A natural path of stairs led upward the mountainside. Goats of thick fur climbed the steep walls with such ease as if they could easily bend the laws of gravity. The biome was full of small tunnels and weird formations that appeared as if they were made by intelligent creatures.

But they weren’t. Everything on this impossibly long staircase was a consequence of nature’s morbid creativity.

After climbing an ascending stone stair for a while, Tanuki looked back at the Gaia Core. In the span of fifteen minutes, they climbed up so high that it felt nauseating to look back down at their minuscule home.

Maduka went ahead and checked around the corner, but to her surprise, the road ended there. Instead, what followed was a tunnel that led into the incredibly tall mountain.

“Nuki, look!” She showed Tanuki the path.

It was mostly dark in there, though light broke through the tiny cracks and made the path forward visible. It looked natural, devoid of any man-made features. The only living beings there were scattered groups of moss.

The tunnel led upwards. It was as if the mountain wanted them to reach its beak.

After a short walk, they arrived at what would’ve been the mountain’s heart, and the sight that came before them was astounding.

It was hollow on the inside where a large abandoned machine, made from dozens of lifts and hoists, towered like the guardian of the mountain. It was made out of a strange yellow metal that was a mixture of gold and another unfamiliar metal. A wooden platform was attached to each one of its rusty pulleys, which groaned painfully when their attached ropes were pulled by Tanuki.

“Strange… I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“Did someone mine da mountain?”

“I’m not sure. Have you seen any rare stones or gems while we climbed up here?”

“Nope.” Maduka shook her head. “Just stone.”

It was pretty strange, considering how hard it would be to build this crane-sized machinery. If someone or some group of people took their time to raise this incredible piece of architecture, then there must’ve been a reason for that.

Tanuki grabbed Maduka’s hand and stepped onto one of the wood platforms. There was a rope attached to a pulley. When he pulled on it, the platform under their feet was pulled above the ground with child-like ease.

“I guess we’ll have to use these unless you want to climb up the old-fashioned way.” He looked at Maduka, who quickly shook her head. “Alright then.”

Their ascension was slow but still quicker than Tanuki hoped for. His fear of heights became apparent as after a certain height he saw other platforms hang with weighty boxes on their back. There were also small bird nests bearing a new animal, owls.

They arrived at another tunnel leading into the mountain wall. There was a rail with a minecart made so it could easily roll onto a passing platform. Behind that were scattered tools like shovels and pickaxes, but most surprisingly, there was a ruinous house.

“Nuki, look! A house!” She immediately rushed to search it, but Tanuki held her back. “Huh? Why are you…”

His eyes were wide and trembling. He looked terrified.

Maduka turned to see what was so scary, but there was nothing in front of her. Then she realized that the debris below the ruined house moved. Something was in there.

A terrible chill ran up her spine. It felt like a vicious predator was watching them, readying its legs and fangs to tear apart its prey.

Tanuki moved his hands in the opposite direction on the rope and slowly descended with the wood platform. Or at least he would’ve, but the thing under their feet didn’t seem to budge.

He looked down but there was nothing. Then he looked up and saw a round metal orb. It flew with propellers on its head. It had two small arms with two metal fingers that held firmly onto the rope. Above this specimen were two more that did the exact same.

When it noticed Tanuki, the metallic fly looked at him, revealing its large green eye and black pupil. It became bigger, then small, as if its eye was a camera adjusting for a better image.

Suddenly, a voice echoed from under the debris.

“Searching for similar face in database… no matches. Intruder detected. Identify yourself!”