The winds diminished at the day’s end, as did my anxiety about operating the skiff.

  It seemed dangerous to enter Oxum without my cooldowns, but it would be even more so to fall asleep. Monsters lurked in the fog, but the pervasive use of skiffs reassured me the trip wouldn’t be hazardous. The locals avoided monster attacks, so why shouldn’t I? As long as I didn’t attract attention to myself, the fauna should leave me alone.

  The net gently rocked me like a hammock, but recent events gave me enough to think about to stay awake. Worries about fog monsters, other players, and the contest harried me through the day. A thin crescent of Owd kept me company through the afternoon and evening hours.

  Staying sharp for the crossing kept me out of harm’s way. Outcroppings of rock protruded through the fog. Someone had tied buoys with little red flags to mark the buttes posing a danger to passing vessels. Other flags bobbed on the vapor, broadcasting a nearby butte, so I avoided them with a wide berth.

  Equipping Gladius, I read the glyphs on the flags, hoping they indicated directions to Oxum. They didn’t. Instead, they announced names and numbers like Broken Tooth Butte 13.

  “Does that mean anything to you?”

  My sword hummed in response. “The Broken Teeth are a ridgeline overlooking Sarvin’s Trench, a canyon system winding from the Gray Manors to the lowest point in Blyeheath, the Choking Swamp.”

  “Why would anyone bother naming features in the fog?”

  “These are ancient names. Humans first landed in Miros on the north shore. The aerocline was much lower then. There are quite a few ruins and ancient settlements below us. Though they’ve been abandoned for millennia, skiff operators maintained accurate maps to mark aerocline features.”

  “Am I on the right course to Oxum?”

  “I’m afraid I couldn’t say. The Broken Teeth follow a long ridge, and its buoys take different names from generation to generation.”

  The aerocline took on a reddish hue as the sun dropped in the late evening. “Ebenezer told me not to light Presence, but without it, I can’t see anything. How do skiff operators avoid crashing onto rocks at night?”

  My sword hummed his apologies. “I’m afraid I don’t know. Their trade isn’t widely known outside of provincial circles. The skiffs are poor forms of transportation. Merchants with heavy cargo rely on seafaring.”

  “At least until the cross-continental trade route catches on.”

  “Quite so.”

  Tying the skiff to the end of the Dark Room’s rope appealed even less to me. If strong winds or monsters pulled it free, I would be trapped out here—hanging helplessly in the middle of the sky. My Necklace of Sustenance might keep me alive until I could hail a passing Skiff, but that amount of time in the Dark Room held no appeal.

  The irony wasn’t lost on me that holing up somewhere had been my original strategy, but yielding the resources of Miros to opponents wouldn’t work.

  Scanning for buoys and dangerous buttes provided a constant concern until sunset.

  When night fell, a surprising source of light shaped the topography below. The brill pervading the aerocline lit its foggy depths with bioluminescence. Butte and mesas projecting from the ground silhouetted the global illumination, casting great shadows and shaping the terrain’s contours.

  Occasionally, I spotted shapes of aeroblasts and dinosaurs resembling the carcass Fabulosa and I passed before reaching Farseed. Transparent serpents and ray-shaped creatures drifted beneath me, all in search of food or others of their kind.

  Who could sleep through this? I played the game of avoiding the dark shapes and maneuvered the skiff past countless obstacles. In truth, few rock formations breached the aerocline or rose high enough to pose a danger, but it was fun to pretend.

  The featureless plane of fog belied the terrain below. Far from the monotonous plains that Fabulosa and I crossed to reach Farseed, the physical features varied to dramatic degrees. Buttes, mesas, trenches, and canyons crisscrossed the domain of the Gray Manors.

  The empty hours caught up with me, and my thoughts drifted to Fabulosa. It seemed unfair that she’d missed this, but it seemed even more unjust that she wasn’t part of the final four. With the contest winding down, it seemed silly to cry, but I wiped my eyes more than once. I knew we’d reunite after the game and perhaps exchange laughs over the internet as we relived the experience while watching playbacks. There seemed no way Crimson wouldn’t make us a significant part of the show, especially after our illustrious battle in Heaven’s Falls.

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  My unimpeded night gave me confidence that I’d passed Duchess. The winds were poor, but Lloyd had taught me to optimize the shape of my sail to take whatever advantage available. I would have liked to rest and reset my cooldowns, but any headway I made put me further ahead of my competitors.

  After a magical night of sailing, the low-altitude glow yielded to the sky as the faint break of dawn outlined the Gray Manors in the distance.

  Thoughts of Duchess out here amused me. As difficult as it was to solo an unfamiliar craft in this bizarre environment, her voyage had been undoubtedly less pleasant. At least I had 11 ranks in sailing. I checked the contest interface to see if she’d accidentally pitched herself into the aerocline—a fate that suited her, but she appeared among the other participants on the leaderboard.

  Fabulosa’s last words echoed in my mind. She’d called me the last of us—the Belden players. Winning would honor the entire gang. We hadn’t turned on one another or exploited our NPC hosts in this strange world.

  Sure, we’d sown death and destruction and stole everything not nailed down, but we’d done some good things, too. We built a trade route and removed the cursed relics. Our virtues rested on a sliding scale. The Belden crew were the least toxic players, as far as I could tell. That counted for something.

  As the dawn backlit the Gray Manors, landmasses breached the morning mist, giving me a sense of scale to their size. A dozen islands protruded from the aerocline, the smallest of which measured miles across.

  The Gray Manors weren’t just a dark strip on the horizon. Today, they loomed in the distance with form, height, and character. Rock strata and caps of vegetation gave them stripes of color.

  The central mesa rose to a modest elevation, making it accessible to cargo and passengers. Others towered twice its height, over a hundred feet in the air. I looked for other skiffs on the fog but saw none.

  By midday, I passed the first butte, a satellite to the mainland. I scanned the aerocline with my Eagle Eyes, but the lack of ships limited my options. I continued my course around the main mesa.

  Though the skiff no longer served as a source of angst, the region’s solitude weighed on me. If Toadkiller had a vulnerability, it made sense to hide it out here.

  When my Eagle Eyes revealed lines on a cliff face, I sailed north toward it. The longer I held my course, the more I realized how far off I’d been. I’d underestimated the size of the main bluff.

  Closer views show the lines as long ramps—half-tunnels threading up the bluff. The ramps formed a highway system that sometimes disappeared into the rock.

  Seeing any evidence of civilization cheered me, and I set my bearings toward it for the next few hours.

  A floating platform extended from the cliff, branching into dozens of slips. The docks floated on secured buoys, allowing for vertical shifts up to 3 stories while limiting lateral movement. The harbor formed a giant C shape whose structure rose and fell with the aerocline.

  Skiffs occupied most docks. After spotting an empty slip, I depowered my vessel by dropping its sail at the right time. I reached the dock without embarrassing myself by coming in too fast or slow—a tricky maneuver in an unfamiliar setting.

  Without consulting marina rules, I tied off the skiff as well as I could and made off toward the cliff. Giving gold to Ebenezer had bought me a karmic pass to breaking etiquette.

  The docks barely wobbled, but I felt off balance crossing them. I’d earned my sea legs in Hawkhurst—being in constant motion no longer sickened me, but vertigo overtook me when I reached a stone ramp leading into the bluff. It felt strange to be immobile. The up-and-down motion of the journey forced me to take a break and regain my equilibrium before the dizziness wore off. Still, I never felt so safe to reach solid ground.

  I didn’t get a good look at the craft Duchess sailed, but I didn’t doubt I’d pulled ahead of her—if she ever arrived. To her credit, she never disappeared from the list of active contestants, so I expected to see her eventually.

  In my skateboarding days, the State Marina was one of my favorite places to hang out until the grown-ups chased me away. The sailboats always looked pretty, with their white masts tipping back and forth in the wind, bobbing like a flock of giant seagulls.

  But these skiffs conjured no such comparison. Rope squeaked against their rusty metal frames. Their folded masts seemed less elegant than their waterborne counterparts.

  Hundreds of pontoons buoyed the docks, which connected to a platform butting up against the stone ramp that led upwards to the plateau. The platform rolled along the ramp, allowing the docks to rise and fall without losing a connection.

  Wooden wagons with heavy brake mechanisms rested nearby, though no one attended them. The docks stood deserted aside from a few deep elves repairing and working on skiffs on the far side of the marina. In the morning, it might be busier, but at midday, the docks saw little traffic.

  The ramp formed a deep groove into the cliff. It split into a wide side passage, burrowing deeper into the rock. The route looked like premium-space storerooms and likely housed offices for the harbormaster to collect slip fees. I ignored it and took the other path that ascended the cliff.

  I didn’t need Mineral Communion to know the ramp came from an ancient design. Someone had carved decorative patterns where the floor and walls met. Grooves and bevels accented its surfaces, giving the angled geometry a pleasant rhythm.

  Despite my necessity to reach the dungeon before Duchess, I needed to sleep, but the afternoon sun and long climb had awoken me so much that it made sense to take advantage of my head start. Burning daylight and tiring myself out would induce a sound rest. Without the contest map revealing our locations, I could use the Dark Room without players seeing me disappear.

  I made the ascent alone, passing no one.

  During the day, the fog wasn’t particularly interesting to see from above, and the road overlooking Blyeheath served as a light source rather than scenic enrichment. The ramp tunneled through dark stretches without views. Deep ruts in the floor made by countless carts made for uneven footing, so I fired up Presence to make my climb safer.

  Crisp and chilly air reprieved me from the aerocline’s dense humidity.

  After a half hour of walking, I reached the plateau, pleased to be surrounded, once again, by evergreen trees and large swaths of grass and bushes. The rocky landscape confined the vegetation to patches, but seeing greenery again cheered me.

  I needed to rest, and my climb to the top of the mesa capped the precise state of weariness necessary for a good night’s sleep.

  My interface map’s location indicator changed from Blyeheath to Oxum. Aggression’s double-damage buff appeared in my periphery, spurring me on to see this adventure through. When I reached the surface, I would sleep and prepare myself for whatever awaited.