Sid drove four dinosaur bones into the ground.
Then balanced several ribs across them.
Then stretched the gorgon hide over the top.
He pulled.
The hide tightened.
The ribs bent.
CRACK.
One snapped loose.
The entire structure collapsed sideways.
Sid stared.
“God fu—”
“Need help?”
A soft voice came from behind him.
Sid turned.
Rosella stood several paces away.
He looked at her.
Then at the wreckage.
“And how could you help me?”
Rosella pointed toward the collapsed frame.
“Your supports are wrong.”
Sid blinked.
“What?”
She crouched beside it.
“You put all the load here.”
Her finger tapped the centre.
“The hide pulls inward.”
Another gesture.
“The ribs bend.”
She picked up one of the fallen supports.
“Then everything falls apart.”
Sid stared.
“Continue.”
Rosella dragged one finger through the sediment.
A rectangle.
Then another line.
“You need triangulation.”
She added a diagonal brace.
“Cross-bracing.”
Another line.
“Rectangle becomes parallelogram.”
She pushed against the shape with one finger.
Then drew a triangle beside it.
“Triangle stays triangle.”
Sid stared at the sketch.
A pause.
“Huh…”
He crouched beside her.
Another pause.
“Alright then.”
It took the better part of an hour.
But eventually—
A table stood beside the stream.
Ugly.
Uneven.
But stable.
Sid pressed down on one corner.
Nothing moved.
His eye lights brightened.
“Wonderful.”
He pointed toward the rotting goblin corpse.
“Help me lift this.”
Rosella stared at it.
Then at him.
A pause.
“Fine.”
Together they hauled the corpse onto the hide-covered frame.
The structure creaked.
But held.
Sid immediately began cutting.
SQUELCH.
Rosella stood beside him.
Watching.
“Interesting…”
Sid opened the torso.
Rosella leaned closer.
“It’s very similarly designed to us.”
She pointed toward the exposed ribcage.
“The spine is nearly identical.”
Another gesture.
“Pelvis too.”
She tilted her head.
“If you asked me, I’d say it has the body proportions of a child.”
Sid’s head snapped toward her.
“So you know anatomy?”
Rosella nodded.
“For game art.”
“I thought you were a waitress.”
“I was.”
Sid stared.
Rosella stared back.
Then he returned to the corpse.
“Hm.”
His crystal opened the lower abdominal cavity.
Something dark slipped free.
Soft.
Spongy.
Triangular.
Sid caught it.
“Hehe.”
Rosella immediately looked concerned.
Sid held the organ toward her.
“Tell me what this is.”
Her grey eye lights narrowed.
“I don’t…”
She leaned closer.
Turned her head.
“I don’t know that one.”
Sid’s jaw rattled.
“Correct.”
He rotated the organ beneath the crystal light.
“This organ is wrong.”
Rosella stared.
“It resembles respiratory tissue.”
He squeezed it gently.
The tissue compressed.
Then slowly returned to shape.
“Spongy structure.”
Another turn.
“High vascularisation.”
He pointed toward the remains of the attachment.
“Yet it originates far too low within the abdominal cavity.”
His eye lights narrowed.
“Which makes absolutely no sense.”
Rosella looked at the organ.
Then at the opened corpse.
“Maybe it doesn’t breathe like we do.”
Sid froze.
Silence.
He slowly turned toward her.
“Interesting.”
Rosella blinked.
“What?”
Sid rubbed his chin.
“Most people encounter something strange and attempt to force it into something familiar.”
He pointed at her with the crystal.
“You proposed an alternative mechanism.”
A pause.
“Useful.”
Rosella looked away.
“I wasn’t a surgeon like you.”
“Correct.”
“I just studied anatomy for 3D modelling.”
Sid removed another organ.
“What age were you when you died?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Excellent.”
Rosella stared.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Nothing.”
Sid continued cutting.
A pause.
“Rosella.”
“Sí?”
“How would you like to become my apprentice?”
Silence.
“Your what?”
“Apprentice.”
Sid gestured toward the corpse.
“I am attempting to understand how everything in this cavern functions.”
Another gesture.
“You appear capable of independent thought.”
A pause.
“That is surprisingly rare.”
Rosella stared at him.
“I don’t know if that's a compliment.”
“It is.”
“That somehow makes it worse.”
Sid returned to the corpse.
“So?”
Rosella looked down at the opened goblin.
Then at the strange organ.
Then at Sid.
A pause.
“What would I have to do?”
Sid’s jaw slowly began to rattle.
SWOOSH.
Lucius brought the sword downward.
The iron blade cut through the air.
He reset his stance.
Feet apart.
Shoulders relaxed.
Again.
SWOOSH.
A clean downward arc.
Several metres away, Elias knelt beside the stream.
He rubbed sediment between his fingers.
“You handled the gorgon with surprising ease.”
Lucius raised the sword again.
“To be fair…”
SWOOSH.
He stopped the blade.
“It was trying very hard to kill me.”
Elias hummed.
Water dripped somewhere far overhead.
Lucius glanced toward him.
Elias scraped another sample from the stone.
“Note to self.”
He examined it.
“Crystalline deposits appear more concentrated near zones of persistent water flow.”
He scratched the observation into a damp clay tablet.
Lucius lowered the sword.
“What does that mean?”
“It means…”
Elias stood.
“If I locate the water—”
He pointed farther into the cavern.
“—I may locate the minerals.”
Lucius looked in the direction he was pointing.
Darkness.
Naturally.
Elias started walking.
“Come.”
“I need to investigate several more locations.”
Lucius looked at his sword.
Then followed.
Eventually they reached a narrow opening in the stone.
Elias pointed.
“Through here.”
Lucius stared.
Then looked at his own body.
Nearly seven feet of gorgon skeleton.
Then back at the opening.
“Do you think I can fit?”
“Probably.”
A pause.
“Comfortably?”
“No.”
Silence.
Lucius lowered the sword.
“I’ll manage.”
Elias went first.
His human skeleton slipped through the opening effortlessly.
Barely a sound.
Lucius crouched.
Then squeezed himself inside.
SCRAPE.
Bone dragged against stone.
He twisted sideways.
Moved forward.
The tunnel narrowed.
Lucius stopped.
“Elias.”
“Yes?”
“It’s getting smaller.”
“I noticed.”
Lucius stared into the darkness ahead.
“Wonderful.”
He continued.
SCRAPE.
His ribs ground against the walls.
Another step.
Another.
The passage narrowed again.
A sharp edge caught against his knee.
SCRATCH.
Lucius stopped.
A pause.
Then—
CLACK.
Something hit the ground.
Lucius looked down.
His leg lay beside him.
Silence.
He stared at it.
Then at the empty joint beneath his pelvis.
“…”
His balance shifted.
“Oh.”
Lucius fell.
“FUCK!”
CRASH.
His shoulder struck the stone.
The detached leg clattered beside him.
“What the fuck just happened?”
Elias turned around.
His red eye lights settled on the limb.
Then the joint.
Then—
The carving.
A section of the rune had been scraped away.
Silence.
Elias crouched.
“Interesting.”
Lucius slowly looked at him.
“Interesting?”
Elias leaned closer.
“INTERESTING?”
Lucius pointed furiously at the detached limb.
“MY LEG FELL OFF.”
“The bone itself remains intact.”
Elias traced the damaged marking without touching it.
“No fracture.”
His gaze moved toward the corresponding rune on Lucius’s other leg.
Then back.
“The only visible structural difference is here.”
Lucius looked down.
The rune had been damaged.
Part of the carving was gone.
Elias’s eye lights narrowed.
“The marking.”
Silence.
Lucius stared at it.
Then at his detached leg.
“So…”
A pause.
“That’s all I am?”
Elias looked at him.
Lucius’s voice lowered.
“A drawing scratched into dead bone?”
Silence.
Water dripped somewhere farther inside the passage.
Lucius looked at his hand.
Flexed his fingers.
Then toward the severed leg.
His voice became quieter.
“What happens if somebody erases the rest?”
Elias didn’t answer.
A long pause followed.
Lucius looked toward him.
“Elias.”
“Yes?”
“Get Barbara.”
Rosella sat beside the dissection table.
A strip of tendon peeled slowly from the remaining gorgon carcass.
Edgar approached Barbara.
“We’re running out of coal.”
Barbara looked down at his tiny frame.
“Already?”
“The furnace consumes it faster than we can gather it.”
Edgar gestured toward the unfinished equipment.
“I’ve been meaning to make a proper pickaxe.”
Sid appeared beside them.
“We require better bones.”
He gestured to the rows of cracked bones near the water.
Barbara sighed.
“Of course we do.”
Sid pointed toward the darkness.
“We have insufficient human remains to continue hybridisation research.”
Barbara stared at him.
“Research.”
“Yes.”
A pause.
“Research.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“No.”
Sid nodded.
“However, it remains necessary.”
Barbara rubbed the side of her skull.
“There’s another cavern along the route to the coal deposits.”
Sid’s eye lights brightened.
“A large concentration of humanoid remains.”
“Very convenient.”
Edgar stepped closer.
“We also need a cart.”
Barbara turned.
“Or something we can push and pull.”
Edgar nodded.
“And a harness.”
Barbara looked between them.
Coal.
Bones.
Cart.
Harness.
Silence.
“So who’s going?”
Sid immediately raised his hand.
“No.”
Barbara didn’t even hesitate.
Sid lowered it.
“Why not?”
“You’ll probably get somebody killed.”
Kaya called from across the clearing.
Everyone stopped.
Sid slowly turned.
“What?”
Kaya shrugged.
“It’s true.”
Silence.
Barbara nodded.
“Lucius can lead when he returns.”
Sid stared at Kaya for another moment.
Then slowly looked away.
Barbara continued.
“We still need someone who knows the route.”
Her gaze settled on Rosella.
“How about you?”
Rosella looked up from the tendons.
“Me?”
“Excellent.”
Sid appeared beside her.
Rosella flinched.
“It is the perfect opportunity to demonstrate proper bone selection.”
Kaya’s eye lights narrowed.
“Bone selection?”
Rosella looked between them.
Sid nodded proudly.
“She is now my apprenti—”
“BARBARA!”
Elias’s voice ripped through the cavern.
Everyone froze.
BARBARA!
BARBARA!
BARBARA!
Barbara’s head snapped toward the sound.
Silence.
Then she grabbed her spear.
“What did they do now?”