like some kind of ship figurehead that had no business being here.

  Mira was floating next to the cab window on my right, arms crossed.

  "The compass," she said. "Check it."

  I pulled it out with one hand and steered with the other.

  The needle pointed left.

  "Left," I said.

  "There's a path to the left," Mira said, looking ahead.

  "Fabulous."

  "It's a ledge path."

  "Not fabulous."

  "It's about twelve feet wide."

  I looked at the forklift. Then at how wide it was. Then I tried to do math, which is never a good sign.

  "The forklift's probably—" Mira started.

  "About eleven feet," I said.

  "Okay," she said. "So we have—"

  "About a foot of space. Total. Six inches on each side."

  The hare's ears perked up from the back. "Wait, you just did math in your head? That's so cool, Daniel!" the hare said. I didn't sense even a hint of sarcasm in his words.

  "Thank you," I said.

  Mira turned to look at the hare. "You're complimenting him for that?"

  "I don't know math," the hare said quickly.

  "What?" I said.

  Mira stared at it. "You don’t know basic math?"

  "Nope."

  "At all?"

  "Not even a little bit."

  "How do you function?" Mira asked.

  "You don't need to know numbers to live," the hare said.

  "Unless you need to file taxes, he's right."

  The ledge path started right where the warehouse floor ended. Clean edge, like someone measured it. On the left was the ravine wall: iron, breathing, rippling slowly. On the right was the drop. Same drop I'd seen before. Still couldn't see the bottom.

  The path went forward and curved left after maybe two hundred feet.

  I stopped the engine and got off the forklift.

  "You know," the hare said, "I've been thinking and I really think we should leave the forklift here and walk like normal—"

  "We're going," I said.

  "—people who want to survive and—"

  "I got this."

  "—value their lives and don't drive heavy machines over two-hundred-foot drops and—"

  "Hold on to something."

  "I AM HOLDING ON TO SOMETHING," the hare screamed, and wrapped both front paws around the crate bracket as hard as it could.

  I moved the forklift forward. Slowly.

  Driving a really big forklift across a really narrow ledge with a two-hundred-foot drop on one side takes focus.

  It also takes not thinking too hard about the details, because once you start doing the math — how wide the forklift is, how wide the path is, how much empty air is between the right wheel and certain death — it gets hard to think straight.

  The right wheel was rolling about four inches from the edge. I knew this because I'd looked once and immediately regretted it.

  A spark fell from the ceiling and landed on the windshield right in front of my face. It glowed for exactly two seconds, then went out, leaving a tiny burn mark right at eye level.

  Good. Fine. Everything's fine.

  The path curved left.

  I turned the wheel.

  The back end of the forklift swung out slightly on the turn, because that's what forklifts do. They don't turn around their center. The rear wheels went wider than the front.

  The right rear wheel went over the edge.

  Just for a second. Maybe two inches of wheel over empty air. The forklift tilted slightly, then the wheel caught the edge again and we were back.

  Nobody said anything.

  The hare had stopped making sounds. Which was actually scarier than the sounds.

  "You're still doing great," Mira said, in a voice that had gone slightly higher.

  "Thanks," I said.

  We made it around the curve.

  The path got wider after that. My shoulders dropped about three inches. I hadn't even realized they were that high.

  [SKILL LEVEL UP!]

  [FORKLIFT DRIVING: LEVEL 1 → LEVEL 2]

  Your experience navigating treacherous terrain with heavy machinery has improved your control and precision. You can now handle tighter turns and maintain better balance on uneven surfaces.

  Iron Ravine kept doing its thing.

  The walls were breathing on both sides now. We were between them on a wider walkway that was bolted to the left wall and stuck out toward the middle of the ravine on the right. Wide enough for the forklift with room for walking on either side. The ceiling was higher here. The sparks fell steadily in orange drifts, making this constant soft tapping sound when they landed on metal — on the forklift hood, on the walkway, on the crate brackets behind the cab. Would've been almost relaxing in a different situation.

  The magnetic towers were visible from here. Three of them across the ravine, giant black cylinders humming at different pitches. The closest one was maybe sixty feet away, sticking out from the opposite wall on a platform I couldn't see the base of.

  My brick really wanted to go toward it.

  I kept my arm against my side and tried not to think about it.

  "What do you think is in those towers?" Mira asked, floating next to the cab window.

  "Magnet stuff," I said.

  "Helpful."

  "I really don't know. They're big, they hum, and they pull metal toward them. That's all I've got. But my brick isn't metal. Wonder why…"

  Mira looked at the nearest tower for a second.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  We kept driving.

  The walkway kept going for a while.

  Long enough that things started feeling almost normal. The forklift rolling forward, sparks falling, the wind coming through in these long slow waves that smelled like hot metal and something electric. Kitten Cowboy had moved from the hood to the top of the cab at some point and was just sitting up there like a tiny gargoyle, occasionally taking swipes at sparks when they floated past.

  The hare was back in its spot on the crate bracket, doing that thing where it looks asleep but is actually tracking every possible way to die within a two-hundred-foot radius.

  Mira was reading her spellbook, holding one page open while she hovered level with the window.

  "Anything good?" I asked.

  "There's a spell for shaping stone," she said. "Can't use it. Needs earth magic."

  "You're fire."

  "Yep." She flipped a page. "There's also a tracking spell. You can follow someone across distance."

  "That sounds useful."

  "You need something that belongs to them."

  "Less useful."

  "And it gives you headaches."

  "Way less useful."

  She turned another page, then paused.

  "This one won't work either," she said.

  "What is it?"

  "It's a beginner book," she said. "There's gotta be something in here I can actually use."

  "What about the menace thing spell?"

  "Sounds boring."

  "Keep looking," I said. "You'll find something good eventually."

  She turned another page, scanning the text with a slight frown.

  I checked the compass.

  Still pointing forward. Maybe up a little. Hard to say.

  We found the sign maybe forty minutes in.

  It was bolted to the ravine wall on the left. Metal, obviously. The letters were punched-out steel against the dark wall.

  It said:

  IRON RAVINE — SECTOR 7 — AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL AND EQUIPMENT ONLY

  Below that:

  FORKLIFTS: MAXIMUM LOAD CAPACITY 4 TONS

  SPEED LIMIT: 15 UNITS PER HOUR

  The sign had this vibe like it'd been put up when things were organized and had just stuck around long enough to become weird.

  "How fast are we going?" Mira asked.

  "No idea," I said. "This thing doesn't have a speedometer."

  "Roughly."

  I thought about it. "Maybe ten? Twelve?"

  "We're good then," she said.

  We drove past the sign.

  Three minutes later, another sign:

  EMERGENCY STOP BUTTONS LOCATED EVERY 50 UNITS

  I looked ahead. There were actually big red buttons on the wall at regular intervals. Each one about the size of a grapefruit, in a little glass case. Most of the glass was broken. The buttons looked like nobody had touched them in forever, but they were still there, still red, looking weirdly hopeful.

  "Think those work?" Mira asked.

  "No clue."

  "Should we test one?"

  "What stops you?"

  She thought about it.

  "Not sure," she said.

  "Then don't," I said.

  "Yeah, probably smart."

  "Then I will," I said, and pressed the button.

  Nothing happened. Just a brief gasp from Mira and a scream from the hare.

  "Live a little, guys."

  The compass moved.

  I'd been checking it every few minutes, but this time when I pulled it out, the needle had shifted — still forward, but angled to the right now. Down and right.

  "It's pointing into the ravine," I said.

  Mira leaned over and looked.

  "Deeper," she said.

  "Great."

  The hare, from the back: "Oh, wonderful..." Then it paused. "I LIED! THAT'S NOT WONDERFUL! DON'T GO THERE!"

  I looked right. The walkway had a railing.

  Way down in the mist, I saw something.

  Faint. Orange. Flickering.

  Light.

  "Something's down there," I said.

  Mira looked. Squinted.

  "Maybe infrastructure."

  "Probably."

  I put the compass away and kept driving. The path curved right, so I followed it.

  We found the ramp fifteen minutes later.

  Zigzagged back and forth as it went down, carved into the ravine walls on both sides with a proper lane for big vehicles.

  It even had lane markings.

  Yellow paint.

  Faded as hell, but there.

  "Someone really planned this place," I said.

  "And then nobody took care of it," Mira said.

  "Probably. Any idea what happened here?" I asked.

  "No," she said.

  "Same."

  I drove the forklift onto the ramp.

  Going down was slow. Whoever built this ramp knew what they were doing. The slope wasn't bad. The turns were wide enough for the forklift with room left over. The lane markings guided us through.

  The forklift handled it fine.

  At the first turn, I stopped to look over the railing.

  The inside of the ravine opened up below us. Now that we were lower, I could see the lights better. Real lamps down here — big industrial ones, like in the warehouse, attached to tall columns rising from the ravine floor. They made pools of yellow-orange light across a huge space.

  And I could see the floor now.

  Not a huge drop. Maybe sixty feet below where we were, getting closer as the ramp went down.

  The ravine floor was flat and solid. Someone had built on it. Low, wide buildings down there, the kind you build for work, not looks. Between the buildings, iron roads ran straight through in a grid pattern.

  Like a city.

  Or what was left of one.

  "Huh," I said.

  "Wow," Mira said.

  Everything was quiet.

  "Is it empty?" the hare asked.

  "Can't tell from here," I said.

  I kept driving down.

  The bottom of the ramp led onto one of the iron roads.

  Wide enough for two forklifts side by side. The surface was smooth. The lamps overhead were close enough now to actually light things up, and I could see the buildings along the road.

  Big buildings. Made from the same iron as everything else, but they looked newer. Less rust. The roofs were flat with equipment on them. Pipes, vents, things that might've been antennas or something else. The doors were large rolling doors, same style as the warehouse, but these were closed.

  I drove out onto the iron road and stopped.

  I checked the compass.

  Forward. Still pointing forward. Down the road.

  "We're going the right way," I said.

  "Got it," Mira said. "Daniel—"

  "Yeah."

  "Smoke."

  I looked.

  She was right. Between two buildings on the left, thin smoke was rising. Not from a fire. It was thin and gray-white, rising straight up before the wind caught it and blew it sideways. Cooking smoke.

  Someone was down here.

  I stopped the forklift and turned off the engine.

  The silence hit immediately. The ravine still hummed, sparks still fell, but without the engine, the space felt bigger. My ears adjusted.

  "Someone's here," the hare said. It didn't sound scared. It sounded… thoughtful. Which was weird for the hare. Usually it just got scared.

  "Yeah," I said.

  "Could be dangerous."

  "Could be."

  "Should we turn around and go literally anywhere else?"

  "No." I said.

  "I had to ask."

  I climbed down from the cab. My feet hit the iron road — pong — and I looked at the gap between the buildings. Twenty feet wide, maybe. Too narrow for the forklift.

  Kitten Cowboy jumped from the hood to the road beside me, already walking toward the gap with one paw on his holster.

  Mira landed next to me. I reached into my pocket. I still had the big bolt from the warehouse. Good weight. Easy to hold.

  The hare hopped up beside me and pressed against my leg, ears flat but eyes wide open.

  We went in.

  The gap between the buildings opened into a small courtyard.

  Or what counted as a courtyard in a place like this. A weird-shaped space between four buildings where the iron roads didn't reach. The floor here was worn smooth, like people had been walking on it for a long time.

  There was a fire.

  Small. Sitting inside a metal ring that looked homemade but worked. A pot over it, something cooking in the pot, steam rising. The smoke came from the fire itself.

  Sitting next to the fire on a crate was a person.

  She was looking at us.

  She'd been looking since before we came around the corner, which meant she'd heard us coming. She'd heard the forklift the whole time and hadn't run. Either she was really confident or she'd decided running would be worse.

  She looked about thirty. Dark skin, short hair, wearing armor that had seen better days. Leather underneath, iron plates bolted on top in places, the whole thing repaired so many times with different materials that it looked like a quilt that had fought a blacksmith and lost. One arm had a metal guard that clearly came from a different set. The other arm had nothing.

  She had a staff across her knees. Long, dark wood with an iron cap on each end. Symbols carved along the shaft.

  She was eating something from a small bowl.

  She watched us come around the corner.

  Then she looked back at the gap we'd come through, toward where the forklift was parked.

  "Was that a forklift?" she said.

  "Yes," I said.

  She ate a spoonful of whatever was in her bowl. Chewed. Swallowed.

  "Okay," she said.

  Her name was Dessa.

  She told us this after about a minute of everyone sizing each other up, where we all decided the other side wasn't going to try to kill us right away. Kitten Cowboy moved his hand away from his holster.

  I put the bolt back in my pocket.

  "How long have you been down here?" I asked.

  "A while," she said.

  "Wel…"

  "How long is a while?" Mira asked.

  Dessa scraped the bottom of her bowl and looked at it. Then set it down on the crate beside her.

  "The warehouse up top. The one with the forklifts."

  "We came through that," I said.

  "I cleared that three days ago," she said. "Give or take. Hard to tell down here. There's no real day or night."

  "Group?" I asked.

  "Solo."

  "You cleared the forklift warehouse by yourself?"

  She looked at me. Something in the look that was almost offended but not quite.

  "Yes," she said.

  "Fair enough," I said.

  Kitten Cowboy had walked around the fire to smell her pot. She watched him with the look of someone who'd already figured out this whole situation and was just watching things play out.

  "Is your cat going to eat my food?" she asked.

  Kitten Cowboy looked up at me.

  The cat looked back at the pot.

  "Don't eat her food," I told him.

  She was a Descender. Obviously. Not much else to be down in Iron Ravine except Descender, enemy, or someone who screwed up. She'd come from somewhere, she didn't say where, and I didn't ask, and she'd been on the ravine floor for three days, working her way through what she called "the grid."

  "It's a transport system," she said. "Or it was. The buildings on the floor, they're stations. Something used to move through here. Cargo, maybe. Or something else. The roads connect them all."

  "We saw the roads coming in," Mira said.

  "The compass you've got," Dessa said, nodding at my pocket. "Where's it pointing?"

  I pulled it out and showed her.

  She looked at the needle. Then looked down the road in the direction it pointed.

  "That's Station 3," she said.

  "You've been there?"

  "I've tried," she said. "There's something inside it."

  I waited.

  Dessa looked at the fire.

  "Big," she said. "I don't know what it looks like because I couldn't see it in the dark. I heard it. And when I threw a light in—" She stopped.

  "And?" Mira asked.

  "It threw it back," Dessa said.

  Silence.

  "It threw your light back at you?" I said.

  "Through the door. Like a throw. On purpose." Dessa looked up at us. "I came back. I've been camped here for three days trying to figure out another way in, or how to deal with whatever's in there."

  The hare, quietly, said: "I think we should go back to Hollow Kingdom."

  "We're not going back to Hollow Kingdom. We haven’t done anything. We need loot, xp." I said.

  "We could visit," it said. "Just for a bit. Check on things."

  "We're going to Station 3," I said.

  "Why," the hare said. Not a question. More like sad acceptance.

  "Because the compass says so."

  "The compass isn't alive and doesn't care if we live or die."

  Dessa decided to come with us.

  Why the hell not?

  Dessa stood up with her pack on and her staff in her hand. She looked at us. Then she looked toward the forklift.

  "Can that thing fit through a Station door?" she said.

  There it was.

  "Depends on the door," I said.

  "The doors are the same as the warehouse," she said. "Big rolling ones."

  I thought about the warehouse doors and the forklift and how we'd scraped both sides on the way out.

  "We'll make it work," I said.

  The hare made a sound.