From Moving Crates to Killing Gods-Chapter 114: Not a Floor

Finn’s foot hit nothing. The bridge folded under him, the silver giving way in a smooth curve, and he went down with it, sliding down the slope before I had fully registered he was falling. Jim was already moving from above, dropping toward the chasm at flight speed, but he was not going to make it.

I extended Sense outward, running the options fast. Switch something into the chasm for Finn to land on. Switch Finn himself somewhere safe. Both felt wrong in the same specific way, too much that could go wrong, too many variables I could not control in time. Then I saw Jim’s trajectory and made a different calculation. He was close, not close enough, but closer than anyone else.

I focused on Jim’s back, the space between his shoulder blades, and calibrated the spell for exactly the force I wanted rather than all of it.

Pulse.

Jim lurched forward in the air, acceleration spiking past his normal flight speed, barely controlled, his arms shifting as the push hit him from behind. He was moving faster.

But it wasn’t fast enough.

Pulse.

A second hit, same target, same measured force. Jim shot forward like something had grabbed and thrown him, his path going slightly crooked but covering the remaining distance in a fraction of a second. His hand closed around Finn’s arm just before Finn cleared the chasm edge entirely.

They hung there for a moment, Jim’s flight ability kept them from plummeting the remaining distance, then Jim descended in a controlled arc and set themselves on the chasm floor. The whole group went still at the edge above.

"Are you both okay?" Coll called down, his voice reflected on the walls.

A pause from below.

"Yes." Jim’s voice came up, precise and clipped. "I am fine." Another pause. "I felt something on my back."

"That was me." I said, raising my voice so it carried cleanly. "I used Pulse on you twice to speed you up... I did not have time to warn you, I am sorry if it was abrupt."

Silence from the chasm. I could not see Jim’s expression from this angle, but I could imagine it from his tone.

"You used a spell on me?" He asked in a high pitched voice.

"Yes." I said, simply.

Another pause. Then, measured and careful. "Well, thanks to that Finn is safe." He then continued. "Have you tried using Switch on a person?"

I thought about it. The honest answer was that I had considered it once, early on, back when I was still working out what the ability could do. I had dismissed it almost immediately. The mechanics of Switch were complex. If the mapping was even slightly imprecise, if any part of a body fell outside the mental box, the displacement would sever it cleanly and without ceremony.

"Not really." I said, after that brief consideration. "I do not think it is a good idea."

"Reasonable." Jim said, without adding anything else, probably remembering how that ability cut through silver snakes like butter.

"Phinyx, why did you move your hands in the ’vibe’ way a moment ago?" Coco asked.

"I used some flying vibes on Finn, but I think they didn’t really work." Phinyx said quietly. Probably a little embarrased, which was a new emotion I hadn’t seen on him.

Finn had been standing very still on the chasm floor during this exchange. I could see the top of his blonde hair from the edge. He was looking at the collapsed bridge, the silver that had slid down around him, the section of it he had apparently grabbed instinctively and tried to shape into something on the way down. He had gotten about half a vine started before gravity won.

Kira was already moving. She had vines running down the chasm wall before anyone said anything, threading them through the gaps in the rock, layering them into a structural base along the bottom and up, dense growth meant to hold weight rather than cover surface.

Finn came back up using them like a ladder, pulled himself over the edge, and stood on solid ground again. He looked at the chasm, then at the vine structure Kira had laid.

"I’d like to formally apologize to every bridge I’ve ever silently judged." He said, his expression serious. The one you get after almost dying because of your overconfidence.

Phinyx inclined his head slightly. "I can feel it. You are genuinely apologizing." He said, faintly surprised. "To bridges..."

Then he started working.

This bridge now had supports. Multiple sections of silver laid at angles and connected at the center rather than one flat span placed across a gap. It took longer and it looked more complicated. When he stepped back from it this time, the structure had the specific quality of something built by a person who wouldn’t want to fall again.

"Nice work." Coco said, examining it with genuine appreciation.

Finn stepped onto it without preamble, walked straight to the center, and stood there.

It did not bend.

Camp that evening was a natural alcove where the canyon wall curved inward enough to block the wind. We had crossed three chasms by the time the light started going flat.

Jim sat slightly apart from the main group in his usual way, cleaning his glasses with a small cloth he kept in his pack. Then he said something I did not expect.

"I am missing my boy." He said it to Coll, conversationally, like he was noting a change in the weather.

Coll looked up from the dried meat he was eating. "Both of my daughters." He said. "I miss them too."

The exchange settled into the air.

I had not thought about it before, but it made obvious sense once it landed. They were Ones. They had been allowed to raise children. Somewhere back in Argent, behind the barrier we were building toward, there were kids who had a parent out here in the wasteland building roads. A strange and specific kind of luck, having someone who preceded you and was still alive.

I thought briefly about Darien and Mira, the cold competence they moved through the world with, and hoped that whatever Coll’s daughters and Jim’s son had turned into, it was something warmer than that.

The thought passed. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

The morning arrived without ceremony and we packed. Three more bridges. Two of them easy, one requiring a second attempt after Finn decided it didn’t feel safe enough. The wasteland between the canyon section and the sixth outpost was quieter than expected, which Jim confirmed from the air.

By midday the sixth outpost was visible. I recognized it by the particular way its structure sat against two canyon walls, the most solid building we’d found in the wasteland.

The hatch would be in the same place I had seen it. The nuclear reactor was below. And somewhere inside, if what Damian said was right, whatever voidstone reserves had been keeping it running since before any of us were born.

I walked up to the outpost entrance and looked at the group. "I want to check something inside." I said, meeting their eyes briefly.

What I did not say was that if the reactor was still functional, and if the wards in the abandoned city ahead could be activated, the last corridor might already be built.

We just had to walk through it.