Kaldalis led the way into the ruins. He picked his way carefully forward. The sky was turning from purple to black, and he was hoping they could get in and find what he was looking for before it was full dark.

Once they were reduced to a vision circle, it would be that much harder to find the other side of the culvert to find the stream that would lead him to his fishing spot.

Entering the ruins felt like walking into a ghost town. Or, at least, the Hollywood set version. The fronts of many of the buildings were mostly intact, but through the empty doorways and windows he could just see straight through, not just through the opening, but through the entire building to the treeline beyond.

His initial intent was to just do a quick check.

It seemed like the best way to do that would be to activate his Jump cooldown. He could hop around to see what he could see. But he couldn’t bring himself to be that cavalier, especially with Dalgaard depending on his protection.

Instead, Kaldalis’ videogame-honed instincts took over, and he found himself creeping down the ancient street carefully, slinking from shadow to shadow. Dalgaard stuck close behind him, and it relieved him to see them follow his lead without question.

It made him feel a little less like he was overreacting. Stealth might be optional here, but they both seemed to agree that running in guns blazing might be a big mistake.

This clearing was larger than the others he’d seen, now that he was in the ruins. There was most of a town here, and not just a little outpost. It was only slightly smaller than the encampment back at the beach, with enough buildings for about a hundred people to live and work comfortably.

As they worked their way out of the outskirts, he started to see buildings that were intact enough to guess at their ancient purpose. The stone buildings on the outside looked like they had probably been homes. Crumbling hearths clung to the remains of broken walls here and there. In one, Kaldalis spied a cauldron resting on its side on the ground, pitted to uselessness with rust.

As they approached the center of the ruined hamlet, the vegetation gave way bit by bit to pieces of regularly-cut flagstone. It never became a stone road, but Kaldalis could picture what it must have looked like before nature started to push in and reclaim it.

In the center of the ruins there was what had probably once been a marketplace or town square. A single tree grew in the middle, and the cut stones that still showed through the grass were curved rectangles that looked like their arced sides traced a circle around the central tree. Around the edges stood some of the most intact buildings in the village, including one that had visibly been a blacksmith, with the stone skeleton of a foundry furnace jutting off of one wall. The anvil inside was intact, and might still be usable if they could somehow clear the rust off of its surface.

The tree in the center of town was unique. It didn’t match the native flora. Despite that, it stood alone, but appeared to be thriving.

Unlike the rest of the jungle, it appeared to be a pine tree, the ground around it carpeted over with long-dried brown needles. He was surprised to see such a tree green and vibrant despite the hot and humid climate.

“Fucking videogame rules,” he grumbled.

“What?” Dalgaard whispered.

“Nothing,” Kaldalis said, “just that there’s no way a pine tree could thrive here. It would just straight-up die. It’s hot as balls all the time. But videogame logic means water plus sun equals healthy plant.”

“Some pine trees can withstand warm temperatures,” Dalgaard said. “There’s some varieties of cedar that grow naturally in the middle east, you know.”

“How do you know that off the top of your head?”

“I did a presentation on cedar trees in ninth grade,” Dalgaard said. “And while you’re not wrong, because a cedar tree would struggle here, it’s because wet roots are a death sentence for them, not the temperature. Although I don’t know if it’s supposed to be thriving.” They glanced up towards the top of the tree. “They usually grow very tall, and that’s not more than forty feet. If it’s been here for centuries - planted by ancient Latax-whatevers - then it should be at least ninety to one hundred and twenty feet by now, or as tall as two-forty.”

Kaldalis snorted a laugh. “And you remember all that from ninth grade?”

“Of course. They made me make a powerpoint presentation and say it all out loud in front of the class. I was terrified as hell the whole time because fuck public speaking.” They shuddered. “I don’t remember anything actually useful from school, but all the trauma is burned into the inside of my skull forever.”

“Please,” Kaldalis scoffed. “Give some credit to the public school curriculum for that. You don’t remember anything useful because they didn’t teach you anything useful. You want to know how many times in my adult life I desperately needed to know the Egyptian pantheon? Zero. Not one time. Neither Horus nor Ra have ever, for a single second, been useful to me.”

“Well, maybe not yet. If this tree is somehow important, maybe what I learned will be useful?”

“Probably not,” Kaldalis said, gesturing at the tree. “Like you said, it shouldn’t be growing in this wet environment. If Monsoon doesn’t give a fuck about real-world rules, your real-world knowledge won’t tell us much.”

Dalgaard grimaced at that. “So what’s our next move?”

Kaldalis looked around the rest of the square. There were a few buildings that had collapsed entirely to fragmented walls and scattered stones, but three still stood.

He had already noticed the blacksmith off to their left. But across the square was a taller building. It looked like the stone second floor had mostly crumbled down into the first floor, filling the building with rubble, but the outer walls were mostly intact. There was an eroded carving in the stone on the front of the building that looked like some kind of small bird perched on the rim of a tankard. The stone was too far gone to tell any details, but it was still enough to let him guess that it was a tavern or brewery.

What caught his eye the most was on the north end of the square, next to the beer bird building. It was a blocky building made of what looked like solid carved stone instead of stone blocks and bricks. The seamless construction meant it was still almost entirely intact. It didn’t have the same swooping arches as the library at the end of the dungeon, but it had the same imposing look to it.

“That’s our next move,” Kaldalis said. “If there’s anything of note here, that’ll be the start of it.”

Dalgaard said nothing, but followed dutifully.

Kaldalis crept towards the blocky building. He wanted to cut straight across, but as soon as he stepped into the open area, the hair on the back of his neck prickled.

He felt like he was being watched.

Instead of walking out into the courtyard, he followed the rubble to his left, circling around to it, sticking to cover as best as he could.

“Do you feel that?” Dalgaard whispered. “Something’s here.”

“Yeah, we’re being watched,” Kaldalis hissed back. “Just stay cool. Maybe it’s another adventurer out here exploring.”

“But what if it’s not?” Dalgaard asked as they reached the corner of the blocky building. “What if it’s Infernal Horde?”

“You kidding? I hope it’s that. Then we’ll know what to do.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if it’s an adventurer, we have one more party slot accounted for if this is a dungeon, so I can’t bring Myrin and Balrim. And it’s way worse if they’re a tank or a healer - which of us bows out? And if it’s a regular monster, and there’s some kind of den in these ruins, we have to decide if exploring is worth the risk or not if we’re going to blunder into a pack of giant lizards or whatever.”

“Yeah, but what will we do if it is Infernal Horde?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Kaldalis said, putting on his best smile. “We’ll just die.”

Kaldalis held Dalgaard’s gaze just long enough to see the confusion cross their expression. As soon as that was accomplished, he turned and poked his head into the entrance of the blocky building.

It looked safe enough at first glance - all solid stone with minimal scattered debris - and so he slipped inside, beginning his investigation.