I was laying on my back looking up at the sky, which was rather less hazy than normal, but only in a kind of circle around where we were. The sun was low in the sky, highlighting the edges of the ring in red hues as it peeked through the hazy atmosphere. It looked kind of foreboding.

Well, where I was, I had no idea where the other two were. I assumed they were also alive, because if my squishy twiggy self was was still alive, they should be. István might be tall and slim, but he had that kind of wiry strength to him.

Viktor… was Viktor.

He was probably still standing next to the entrance to the cave wondering where the rest of us went, his hair lightly tousled by the gentle breeze from the explosion.

This one had been much more powerful than the previous one. I kind of figured it would, as from what I could see with my aura vision (or whatever it was) before I ran away it seemed to scale with the mass of the monstrosity in question.

This one had been different in the sense that I didn't get any sense of sentience from it. Granted I hadn't touched it like I did the previous, but It seemed more a cluster of survival instincts than anything else. It probably would have made a great defensive perimeter if not for me. I can't imagine that the bad guys expected me to disarm it by blowing it up in place like that.

On second thought, 'disarm' was doing a lot of work there, both in the sense that it had no arms, and in the sense that exploded so violently it had apparently blasted a hole into the clouds. I was having too many adventures lately, which I wasn't particularly fond of.

It seemed we'd be having another one - since unless we found a form of transport we were going to have to rough it out here.

A shadow loomed over me, blocking out my view.

"You dead?" I heard in Viktor's grumbling voice.

"Yes, I am, leave me alone," I replied, crossing my arms over my chest like I'd seen done to the deceased at some funerals.

"Well that's easier on me," he stated, "then I don't have to share this food."

I jumped up quicker than Liam getting out of bed on mornings when Gran makes pancakes. "I have miraculously risen from the grave, and am ready and willing to accept offerings."

Viktor laughed, and handed me a piece of jerky. 'Piece' was doing a lot of work there, as it was the size of my arm, which is to say it looked totally normal in his hand. "Here, this is all I can spare."

"You've seen me, right?" I said, gesturing up and down my frame with my hands, "You could probably feed me a stiff breeze and I'd be full."

"That's not at all true," István replied, walking up from behind Viktor, who seemed to have expected him to show sooner or later, "She eats like several horses, I have seen it. No idea where she puts it all. Maybe her head is hollow." He grinned. "It would explain why she tried to blow us all up."

"Hey, I tried to not blow us all up," I retorted in a mock 'offended' tone, "I tried to run us away from the exploding."

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I took a bite of the jerky, which had a surface that was the color and texture of tree bark. It was so tough it was like it was actively fighting back against my teeth, but it had great flavor. After some fussing I finally managed to gnaw a small piece off of it and sat there chewing on it like a ruminant chewing cud.

István was likewise munching on his own by now, apparently taken from the same magical meat dimension Viktor had pulled my new jerky-based limb from. "What is this made from anyway?" He asked Viktor.

The big man just shrugged, "No idea."

I stopped chewing on mine for a moment, before deciding that if I was going to die from food poisoning, at least it'd be delicious food poisoning. István just looked sad.

"That is too bad, I was hoping to buy more of it."

"Not a problem," Viktor told us, "There is an entire truck worth back at the office."

István seemed mollified by this. I thought the whole interaction was funny because István's vibe to me had always been more "restaurant critic" and not "likes his jerky on the wild side". But considering the flavors I had in my mouth right now from it, I couldn't blame him.

Mystery jerky be good, yo.

We'd not been blown that far from the entrance, in the end. I figured as much, since I was still, you know, living. Something I was definitely appreciative of.

There was a fan of loose debris scattered around the entrance to the cave, starting with larger chunks of rock and such closer and getting finer as you went. The way the sand had blown around the target items made it look almost like water had rushed through, but the burnt smell and the haze of dust dispelled the effect.

Viktor reentered the cave without even breaking this stride, which made me give him what must have been quite a look.

"Are we sure it's safe to go back in?" I asked.

"No," he replied without even turning his head to look at me.

"Alrighty then," I replied, speeding up my pace so I could stick a little closer to him. I figured if the rocks overhead fell in he'd have no problem holding them up or, like, punching them out of the way. Maybe he'd just give them a dirty look and they'd be intimidated and kindly fall elsewhere.

You know, Viktor stuff.

Soon my fear of the unknown stability of the cave system was overshadowed by my curiosity about the changes in the cave - probably aided by my inability to stay focused on anything for more than a few minutes.

The explosion had stripped a lot of the human - or what I assumed was human, rather - additions to the cave system, revealing some of the original cave features. There were crystalline structures in the walls and ceilings, but not the kind like the luminaires. These were more like the inside of a geode, something I'd seen once upon a time when we found one split open while playing in a quarry of some kind on the weekend.

I recalled the vividly green-blue pond there, the kind of color that said 'this will definitely kill you if you touch it', so we didn't. It would not have been hard to fall in and we were constantly throwing rocks and boulders into it to hear the fun sounds, so it was almost surprising no one had ever taken a lethal swim. Yay safety!

I was still distracted with my thoughts when Viktor stopped walking, and being so close to him I ran into his side. He caught my shoulder before I could go down, and I nodded in thanks. I'd almost dropped my jerky!

That'd have been a real disaster.

He pointed, and I followed his line of sight to the huge hole in the roof. Pretty sure that hadn't been there before. That also explained the hole in the sky - the explosion had vented itself upwards more than anything.

"I think we have found the reason we are still among the living," István said, clearly thinking along the same lines I was. Considering the force that had come our way, it was difficult to imagine what would have happened if all of that energy had been funneled towards us.

Well, okay, it wasn't difficult to imagine. We'd have all been turned into slightly pink mist. It was just difficult to think about.

As thankfully not-pink-mist, the three of us scoured around the perimeter. We'd all come to the same assumption that this had been close to ground zero of the explosion, so clearly whatever the wall had been protecting had to be somewhere around here.

We weren't having any luck actually finding it though.

Then I got an idea. I went through the now quite rapid process of enabling my aura vision.

Well. That explains a lot. I shouted back to the other two.

"Found it!"

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