Verlon roughly panted as he finally reached the top of a rock. He had exited the razoroot forest a while ago without harm, thankfully. The forest was located in the middle of three mountains, so he had climbed one to get a better view of his surroundings. What he didn’t expect was quite how tiresome it would be to climb. The injury on his side made breathing a bit difficult, so he tired out halfway up. Still, he pushed on and finally came to a halt two-thirds of the way up.

A harsh wind blew past, causing his Mire counter to beep rapidly for a moment as it stirred the ambient miasma. The wind was cool, causing him to shudder with the chill. It caressed his injuries through the holes in his shirt, making him regret not bringing a spare shirt.

He glanced around, making sure nothing was around. Nothing immediately jumped out at him. He sat down as he calmed his breathing and took a drink of water to wash away his sudden thirst. As he relaxed atop the boulder, the verdant expanse of the Graviton Highlands lay before his eyes.

Far off to the south, past the several hills, he could just barely see the occasional burst of steam contrast against the sky, so he wasn’t too far from where he started. The mountains themselves also acted as a great landmark to base his location off of. He glanced up the side of the mountains noting the occasional tree and flicker of movement. Near the peak of the middle one, a golden light gleamed in the blaring sun.

He frowned and pulled out his binoculars, zooming in on the bright light. To his great surprise, he spotted the golden tiles and gray stone the ancient civilization was known to use. A small, dilapidated building was squeezed into the gap near the top of the mountain.

Verlon was greatly surprised to see it. Ruins were almost impossible to find since they were mostly buried beneath the earth. To see one outstanding in an obvious location was extraordinarily rare. If he could just climb up the mountain and scavenge the-

No. He was letting his greed get to him. It would already be a tough push to get through the Floating Mesa without any additional pit stops. That, and the ruin was probably already looted. There was no way a spot so visible wasn’t touched by other Seekers. Unless… maybe an earthquake struck recently and revealed it?

He pulled out his journal and looked at the hand-drawn map of the Graviton Highlands. Based on the mountain range he found himself on and the guesstimated distance from the Steamglades, he locked onto his position fairly easily. The mountain range was called the Three Peaks and was one of the landmarks used to track locations in the tier three contamination zone. He had never used it personally, but he was glad he marked it down on his map when he did.

The Three Peaks were almost directly east of the Floating Mesa and miles to the north of the Steamglade. He would directly see it but he was on the opposite side of the mountain, which was just perfect. He made a small note on the map about the potential ruin before putting away the journal. He wouldn’t go now, but if he got the chance in the future he would. Alternatively, he could sell the information to the Sekorium if he later changed his mind.

He crawled off the rock and began to head around the massive mountain. The sun was at its zenith, so he had most of the day left. He was closer to the Floating Mesa over the Mechanus Outpost, so he would finish off his contract before trying to work his way back. Ideally, he would find a Heartbloom or some other medicinal plant or animal and be healed enough to cross through the Steamglade without worry.

Verlon walked along until he noticed an oddity in the mountain. The rocks and grass had a void of air separating them, maybe twenty feet across. He pulled his revolver out and slowly edged forward to the ravine. He slowed to a near crawl as he grew near. Something could’ve made a nest out of the gap in the earth and he didn’t want to be caught unaware.

He peeked over the edge, ready to dodge back at a moment's notice. The split in the earth dropped a long, long way down. At least five or six hundred hundred feet, and even that was just an estimate. A false one, he realized as he determined the bottom of the ravine was, in fact, a body of pitch-black water and not stone. It was an easy thing to figure out as the water moved like a tide… or something very big shifted.

After about thirty feet, the ravine split into what seemed to be a gargantuan cavern. He couldn’t see the walls from his spot, so he could only guess. Then there was the several hundred-foot drop and finally the water. The water that potentially had several hundred more feet below its surface and who knows what kind of horrifying water. Yeah, no thank you.

He marked it down in his journal. Seeing as he was a scout, this was only normal. He was literally paid to scout out locations and geographical points of interest as well as potential beast nests. Of course, he cleared what he could when he could for the potential loot, but he tended to pass up areas that were too difficult and sell the information to the Sekorium.

The Sekorium then acted as a middle-man and either sold the pois or put up bounties, depending on their threat level. They were backed by the military after all, and it had been explained to him that any threats in Endenheim could one day be threats to imperial lands. It was better to pay some money here and there for Seekers to hunt down threats before they became too dangerous rather than send out squads of legionnaires, or worse, defend against the threats atop the Rhinegard.

Verlon sketched out its rough shape. He also added some rough measurements gained by dropping a rock down the hole and counting till he heard a plink. He then did some quick math he remembered from that time he self-studied basic physics, displacement = initial velocity * time + ½acceleration * time, in this case five hundred feet being the solution. It would be quite a nasty fall if something fell in.

That being said, the way around was super out of the way and up several spots of shear walls, so he simply used a charge on his boots and jumped the gap. It was smaller than the gap cleared at the Craggy Chasms and the gravity was normal where he was at, so he wasn’t worried about falling in for a second. Well… more than a second. With that out of the way, he continued on his trek.

He traveled around the mountain, climbing and descending as cliffs and clefts blocked his passage. It took half a day for him to get around the mountain’s side and spot the Floating Mesa. The journey wasn’t all too bad, but the occasional sudden increase or drop in gravity combined with the harsh winds of miasma certainly weren’t fun.

Thankfully, so close to the ground, the changes in gravity were less severe. Reportedly, the increases and decreases grew exponentially worse at higher altitudes. There was even a common horror story about a Seeker climbing Scythe’s Point, the highest mountain in the Graviton Highlands named after its deadly gravity changes, and being plucked right off the ground by the shifting gravity.

No one ever saw him again as he flew up without being able to stop himself. His companions who told the tale apparently could never get his desperate screams for help out of their minds as they watched him rise until he was nothing but a blimp in the sky. A cloud then drifted by, and by the time it was gone, so was he.

The floating Mesa gleamed in the falling sun’s light as it sat in the sky like a continent plucked from the land. Long limbs of floating rocks chained together by thick vines stretched out from the floating landmass almost as if asserting its dominance. It was an impressive sight, to be sure, and cast a several-mile-long shadow over the land.

Verlon set up camp in a small outcropping of rock. He had to slay a giant snake, which cut into his revolver’s ammo count, but it was well worth the safety the spot provided. He settled in and started a small fire to cook up the snake’s meat.

The beast was known as a Crusher Copperhead, named after its venom’s effect of increasing the gravity in the flesh of its victims and its copper-colored head. He collected some venom while he separated the edible parts of its body and had a nice meal, which was much needed after eating dried jerky for so long.

He lounged underneath the night’s sky with a full belly and enjoyed the gentle light of the moon. He hadn’t been able to see the night sky since he left Preshen thanks to the Craggy Chasm’s toxic clouds and the Steamglade’s steam fog, but the view couldn’t even be compared.

The smog of the factories drastically lowered visibility, and it felt as if that poor visibility was constantly under attack as more and more gas lamps were put up along the streets. The price of progress he supposed. Too bad the majority of city dwellers would never get out to see the true beauty of an untarnished sky.

Out here though? The night sky was breathtaking. Robin would’ve loved the view. There were so many stars it hurt his head to even try to count them. It felt like they shifted and twirled with the mysterious cosmic forces that held them up there thanks to the splashes of color. The moon itself was also a thing of beauty. It looked to be a waxing crescent and gave off just barely enough light to see the grass around him as the winds blew by. It was quite the relaxing scenery to fall asleep to.

That night he slept so peacefully that he even had a dream. He couldn’t remember what it was about, but he woke up happy and well-rested for the first time since heading beyond the Rhinegard. He stretched, finished off what he could of the snake, and once more headed out with destination in sight.

It took until early in the afternoon to get down the mountain and then head out towards the closest linked vine. It took longer than it should’ve as he had to switch back several times to avoid beasts. The singles weren’t too big of an issue, but he avoided them so as to conserve ammo. He was down to twenty-eight rounds for his revolver and would rather not run out of ammo. It would force him to use his sword and, well, probably die at this point.

He marked down the location of a few of the more powerful beasts to sell to the Sekorium. While not always true, it was generally accepted that powerful beasts guarded powerful loot. Usually, it was nothing more than an uncommon or rare plant, but occasionally there could be plants or animals with near-mystical effects. Additionally, sometimes a beast nested on geographical points of interest, such as entrances to ruins. There were tons of other interesting POIs they liked to settle on, such as bodies of Brim-stones for example.

It wasn’t the lowest point on the Floating Mesa to climb up, but the height didn’t seem too bad. His map only marked it as three thousand feet up compared to the lowest point’s hundred feet… At least it wasn’t the highest point of the Floating Mesa at ten thousand feet. Such a climb would truly be tortuous and he would need one of the heavy and bulky breathing apparatuses. As a small bonus, this vine was closer to the middle of the flying island, which was his destination.

The vine hurt his neck to look up, probably a sign of some kind of whiplash from his fall not that he cared. It had several rocks interwoven into the vines that he could use as resting spots, but otherwise, he would have to climb up the vines.

Thankfully, the normal vine in the Graviton Highlands was the type to branch out with leaves every couple of feet. This allowed natural hand and foot holds akin to a ladder, so he wouldn’t have to straight shoot it like a rope. Even the spots without leaves were fine since the vine was like a web weaved into itself all the way down from its growth point at the top.

It would take a while, but now was the best time to start. He desperately hoped nothing else went wrong as he began the arduous task of climbing three thousand feet.