I crouched beside her and ran my thumb along the edge of the exposed rock, careful not to touch the mark itself.

"How old are we looking at."

Kira tilted her head. "Hard to say without a reference sample. The wearing on the surface is a century at minimum. Could be older, but based on my knowledge... this is at least four hundred years old."

"Four hundred."

"Or more." Kira nodded.

I sat back on my heels.

Four hundred years of a settlement inside this mysterious gate. Four hundred years of history in a place that was meant to have been generated fresh under our boots two hours ago.

Every new piece I turned over made the picture worse instead of clearer.

"We’re not the first ones through."

"No, we’re not."

Kira pushed herself up out of the crouch. She brushed the snow off her knees and looked up the slope again. The bend hid whatever lay past it. The wind had picked up a fraction, working its way back into the gap in her hood.

As we were about to turn back, my system activated. A panel flashed before my eyes only.

[CHOICE A: Return to the cave and rest for the rest of the day. Reward: +5 Constitution]

[CHOICE B: Return to the cave and bring your team to explore the settlement. Reward: +15 Constitution. E-Rank Skill. Tom dies.]

[CHOICE C: Explore the settlement with Kira only. Reward: +10 Constitution. Guiding Manual.]

My eyes widened in alarm at the options.

This was the first time a choice had come with an outcome like that written on its face. Tom’s name was in the middle option in plain text, followed by the word dies, and the System had never once been this direct about the price of a reward before.

’Tom dies if I pick the second choice. This choice is also the most beneficial to me in terms of rewards. But why? Does he die because of the System, or because he’s exploring and that’s the outcome the System predicts.’

My thoughts raced.

The System had told me once that it read probabilities. It had given me percentages before every risk assessment since the first choice. Was the Tom line a prediction of what happened if he crossed the ward with us in his current state? Or was it a price the System itself would exact for the reward?

I didn’t know. And I wasn’t going to find out at Tom’s expense.

Kira’s brow drew together beside me.

"Hey. Are you okay? You look a little pale."

I shook my head to clear it.

"I’m fine. I was just thinking that we should explore this place alone. Bringing the others with us now isn’t exactly a good idea. They still lack confidence. They’d likely hinder us more than help us. We can come back with them after we’ve scouted."

My eyes settled on the third option.

The second choice’s rewards were tempting on paper. Fifteen constitution points and an E-Rank skill were good rewards. But no reward on the board was worth Tom’s life, especially not after I’d stood in front of the team back at the entrance and told them I’d get them out alive.

The third option had its own appeal. A Guiding Manual was the kind of item that made me curious just from the name.

I mentally tapped C.

Kira read my face and knew that she wasn’t going to change my mind.

"Sigh. Okay. But at the first sign of danger, we run."

I nodded.

"Sounds good."

The path bent left past the ward, then straightened out along a low ridge that ran uphill toward a break in the rock.

Kira stayed a half-step behind my shoulder. Her hand had let go of mine when the terrain narrowed, but the warmth of her arm was still there when the pass tightened enough that we walked close.

We saw the settlement before we reached it.

Or what should have been a settlement.

The break in the rock opened into a wide bowl carved out of the mountainside, sheltered from the wind on three sides by the surrounding stone. In another place, in another time, it would have been the perfect location for a small village. A stream cut down the far wall in a frozen ribbon. The bowl floor was flat enough to build on.

There were no buildings.

The mouth of a cave sat at the back of the bowl, wider than the one we’d left the others in. Big enough to walk into upright. The stone around the frame had been worked. Not carved with tools, but shaped, the natural curves of the rock smoothed at the edges by long use.

A settlement inside a cave.

Kira drew a soft breath beside me.

"They lived in the mountain."

"Looks like it."

We crossed the bowl at a slow walk. The wind died the moment we cleared the lip. The silence that took its place was heavier than the wind had been, thick in a way that made the small sound of our boots in the snow feel too loud.

I stopped at the cave mouth.

Nothing moved inside. The air coming out of the opening was warmer than the air behind us by a few degrees, which meant something in there was holding a temperature.

I opened the storage ring and pulled out one of the pine branches I’d stripped on the way up. I struck a spark off the flint and got a small torch going in the space of five seconds. The flame threw a soft orange light against the inside of the frame.

Kira drew the dagger.

I stepped in first.

The passage widened three paces past the entrance. The torch light climbed the walls and showed me a room the size of a small hall, the ceiling arching maybe four metres overhead.

Dark stone all around.

Crack!

Something beneath my foot cracked, I felt it crumble. My eyes snapped down immediately, only to find a crumbled bone.

"This is a human bone..."