The snow turned out to be for the horses; the last thing Lan’ti did before they headed to the stairs hidden at the back of the nearly intact area was pour it into a trough. A flash of mana from the trough told Sophia that the trough was enchanted. Realistically, she’d have known that anyway because moments after Lan’ti added the snow, it vanished and left behind more crystal-clear water than Sophia thought it should have.

  “It makes water,” Lan’ti said when he noticed her watching. “But the more we give it, the less it has to do, since purifying water is apparently easier than making it from the air. Orwin isn’t certain it’ll last the winter without some snow, so we all try to get some whenever we come up.”

  “Why were you up here waiting, anyway?” Ci’an ran a hand through her hair. Her ear flicked forward once her hand was past. “I figured we’d have to dig you out of whatever you were looking at.”

  Lan’ti inclined his head at Los’en. “Uncle sent me a messenger bird this morning. I’ve been watching for you since I got it.”

  Sophia glanced at Los’en. She hadn‘t noticed him sending a bird, but there was no reason she should have; he could easily have sent it before she left her tent.

  “It took us a bit longer than I expected,” Los’en admitted. “Now that we’re here, let’s go see what we’re here for. I’ve only read the descriptions.”

  Lan’ti led the way to the stairs. They were at the far end of the room, away from the horses, and they were not at all what Sophia expected. Each step was about six feet wide, like the stairs in a public building rather than a house, but they were set up oddly. Most of them were about two feet long with a drop of about half their width, but every sixth step was three times as wide and had far larger steps above and below. It was almost like there was a missing step above and below each of the large ones, except that the large step was the full distance of the lower one, not the one in its position.

  Sophia frowned. It didn’t look at all like a comfortable staircase. It reminded her more of an escalator, though the large steps were out of place and it was far too wide. An escalator also wouldn’t be made of stone the way this was, at least not one that was made using Earth’s technology.

  She glanced at the seams where the steps met each other and met the wall; all she could be certain of was that there didn’t seem to be any mortar, but that didn’t mean she was right. It just meant that the seams weren’t filled, at least not anymore. It didn’t prove anything, but it definitely didn’t prove her wrong, either. “The stairs moved, didn’t they?”

  “Not since we’ve been here,” Lan’ti admitted, “But if you look up there … does anyone have a light? Directly above the stairs, it’s easier to see with the door open.”

  Sophia grabbed her magelight and lit it, then directed the light where Lan’ti indicated. It was a bit faded, but the light gleamed off of a series of stylized letters above the far end of the stairs. It looked like it said Ymbcyrr Aefdyne. The words seemed to swim in front of her vision for a moment and resolved into something that looked a lot like “moving downslope.” They reminded her of a bad machine translation, literal rather than expressive.

  Sophia shivered. It was the first time she was certain Innate Communication did anything, and it was somehow just a little creepy to know things that she shouldn’t. Dav’s ability to help translate body language within their group didn’t bother her the way being able to read the meaning of words she otherwise know.

  “Volat thinks that means moving stairs, or maybe downwards motion. There’s another set of stairs off that way,” Lan’ti waved towards the ruined half of the building, “But the roof collapsed on them at some point. The words are at the bottom, though, and he says it was the up staircase.”

  Sophia shook her head. “Sounds like the words won’t tell us anything. I guess they could have one staircase for going down and one for going up, but it really looks like a weird escalator to me.”

  Lan’ti shrugged. “It’s not the only weird thing about this place. Come on down; we’ve added some extra steps to the long drops.”

  It was a long way down. Sophia’s best guess was that it was more than three stories down, certainly far enough to warrant an escalator if you could make it work.

  At the bottom of the highly unpleasant stairs, the open area widened out to a space at least fifty feet wide and twice that long. The ceiling looked like it was made of stone, vaulted like a cathedral. There were a bunch of tents and a large fire in the middle of the room, but Sophia ignored that for the moment and tried to imagine the area without the evidence of current occupation.

  Sophia’s first thought was that the open area looked sort of like a subway station, but a second look changed her mind; it was big enough here, but there were a bunch of small passageways instead of the few large ones that would make sense if you expected to move a lot of people around.

  That made the probable moving stairs seem even weirder. Why wouldn’t you just put in an elevator if you were moving only a few people or things at a time? An escalator made a lot of sense if you were moving a lot of people together, but surely an elevator was easier?

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  Moving a lot of stuff didn’t make much more sense than moving a lot of people, unless people and stuff went through different doorways. There was nothing in the room that would help Sophia figure out what it once was, either; it looked like there might have been fittings, once upon a time, but they were long gone. All that was left was some divots in the floor where something might have been. They did seem to run from the staircase to some of the openings, though, so … maybe?

  “Ah, they arrived, then?” A blond man wearing chainmail walked up towards Lan’ti. “How are things upstairs? I hate leaving the horses without anyone watching them.”

  “They’re warm enough, but I think you’re right; we need a better place for them than that room. It was fine when we could put them in the back area with you watching them, but…” Lan’ti shook his head. “Does Jansen have any plans for them?”

  The blonde nodded. “Of course he does, he wanted to build out a sheltered paddock a tenday ago, but Volat brought down that wall, and…” he shrugged instead of continuing. “I’ll remind him about it.”

  “Good.” Lan’ti nodded, then seemed to remember that there were other people present. “Orwin, this is my sister Ci’an and my uncle Los’en. And, uh, Ci’an’s team.”

  Sophia grinned at Lan’ti’s confusion. “I’m Sophia and this is Dav. The chinchilla is Taika; he’s…” she took a moment to look around. “He’s in Dav’s backpack.”

  “I don’t like falling down mountains,” Taika added, clearly awake for once. “And don’t you dare stick me with the livestock upstairs. It’s warm down here!”

  It was warmer in the large cavern than up on the surface, but Sophia wasn’t certain she’d have called it warm. It was above freezing, at least, but she was definitely still going to want to wear warm clothes.

  Both Orwin and Lan’ti stared at the chinchilla for a long moment, then Orwin snorted softly. “Now I have seen everything. I definitely want to be there when you meet Xin’ri. That’s where you’re headed next, right?”

  “Uh,” Lan’ti temporized. “I thought I’d have them set up their tents first. It’s getting late and I’m sure they haven’t eaten, I can introduce everyone once they’re settled in.”

  Orwin tilted his head slightly and raised an eyebrow, then grinned and turned towards the tents. “Hey, Xin’ri! Lan’s brought guests and you’ve got to meet them!”

  Almost immediately, a head popped out of one of the tents, followed by the rest of the woman. She was shorter than Sophia, almost but not quite petite, with a pair of fuzzy fox’s ears that were folded down like she was annoyed. Her robe was blue with golden embroidery, tied in place with a red sash. A warm-looking hood was folded back behind her head. “Broken towers, Orwin, you know I was getting ready for bed. Why couldn’t this wait til morning?”

  “New people,” Orwin said with a grin. “I knew you’d want to meet them.”

  “In the morning!” Xin’ri huffed, then stalked over to the group. “Well, I’m out here now. I’m Xin’ri, and I’m here to puzzle out what anything we find does or once did. Not the labels, Volat does the translations, the actual function. Not that we’ve found anything intact enough yet to really look at. And no, Orwin, the stairs don’t count, not unless you’re willing to help me take them apart. The scripting has to be on the hidden part of the stair blocks; it certainly isn’t anywhere else.”

  Sophia blinked, then felt a smile start to spread across her face. Xin’ri was just like Aunt Red. Well, maybe not quite; Sophia knew that Red would have the stairs partially disassembled before anyone thought to tell her not to. With luck, that meant that Xin’ri blew herself up less often than Aunt Red did. “I’m Sophia, and that’s not why Orwin called you out here. I think he wants to see the expression on your face when you neet Taika.”

  “I’m not funny.” Taika climbed out of Dav’s pack. He set his front paws on Dav’s shoulder for support as he pulled his back half up, then hopped easily to the ground. “And I heard someone mention dinner. Where’s the food?”

  Xin’ri froze for a moment, then seemed to thaw. “I’ll lead you. Come on, this way.” She turned and walked away with Taika right behind her.

  Orwin seemed to droop as Xin’ri left. It was obvious that he hadn’t gotten the reaction he was looking for.

  “I guess that means it’s time to introduce you around,” Lan’ti admitted. “Everyone’s going to come this way now anyway.”

  He was correct; people were already starting to gather around them. Lan’ti introduced everyone, but they quickly started to blur in Sophia’s mind; there were simply too many people to remember them all after a single introduction. It felt like being introduced to a small village all at once, even though there were only about twenty-five people.

  Only one person stood out to Sophia, and that was because she’d already heard his name. Volat was the man who’d translated the words above the moving stairs. He looked a little older than Lan’ti, but still young; thirty, perhaps, but probably not much older, with dark brown hair and a perpetually concerned look, like he was afraid he’d forgotten something but couldn’t remember what it might be.

  Out of the entire group, he was the one that seemed to be dressed the warmest, in what looked like four separate layers of clothing. The outer layer reminded Sophia a little of Xin’ri’s outfit, a blue robe with a red belt, but the details were quite different. Where Xin’ri’s robe wrapped all the way around her, Volat’s was open in the front to reveal his layered inner clothing, and it was that inner clothing that held silver embroidery, rather than the gold embroidery on the robe itself that Xin’ri’s outfit had.

  Sophia still wondered if the similarity in color meant anything.

  It is very obvious that the AI doesn’t actually know what chainmail looks like. Maybe there’s one out there that does, but the one I’m using … doesn’t.