“Okay, so let’s stop with Aragorn and Grey Company and continue later. Any idea why the fog is behaving like that?” - I made sure that the fog did not interfere with my perception and waved my weapon towards the river. A gust of generated wind broke a rift through the fog, which allowed us to catch a glimpse of the wide crumbling stone steps on the riverbank before the fog recovered.

Ealas cheek slightly twitched as she asked - “Lord, am I correct to guess that you chose this moment to review my comprehension about the thermodynamics physics you previously told me about?”

In response I revealed a wide smile, while inwardly regretting that I was unable to experience the effect of dopamine that would let me sense all the nuances of the glee: “Exactly!”

“Well,”, Eala made a thoughtful expression: “The sun does not set, it has not rained here and I can’t see any other reasons for the change in temperature that could cause the water vapors to condense into a fog.”

“Go on.”, I nodded.

Eala looked around before continuing: “Your casual strike scattered the fog, so it should not be intentionally summoned with magic and neither this is an illusion, I think. It would be too complex to form such magic on a wide scale with as little effect as it has.”

I interrupted her: “You said, intentionally?”

“Yes, Lord.”, Eala formed a wide water fan and forced some of the fog to disperse around us. “I can feel that the water in the fog is colder than in the river, and I think the air is colder too. Perhaps, something has taken the heat?”

Yess, I got some more knowledge about magic without revealing my complete ignorance. So I maintained a serious look: “Taken the heat? Better use the word “absorbed”, by the way. You suggest, there is some magic, which has absorbed the surrounding heat, and inadvertently caused the fog to appear as a by-product?”. That reminded me of the Beating Iceheart I had found inside the pyramid. That felt to have happened long ago now…

---

We decided to enter the depths of the city. Wide streets, narrow alleys, large and small miscellaneous buildings were all well on the way of being reclaimed by the vegetation. And I felt that some of the larger structures and basements were much older than the crumbling stonework that dominated the view everywhere. So, the city was built on top of the city that belonged to the first people in this world? I scratched my carefully engineered stubble (which could rival diamond file in toughness, by the way) on my chin while I thought again about the possible interesting stories behind this world’s history before moving on.

But soon, the cries of the monkeys and parrots that had accompanied us for many days grew silent as they fell behind. For some reason, animals refused to go deeper into the city. Instincts? Territorial division? Or did they know something about some dangers ahead?

I looked at Eala, who kept up her vigilance while advancing in parallel with me, for a moment wishing she was a stereotypical fantasy elf with an ability to communicate with nature. Well, instead I had a travelling wild ninja with an attitude from the Bronze Age, whose interest in the nature was limited to the edibles and hazards. Solid, survival-oriented attitude, but lacked the romance of the fantasy, if I could say so.

---

As we moved deeper into the city, buildings became larger and vegetation had trouble covering everything. Empty windows and doors let the light from collapsed roofs to shine through, and accumulation of dead leaves and dust covered all horizontal surfaces, be it windowsills, courtyards or plazas. The fog looked like lead cotton covering the surroundings, making the scene look like Indiana Jones and The Mist movies crossover. At least, there were no tentacles attacking us. Yet.

And tentacles really did not attack us. Instead, we began to feel the vibrations that slightly reminded me of the hum electric mains made sometimes. And with a barely discernible shuffling over the dead leaves, a wheel-like contraption cut the corner from the side and aimed its collision course at us.

Luckily, I had inhuman perception, and Eala was, well, an elf. Her ears twitched slightly, and she warily adopted a low fighting stance after forming her usual water-blade. I, on the other hand, curiously observed the wheel.

The approaching wheel had the size of a heavy-duty truck tire and managed to keep its speed on the level of a sports bike despite sudden turns. At its speed, it would reach us in under a second, which now was plenty of time for me. Disinclined to drag out the fight and remembering some dubious statement that the mesoamerican civilizations did not use wheels, I sidestepped the wheel to the right, while delivering a solid kick with my left leg towards the wheel’s face. From the other side, I could see Eala scoring a hit on the wheel, but without much resulting effect.

The difference in our mass and momentum jolted me, but I managed to remain standing. The wheel crashed into the nearby wall, penetrating into the depths of some half-intact building. The stone dust billowed out and the last remaining pieces of the roof fell in. Feeling somewhat guilty for destroying local historical and cultural heritage, I chased inside.

---

The wheel was assiduously spinning, but unable to find traction due to being stuck between two blocks. These massive blocks that that formed the wall of the building, kept the wheel safely suspended above the ground. The mechanism was made of two wheels, an outer stone wheel and an inner copper wheel, with detailed mechanism hidden under the thick casted copper cover. It did not seem to have any outside sensors, and the power source was mystery, but what drew my attention were the clear signs of later modifications.

The copper covers, that hid the sides of the wheel, still showed scars and stubs of something been removed, quite often via the application of serious brutal force. And the rough scarred copper surface was covered in neat markings going in circle.

But as I looked at the markings, I could only give up - I had never seen a writing like that. The markings looked like jagged or smooth lines forming loops of various sizes. Perhaps, I should better have picked ancient languages as my major, instead of cultural studies. But even as I fine-combed my memories, I could not find anything about similar scripts being mentioned near me, even as a background TV noise.

While I sat in the middle of the rubble, my face just a dozen or so centimeters away from rapidly-spinning spiky wheel, Eala squeezed her frame through the cluttered doorway and arrived to my side. Only when I saw that she had covered her head in some sort of water bubble, did I notice that the wheel was still kicking up the dust, not letting it settle down and creating a real smokescreen in its surroundings.

I stretched out my hand and clamped down on the part connecting inner and outer wheel. With a tragic whining sound of bending metal, the spinning stopped. I opened my arm and looked at the layer of rock dust covering my hand. I had unwittingly shaved off a part of outer stone wheel with my bare hand. That felt… cool. Me Hulk, me smash.

---

After I dragged the wheel out of the now-demolished building, I had to give in to Ealas pleas to wash off the dust that managed to cover even my eyeballs. Eala looked very anxious with the frequency of her mentions of “Lord! Lord!” going through the roof. She created water until she was pale and panting, but finally I was baby-clean without even a spec of dust anywhere.

She must have created enough water to fill up a smaller-scale swimming pool in an effort to provide enough water for my cleaning. She clearly took her self-assumed role of my retainer with much seriousness, completely ignoring the fact that I had no need for that.

And annoying fact was, that she had offered herself to me by her own free will and I would have had trouble keeping pants from catching fire if I were in my human body.

Now, however, I could only admit that she was pleasing to the eye, good company, fought quite well and was an important source of information for me. But no tent in my pants and no fantasies popping up at night - you begin to miss the testosterone at such moments.

Should I had accepted her back when she admitted that, and just gone through the motions to satisfy the idea of “leader” her culture had? Well, controlling the blood circulation and stimulating nerve endings was not all that hard - I had experimented with that for a while. But it would feel artificial, and I believed, that it would be more detrimental to our cooperation that our current, albeit annoying, relationship.

She seemed to be content enough with waiting, though. Perhaps, if I ever get my emotions back into the fluctuating and unpredictable state governed by emotions and impulses, I will be able to decide what I think about her. Perhaps I will simply like her like I do now, with cool feeling of appreciation for her abilities and character? Or will I really love her? Or her looks will just fuel my carnal desires, making me ignore her other qualities? That was an interesting thing to think about, I had to admit.

I finished shaking the water out of my hair (which was a hassle with its length, but I still could not find a way to cut it) and wanted to ask Eala about that, when she interrupted me with a loud “Ei!”.

“Ei?”, I thought a bit: “You mean, negative particle in Finnish and Estonian languages of Finno-Ugric group?”

“No, no.”, Eala corrected herself before continuing: “Look here.”

She was pointing at the wheel, now quietly lying on the street,

“This,” Eala tapped at the script engraved into the copper: “is message from Taistealaithe.”

I observed the script I could not make heads or tails out of: “Is it from the group remaining in the city, as you said?”

“Yes!” Eala gleefully nodded. She looked lively now, despite the exhaustion.

“By the way, how do you read it?” I asked curiously.

Eala pointed at the markings: “Each sign represents different sound note, with vibration, pitch, duration and some other properties I don’t know how to explain included within.”

“Sounds complex. And what is in that message then?”