The morning dawned reluctantly, a lazy haze floating around the grass floored scrubland that had been last night’s home for the little band. It left most of the bedrolls of that group more than a little sodden and managed to put somewhat of a dampener on the far flying emotions of the previous night.

By the time they had done breakfast and some hot brewed tea however things were already looking up. The mist was departing, the sun was shining and Falco still hadn’t put his foot in his mouth.

Admittedly that could well have been because he was still a little woozy from the previous night. He hadn’t said as much but most people assumed it was because he had perhaps partaken a little too enthusiastically of the wine.

One or two folks had suggested that there was a little more to the story than that, that his lethargy might be more due to lack of sleep and that a certain redhead might have had something to do with that. But those people, in the face of the guffaws and growls from their rescuers quickly discarded the idea and guessed that maybe the redhead just wasn’t that sort of girl.

They were more right than they knew.

“They’re going to start in on those guys about as soon as they are out of sight,” Ukyo offered. Along with the others she was resetting the exiles’ gear for the very last leg of their journey to Bremon but there was clearly something weighing on her mind.

Last night had been good for her, she and Nabiki had managed a good few laughs and she had hardly missed the booze at all, ish. She might not have actually extracted much form the Ice Queen about her feelings for their pig tailed friend but she did feel they had leapt a few hurdles anyway.

“Uh” Gos replied, just in case someone was talking to him. Last night he had, as usual, been sequestered with his books and this morning was little different, while he was trying hard to help it was clear his mind was a long way away on things a good deal more esoteric than the tightness of their horses’ saddle girths.

“You’re objecting?” Ranma asked, he-she was not in a good mood today and it didn’t exactly take a lot of work to guess why. First there was that rumour that everyone else was finding so amusing and then there was the fact that despite his-her best efforts this morning the poor bloke had not managed to spend more than a few moments male.

Even when he first changed back things hadn’t worked right, one of the few revellers still awake at the time had been watching, for some rather obvious damp shirt reasons, and had been so surprised to see the change that they had not only spurted the water in their mouth all over Ranma, thus changing him right back again, but staggered far enough to knock the rest of the water off the fire.

The second and third attempts hadn’t fared much better and even Ranma had been forced to accept that for the moment it was easier to stay as a girl. None of which was much helped by Ryoga’s continuing non-piggyness. Somehow that guy had completely avoided the misfortunes that had struck Ranma and without even really trying to.

Instead the lost boy was still apparently stuck in that same deep thoughtful mode that the events of the day before had left him in. Not one of the Nerimites had to think hard to guess what exactly had put him into it, but not one of them really had an answer. Unlike these others around them they had all been brought up in a world where it was considered wrong to take a life in anger and no matter how little that dead man had deserved to draw another breath the fact remained that the only reason he couldn’t was literally because Ryoga had lost his temper.

That two of the other slavers had also died was a different matter, every reasonable effort had been made to spare them, even the situation with Ohlmin had been different, there the intention had always been to leave none standing, that had been calm and rational by comparison.

Back in Nerima Ryoga’s temper had nearly done the same thing countless times, the very first time he had really fought Ranma there he had all but taken the head off the woman who had finally claimed his heart, but always there had been another there to stop the danger becoming the fact. Simply put Ryoga had never really had to deal with the worst-case scenarios that his temper could cause.

“Not so much” Ukyo admitted, not really having the same compunctions as the lads did, but even so there was a hint of the unease there. She had every reason to hate that kind of person and certainly hadn’t had a single compunction about the rather personal wounds she had inflicted upon them during the fight. But it was a long way from that still to the point where she would be happy knowing that cold blooded murder was going to be committed on anyone.

“Best not to think about it too much” Nabiki said, her deeply furrowed brow telling the others she wasn’t having much luck following her own advice. “Soon we’ll be back where such things just don’t happen,” she said, glossing over some of the less salubrious actions of their homegrown criminal fraternities.

“Just the matter of a mountain and a dragon to go” Ukyo offered, a little ironically. Phoenix Mountain had been one thing, a demonstration of just how far some of them could be pushed, but it had also been an exception and she was only too aware that there had been some very unique circumstances involved.

Besides, by all accounts, this mother of all dragons was a good deal bigger than Saffron ever was. If the stories she had been told were true then it was big enough to make that godling look very small indeed.

“A big dragon” Ranma corrected, demonstrating not only that he hadn’t missed a few of those details himself but also that he had left another aspect of that younger version of himself behind. The old Ranma they had all known really wouldn’t have bothered thinking ahead that far, trusting instead to his own ability to adapt. Apparently life had corrected that oversight too.

When Ranma had fought Herb he had been given a little taste of what someone with draconic blood could manage, and they had all but destroyed a mountain. This time that simply wasn’t going to be an option, they needed the Gate to get home and they would be needing to get non-combatants through the danger zone. Added to all of that of course was the small fact that Ranma was not on top form, he was still adapting to the rather huge blindspot and damaged hand that had been Ohlmin’s gifts to him.

Sure he would have the help of more friends this time but at the end of the day none of them were so much fools as to think that anyone but the pig tailed warrior was going to have to bear the brunt of any fight.

“Then lets just hope it’s still sleeping” Nabiki interrupted, cutting off that line of thought before it could go too far. Better than all the others she knew this new Ranma’s moods and knew just how easily he could depress himself. While she wasn’t exactly mourning the bordering arrogant confidence she still had had plenty of reasons over the years to curse the lingering effects being forced to take Shampoo’s life had left her friend with.

“Aye” Ukyo agreed, reaching out to slap a hand onto the side of their cart for luck, this world had already cost her far too much to invite more fights they didn’t need.

Which brought her back to the people now heading away form their overnight camp and her earlier comment. Simply put the only way that she was going to be able to do anything about the distaste she was feeling at the actions they were sure to do was to go with them until such a point as they did find some relevant authorities and even then there would be arguments and probably more fights. It would mean more time in this dark, dangerous world and more risk to her friends.

The lives of the slavers just weren’t worth that to her.

The small posse of Nerimans waited and watched as the caravan started back on the way they had come, heading for the lands they had been born in and a life renewed, then slowly turned their own small procession back towards the mountain and set off once more.

By arrangement Ukyo was to do the scouting today, Ranma having made a call to make sure that their tracks weren’t followable just in case and therefore falling back behind them instead of his usual position on point.

There had been a little discussion about that, Ryoga even at one point suggesting that he be the one to be the trail party, he was after all a very capable tracker as his years of pursuit behind Ranma had ably demonstrated. The group however had just looked at him until he shrugged and gave up on the idea. After all the chances of never seeing the guy again if they got even a little ahead of where he could see them were somewhat too real to let him off his proverbial leash.

Besides, as Ukyo had rather harshly pointed out, she had managed a similar feat for a good chunk longer than Ryoga had, and without falling into any cursed pools along the way.

Which had almost started one of the oldest of Neriman arguments, and had looked like it would for long enough to put a fond smile onto Nabiki’s lips (and scare Gos out of his studies).

Then Ryoga had simply stopped fuming, had clamped his jaw shut and balled his fists before stalking away. Where there should have been an explosion of violence that dragged all the fighters in there was suddenly an almost deafening silence.

“Owch” Nabiki had said, able to guess as to exactly what had changed even if the others weren’t. It was a hard road that Ryoga had apparently chosen for himself and one that her sister had never quite managed despite her own promises to try.

The rain started again a little after midday and was soon beating down with that same relentless monotony that the group had seen on the first day free of the Waste.

“It’ll probably save a few of the slavers for another day or two” Nabiki observed, she was once more sat next to Gos on the last of their wagons, driving rather than riding while he had continued to pour over his tomes. With the rain he had been forced to stop and was very obviously none too happy about it.

”Huh?” he asked, his tone somewhere between temper and confusion. It wasn’t quite obvious whether he was irked at being dragged from his reverie or irked because of the idea that he might care what had happened to the other group.

For all the other changes that had been wrought around the young man his rather linear mind still seemed only really to want to hold one idea at a time, as soon as the other group had disappeared he had put them from his mind all but completely.

“Can’t see them stopping to have a hanging party in the rain” Nabiki explained, deliberately ignoring his tone. At the end of the day her need for conversation far outweighed his need to sulk about not being able to read.

Besides she had a few things she had read that she needed to check up on with him, she just wasn’t about to admit that straight off the bat.

“I guess” Gos replied, having apparently not thought of that angle at all.

“You could do worse than hooking backup with them” Nabiki offered, nodding once more in the direction that the caravan had taken, “cash in on some of that goodwill?” she suggested.

On his face she saw exactly what she had expected to see, the very visible evidence that he had entertained exactly the same sort of thoughts. “In fact” she continued, “I was surprised you didn’t go with them?” she said. Once the rest of them left through that gate, assuming they managed it, he would effectively be left alone in this wilderness, okay he would have all the gear they left behind as well as the magic he had managed to learn but he would still essentially be deserted.

“I thought about it,” he admitted, not guessing that Nabiki would already know and feeling very obviously guilty about even that thought. “But I owe you all” he said, his voice firm. There would have been a day not so very long ago he never would have acknowledged either the guilt or the debt, if he had even felt either of them, but a chair can teach a lot of lessons too.

“So” Nabiki said, “You working on a sleeping spell?” she asked, knowing that as long as they were headed towards this mountain Gos wouldn’t be forgetting the reasons for it or the end result and deliberately looking for a lighter subject as well as some idea of what he had planned.

Back in Nerima Gos had been almost an invertebrate, willing to give some very extreme plans a go but folding under the least bit of pressure. He might have developed a whole load more confidence this side but Nabiki was guessing that some part of him would still hold true and would be searching for some way to avoid playing fair against anything as scary as the dragon they had learned about.

“Ha!” Gos replied, looking at her almost as if she had grown another head, “would that I had that sort of power!” he said, emphasising his words to imply just how much power he was talking about.

“Firstly it’s a dragon” he insisted, “and they are practically made of magic” he said, simplifying a rather complex and far from completely understood set of magical interactions with physics, “and secondly to cast any spell of that sort of magnitude” he said, drawing out the word again, “I’d need to be grand master Lucius himself!” he said, naming the most famously powerful mage of the world they were in.

“He that good?” Nabiki asked, having heard some facts but not having found any proof to say how much of that was hyperbolae and how much of it grounded in truth.

“I think so” Gos said, turning and looking back the way they came, “I think” he added, nodding towards the distant waste, “he had something to do with that”

“The Waste?” Nabiki asked, a little aghast, nothing she had read even slightly implied that was possible with any level of power.

“The stories say that it was created when two mages duked it out” Gos said, reaching over and tapping the tarp covered books he was hoarding, “Some titanic battle” he explained, “between him and some other mage”

“Him and the Healing hand Matriarch?” Nabiki guessed, choosing the only other serious power they had really heard of, and the one who happened to live near the middle of that waste.

“Nope” Gos argued, shaking his head and waving a hand further out, “he and some other guy” he said, “who was standing where the shattered isles now are” he supplied.

“Shattered” Nabiki asked, having not missed the relevance of the word. She got a nod in reply that answered more than the simple question, and it settled another matter too.

She had been learning the magic forms more out of a pique at not knowing something than any dedication, still half convinced that all they really amounted to were one step up from parlour tricks, that there was nothing really there that technology couldn’t duplicate more easily.

But here was her friend talking about the sorts of power that blew verdant lands into deserts and countryside into shattered islands. Even f a little of that energy was seeping over to their side it might well be worth knowing.

“So” she asked, her eyes narrowing a little as she worked on how to phrase this, she had deliberately let Gos lecture her on the myth-history rather than look it up herself because she had wanted him to be in the mood to talk but this was a bit trickier, now she wanted something a good deal more direct, “they weren’t presumably using these things?” she asked, tapping the other stack of books where the ritual forms of the spells most commonly used were written.

“Nope” Gos said, nodding along, “they use the next step beyond” he said, and with her prompting he went on to talk about that level instead.

As far as Nabiki was concerned doing things the right way was all well and good for other people but if there were some steps that could be skipped she sure as heck wasn’t about to waste her time with them when she could go to the head of the queue. This higher magic was far more likely to translate and, from what she had understood in the tomes she had read, far more to her style anyway.

“That’s all we need” Ryoga muttered where he sat in the back of the wagon, “the Ice Queen who can see through walls” he groused.

Next to him Akane didn’t appear to hear and even if Ryoga hadn’t currently been a pig there is no surety at all that she would have understood, she was still far far away from everything.

The rain didn’t thin out for a very long time, but even that didn’t stop the looming presence of Bremon becoming more pronounced every hour. By the time that they eventually made camp at the foot of the mountain itself they were not only soaked through once again but they were also collectively well back towards that sombre silence that had dominated their trip across the waste.

Even as they moved around to be in the lee of the mountain and so finally escaped the worst of the rain the mood didn’t lift all that much. They were getting close to the end one way or another and they were feeling it.

It had literally been a very long road to this point and the end was far from certain yet, as close as home seemed to be not one of them was counting on this last hurdle being any easier than the ones they had already crossed.

“Any idea how to locate the tunnel?” Ukyo asked, with the others she was sat around the campfire at what they all hoped would be their last stop on this side of the Gate, even the layout of it was a touch less organised than the others they had made, the whole thing quietly insisting it wasn’t any more than temporary.

“I could make a new one?” Ryoga suggested, he wasn’t much more talkative than he had been since the fight but he was maintaining that real desire to be helpful and apparently that at least could overcome his need for introspection.

“Not a good plan” Ranma insisted, stirring the pot that they were all clustered around. In it was a good selection of the food supplies that had lasted this far along with some game he had caught today.

“Why not?” Ukyo asked, rather liking the idea of not having to scour a mountainside for a tunnel that they only had it on reasonable authority existed at all.

“Um” Ranma offered in reply, fighting for the words for a moment before looking up to Nabiki in silent request for aide.

“That would mean Ryoga leading the way” Nabiki explained, not needing to say how disastrous that could be, they might end up with a tunnel but it was as likely to come out the other side of the mountain as in the chamber they were looking for, or even the same side knowing Ryoga’s sense of direction.

“And might wake the toothy one” Ranma offered, hoping to deflect things before Ryoga could take issue, trailing behind the pack for most of the last leg he hadn’t seen just how determined the pig boy had become not to rise to things and was just trying to be careful.

He got a round of nods in reply, Ryoga’s a little forced as he clenched his jaw and fought not to say something about their lack of faith in his ability. He knew that it was an issue but still didn’t quite accept that it was anywhere near as bad as they said it was.

None of which stopped him using the guide string they had strung for him between the camp and the latrine every site they stopped.

“Locate spell?” Nabiki asked, looking towards Gos, who shook his head in return.

“Locate’s require names” he explained, hoping they wouldn’t ask the details of that because the importance of naming to magic was a subject that was just a but more complex than he wanted to go into

“Do dragons eat?” Ukyo asked, looking up form the pot she had been staring at, the edge of an idea bubbling away in her mind in a very similar manner to the stew.

Ranma immediately looked up to her with a smile, Ryoga a while later and then all eyes were turning to the ‘appointed’ dragon expert, who was apparently the only one who didn’t understand the relevance.

“They don’t need to but…” he said, only to be cut off as Ranma gave Ukyo a high five over the pot and Nabiki patted her on the back. “I don’t understand?” he said through half gritted teeth, he had rather enjoyed being the person who knew things and unintentionally been lording that knowledge over the others a little, to suddenly have the tables reversed was a rather uncomfortable shock.

One said other folk were clearly enjoying inflicting as none of them even showed the slightest hint of an intention to tell him about it.

“Fine!” he grumbled and stood up to ‘go and check on the wagons’ or sulk, as it was otherwise known.

”Ever seen a lizard’s hole?” interrupted a voice from behind him, and Gos turned to see that it was Ranma who had broken ranks and was now looking at him with the clear intent to explain.

Gos shook his head a little and shrugged.

“Lots of little bones outside them” Ranma offered, holding up his good hand to demonstrate the sizes he was talking about with his thumb and forefinger, “If the dragon eats then…” he said

“There will be bones?” Gos guessed, receiving an encouraging nod in reply.

“Lots of them” Ukyo agreed

”Bigger ones” Ryoga offered. The three of them had spent enough of their lives on the trail that simple tracking techniques like looking for the ‘spoil’ tips of carnivores seemed fairly obvious to them. The passage itself might be very overgrown but animals tended to avoid dead evidence of their own species so with any luck they might yet find the hole that the dragon itself used.

“Might work?” Nabiki supplied, not voicing her own doubts about how likely that spoil heap was to have survived the scavengers if the dragon hadn’t been adding to it for a decade or so of sleep.

“All we got” Ranma agreed, his eyes meeting hers and telling her that he wasn’t one hundred percent convinced either.

From there they devolved into organising how exactly they were going to run their search patterns and the other duties that they would need to see to on the morrow. There was a little discussion when Nabiki added hunting up more food as one of the high priorities but one pointed glance towards Gos had quickly reminded the others that they weren’t all going back to the lands of instant ramen and that had settled that.

Which turned out to be a rather good thing because had Ukyo not been hunting for food she might not have found the hole at all.

She and Nabiki had been working their way around fairly low on the slopes while Ranma and Gos had been working higher up (or rather Ranma had been working higher up while Gos rested for the trip back down the mountainside), when she had spotted a goodly sized bird of some description loitering on a rock.

The chef had quickly reached for one of her throwing knives and in a fluid motion born of much practice and a desire for some poultry in her stew, let fly.

As it happened the bird got lucky, had independently decided to take flight at just the right time for it to continue to do so ever again. Ukyo had missed and been forced to face Nabiki’s deliberately not mocking look, very much not saying things like ‘I thought you were good at that’ or ‘nice throw.’

So the grousing chef had stomped up the hill to retrieve her knife, only to struggle to find it.

”What’s up?” Nabiki asked, coming up the hill to join Ukyo, she had rarely seen the chef not able to almost instantly locate the weapons she had thrown and for her to be still searching even after watching the trajectory of the blade was cause for some interest.

“Damn knife must have bounced” Ukyo suggested, waving a hand towards a thorny thicket behind where the bird had been standing. It didn’t look like a very friendly thicket at all and there was a lingering scent to it that was even less pleasant.

“So leave it?” Nabiki suggested, able to easily do a cost-benefit analysis of the knife compared to rooting around in anything that smelled quite so much like rotten eggs.

”I like that one” Ukyo had argued, removing her broad bladed weapon from her back and gritting her teeth, it was a lot of extra effort but that knife had been almost flat enough to use properly on the griddle she had put together back at the camp.

Nabiki shrugged and sat down onto the bird’s rock, as far as she was concerned it was Ukyo’s energy she was wasting and she could use the break. She was the first to admit that even with all the extra exercise she had been put through since she got here she still wasn’t up to the standards of endurance that the real wreckers took for granted.

But as it happened it was the right choice for a whole different reason, because no sooner had Ukyo taken the first slashing swing than Nabiki had noticed something odd about the thicket.

A moment later and the mercenary woman was stopping the chef and directing her to swing at it again in a slightly different way. The slice revealed not only that Nabiki had guessed right about the thicket not having any rooting in the mountain to the back of it but also the reason why.

“We found our tunnel!” Nabiki announced happily, also finally adding up what the smell was, “One highway to the sulphurous pit!” she said