Looking across the scene of industrial-level toil, Tormacc was impressed by the monsters’ perseverance. He wasn’t sure why they were digging out tunnels in the mountains, but there had to be hundreds of tunnels, the number of tunnels only matched by the vast piles of rubble that were dotted across the valley, the excrement of the excavation process. It was awe-inspiring watching thousands of monsters work together like that, that sort of cooperation something he normally only associated with people. He had been thinking of The Tower as a static challenge, only there for the challengers to conquer, but it seemed it was so much more; a full life cycle and ecosystem as evidenced by the actions of the monsters below.

The monsters appeared to be mining for some type of ore, or at least looking for it. All the activity in the valley was centered in a single nexus, lines of monsters extending for hundreds of meters to bring their haul of ore to the center of the valley to be inspected. With mechanical precision the monsters would dump their haul onto the ground when they reached the end of the line where it was then inspected by a larger hulking humanoid, this one with only two arms as opposed to the four of the grunt workers. The inspectors were clearly above the four-armed stone trolls, and Tormacc could see them ordering the smaller monsters about, directing them where to take their haul once it had been inspected.

As he watched, one of the piles of ore that was dumped on the ground had a reaction. It started small - a barely seen flicker of light across the surface of a piece of ore - but then it grew, the ore starting to shine, reflecting the light of the sun above into a cascade of multicolored lights that shone across the valley. The intensity of the light couldn’t match what Zedna had reached with her spell, but this light had an ephemeral quality that Zedna’s light lacked, the shimmering curtain of light embodying a mystique of sentimental wonder.

“Sparkle Stone,” Athra gasped out, her grating voice expressing a wonder that Tormacc had never heard from her before. Giving her a sideways glance, he almost fell over from shock. Her eyes were glowing, the light of the Sparkle Stone reflected and amplified in her normally dull gaze.

“I knew there were other rare minerals in this Shard,” Zedna said quietly, “but I never expected to stumble on monsters mining them.”

“What’s Sparkle Stone?” Tormacc asked. It wasn’t surprising he didn’t know about a rare mineral, but with how Athra and Zedna were talking about it, it felt like he should have.

“It’s not actually called Sparkle Stone,” Zedna said. “That’s just the most common nickname. You might know it by its proper name: Sparkling Reflection of Sun’s Glory.”

He did know the ore by its proper name, and after realizing what the ore below was, his gaze changed, a hint of greed appearing within. The list of materials Kaz Ehen had given him was fairly expansive and he couldn’t be bothered to remember all of them, but there were a few that he made sure to memorize, and Sparkle Stone made that list, as it was the number one ore Kaz Ehen was looking for.

Sparkle Stone was one of the most valuable ores, if not the most valuable. There were better ores if you wanted a certain effect, such as crafting an armor with an elemental resistance, but in the sheer amount of things you could use it for Sparkle Stone was undefeated. Anything ore was useful for, Sparkle Stone had you covered, which was why it was coveted above its actual value and was almost never seen on the market.

But sheer versatility alone couldn’t make a reagent that valuable. What pushed Sparkle Stone over the top was its specialty: it was one of the best materials to use for any type of reflective property. For example, you could craft armor that was resistant to magic-type abilities, but sometimes that wasn’t enough. To go a step further, you could use Sparkle Stone, and instead of mere magic resistance, you could get magic reflection.

Gulping back his saliva, Tormacc had to reign in his imagination, scenes of striking it rich flashing through his head. They weren’t here for the ore: they were here to cross the mountains. Maybe Zedna could crash the monster mine below to steal its riches, but he and Athra couldn’t. The horde of monsters was too big, and that was just considering the monsters they could see. Based on the tunnels and piles of waste rock there could by hundreds of thousands of monsters still in the tunnel, perhaps a million even.

“Do we continue forward?” Tormacc asked, forcefully wrenching his mind back to focus on their main goal. The scene below was fascinating to watch, but right now they needed to figure out if they could successfully traverse the valley, as if they couldn’t, they would have to turn around and find another route.

“I’m not sure,” Zedna said, frowning. She hadn’t expected to encounter something like the scene below, and because of that she didn’t have any ready-made plans for how to tackle the problem. “One thing I do know is that we can’t fight them head-on. Groups of monsters don’t work together for no reason. It’s more than likely there is someone pulling the strings, and anything, monster or challenger, that can control an army like that needs to be avoided.”

After a couple minutes more of analyzing the flow of monsters in the valley below the trio retreated a ways back down the trail to come up with a plan. The group of monsters Zedna had killed yesterday was probably a scouting group for the valley so they had to decide on a course of action rather quickly, as while it might be possible to force their way through the valley by catching the monsters by surprise, a prepared resistance was too much to handle.

The first thing they discussed was what kind of plan was even viable. While the gravity in the mountains made them stick to the ground, staying land-bound didn’t mean staying trail-bound. With Athra’s Stoneshaping abilities there was always the option of forging their own path. The only problem with this was her abilities would act like a beacon for all the surrounding monsters. Just like how she could sense them, they too could sense her, provided she was actively using her abilities or was in close proximity. This made sneaking though almost impossible, as unless they had a way to suppress Athra’s aura, which they didn’t, her presence would alert any monsters with even basic Stonesensing abilities of their location.

There was always the option of a middle ground where they snuck by but at a safe distance where Athra wouldn’t be sensed, but the problem was they didn’t know which distance was safe. Theoretically Athra could take them around the lip of the valley, but no one was comfortable gambling on that, as if they were caught out in the open they would have no path of retreat, and in a situation like that even Zedna would be in danger.

After discussing it some more, it was determined that any type of sneaking was a bad idea, mostly because of the unknown presence directing the monsters. It was unlikely a challenger to The Tower could direct that many monsters, which meant a more powerful monster was in charge. And since almost all powerful monsters in the Shard had earth-related abilities, there was a good chance that the boss of the valley could sense Athra before she could sense it, and traveling under those circumstances was just asking to be ambushed.

After an hour of discussion they realized there was one major problem with any plan that involved going through the valley: Athra. While she was their greatest asset for crossing the mountains because of her Stonebending abilities, it was those same abilities that were now coming back to bite them. It was kind of like how Athra had a hard time fighting the Stone Giants because they were able to sense her so clearly. Her very presence would draw monsters to her like a magnet as soon as they engaged in battle.

The issue with this was that they had to traverse a valley with numerous tunnels running underneath it. Zedna was confident she could guide them forward if they only had to deal with attacks in two dimensions, but as soon as attacks started coming from underground she wasn’t sure she could protect them as they charged through. And because of her abilities, if Athra tried running through the valley she would be sending sonar-like pulses through the rock, advertising her exact location to all the monsters in the underground tunnels.

They tried brainstorming for a solution but none of them were able to find a viable answer. It was a little annoying, but it seemed that they would have to turn back around and find a different route. Then Tormacc threw out a comment seemingly at random, just speaking whatever came to mind.

“If Athra’s presence is so much of a problem why don’t I just carry her then,” he joked. “She can’t be sensed if she’s not touching the ground.”

Zedna and Athra both stared at him, an unnatural silence falling over their discussion.

“Don’t tell me you guys didn’t think of such a stupid idea before?” he said. “That won’t actually work, right? It can’t be that simple.”

“Not all complicated problems require complicated solutions,” Zedna muttered. “And this problem isn’t even complicated.”

She then turned to Athra. “Well, will it work?”

“Maybe. Don’t know, never tried. Great Rock is ground, and ground is Great Rock. My people, we are always connected to Great Rock.”

“And that’s exactly why it might work,” Zedna said. “Tormacc here might have just solved our problem. If you’re so attached to the ground, you probably need to be connected to it to utilize your abilities. Have you ever tried flying before?”

“Do rocks fly?” Athra said, as if stating the obvious.

“We should at least try it then,” Tormacc said. “I mean, at worst it doesn’t work, but if it does, we might be able to try and cross the valley instead of retreating to find a different path.”

He then got up and turned around, gesturing for Athra to get on piggyback-style.

She clearly wasn’t happy about the situation, but under Tormacc and Zedna’s urging she reluctantly got on Tormacc’s back. Almost immediately she could feel her stone sensing abilities become muted. She could still feel the ground beneath her, but it was like feeling something while holding gloves. Much of the finer details were lost as the distance between her and the ground interfered with her abilities.

“It works,” Athra said, jumping back down, relief visible on her face at once more being connected to the ground.

“It seems the idea wasn’t quite so stupid after all,” Zedna said.

“No, I guess it wasn’t,” Tormacc replied.

Now that they had a viable solution to prevent Athra from broadcasting their location to the monsters in the tunnels below they had to figure out exactly how they were going to cross the valley, or if they even could. Just because it was an actual option now didn’t make it the best one. But after some more reconnaissance, Zedna gave the greenlight to their plan. It might be messy, but she thought they would be able to cross the valley.

Because they had killed the scout group yesterday they decided to try and cross the valley before the day was out, as the longer they waited the better the chances of someone realizing the guards were missing. They took another hour to hash out the details before eating a very late lunch and doing their final preparations.

Crossing the valley would be dangerous, but Tormacc couldn’t help but admit that there was a part of him that longed for that thrill of walking close to the edge. He didn’t need to walk too close, like he had done when fighting the stone rats, but with Zedna as backup, he was looking forward to charging through the valley. It was a nice feeling, not having to run away, and he planned to savor every minute of it.