It wasn't until Sophia took a good look at the ruins below them that she realized how much they'd changed from when she first arrived. A dust haze hung in the air above the ruins around the entrance to the underground complex, but it was clear that the collapse hadn't left it alone. When they arrived, the ground was fairly flat; now, the ruin was at one end of a long depression.

It wasn't very deep, but that was in comparison to its length; Sophia thought the middle of the depression was probably about ten feet below where it had once been. The ruined building hadn't sunk evenly; the part that was directly over the stairs was far deeper than the previously more damaged outer section.

Unfortunately, everything they'd built was even more damaged than that. The roof had collapsed again, not that she'd expected anything else. Some of the horses were missing; Sophia couldn't tell if that was just the ones the hunting party were using or if more had escaped in the collapse's aftermath. It was a good thing that almost everything was underground after the long string of accidents…

They weren't accidents, were they? Sophia shook her head in annoyance, then turned towards Lan'ti as he started to talk to the tiny swan in the middle of his hand that was once a small pearl.

"Uncle, we're on the surface. If the fighting's you, we'll come if you show us where. If it's not you, beware; there are hostiles around. They collapsed the entrance to the ruin. Lan." Lan'ti and watched held the miniature bird up and released it into the air, where it quickly disappeared into the distance.

They hadn't reached the surface in time to warn the hunting party. At least, Sophia assumed that was what the noise in the distance was. They'd all tried, but they weren't able to get an exact direction. Following the original plan and sending a message to Los'en seemed like their best option, since they didn't know what was happening. If he didn't answer quickly, Los'en planned to trigger a flare, even though it would give away the fact that they weren't trapped by the cave-in.

Sophia hoped it wouldn't come to that. Their one advantage right now was that whoever caused the collapse didn't know he had to deal with anyone other than the hunting party. That did make her think of another problem, though. "If … no, when he answers, how are we going to get to them? Are we going to get our horses, or…?"

Getting their horses meant heading down into the ruins. It was probably safe enough; the depression was big enough that Sophia didn't expect more collapses and the horses were in a corral that didn't seem any lower than it was before. They were clearly agitated, though, and their tack was in the now-sunken building. Sophia wasn't sure how safe that was; surely the foundation was at least cracked. The walls could collapse at any moment.

At the same time, Sophia didn't know how to ride a horse bareback. A giant demon-cat, yes, but her father's cat was smart and worked with her. Horses probably wouldn't.

"That was my plan," Lan'ti admitted as he turned and followed Sophia's gaze. "Is there something wrong with … oh. Uh, yeah, maybe not the best plan."

"I can fly," Ci'an offered. "And I can carry Sophia, her feathers aren't heavy. The rest of you, though…"

Sophia shook her head and pointed out something Ci'an really ought to remember. "I can fly, too. It's obvious, but I can. I can carry someone, but not very far."

"I can make myself lighter," Dav stated. "Well, I can reduce the influence of gravity, it's almost the same thing."

Sophia recognized the Ability, now that Dav mentioned it: he was talking about his Unreal Space Call, which they were both pretty sure was a derivative of the On Wings of Air Ability he learned in the Castles in the Sky Challenge, where they had to deal with apple-throwing monkeys.

Reducing gravity wasn't exactly the same thing as reducing mass, but it was probably close enough that Sophia could carry him quite a bit farther. They hadn't tested that combination while they traveled, which seemed like a mistake to Sophia now.

"That's the three of us and Taika, then," Sophia agreed. "What about the rest of you?" She didn't actually know much about their Spheres. Horus was a shield-based fighter, Xin'ri used items, Azalea was an archer, and Lan'ti could project force from a distance. None of those were complete Spheres, but that was really all Sophia knew. Scout and her guard were true unknowns, at least other than Scout's ability to completely disappear from sight.

"We stay." Scout spoke before anyone else could.

Sophia nodded. That was probably for the best; there was really no reason for Scout to get involved in things that didn't have anything to do with the facility. Showing them the hidden egress was already a lot of help.

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"I can run like the wind," Azalea offered. "I won't slow you down. Horus, however…"

Horus huffed. "My Sphere doesn't lend itself to easy movement. I'm not going to ride a horse without tack, either; you'll have to leave me behind."

Before Xin'ri and Lan'ti could offer their options, a tiny swan dove in front of Lan'tio and started speaking in Los'en's voice. It had an odd crackling undertone Sophia didn't remember, but maybe that was a result of the recording process? If so, they really needed to do better; spells back home didn't add such severe audible artifacts.

"Hostiles? That explains a lot, but I can't tell if they were involved in this or not. We were hunting a Thunderous Reindeer when the entire herd was attacked by Ice Bears. Everyone's fine; I was having fun dealing with the bears while the others picked off a couple of stragglers, but I'll pull everyone back together and we'll head for the ruins. Best if we don't make it obvious we know, but a couple reindeer is plenty to explain an early return. Get close to the ruins but stay hidden; Ci'an can carry messages while we figure out what to do."

That explained the noise they were hearing, at least. It sounded like thunder, which was obviously where the Thunderous Reindeer got their name.

"He thinks someone might be watching," Lan'ti ignored the fight his uncle was apparently enjoying and moved on to things that mattered to the group on the hill. "Otherwise he wouldn't ask us to hide. Uh. Does anyone have a way to find people that are hiding? I can if they're close enough, but there isn't anyone up here that shouldn't be, at least not in my range. Which isn't very big."

Sophia shook her head. She could find people if they were in her aura, but that was all. "Not very big" was a good way to put it, which made her think that Lan'ti probably had a similar Ability or training.

In the end, only two people had anything to offer. Ci'an could fly around and look as an owl; it didn't let her specifically find people, but it meant she could look without anyone being immediately aware that she was looking. Most people would just see an owl if they noticed her at all.

Xin'ri couldn't look for people, exactly, but she could set up alarms that would alert her when someone entered an area. They sounded a lot like wards to Sophia, except that they only worked for Xin'ri; she couldn't set them up to alert anyone else. She could exclude people from triggering them if she wanted to, but other than that she was very limited in what she could include or exclude.

She'd had them on the stairs in the ruins but had chosen not to put them farther out since she didn't have a good way to tell the difference between a chicken and something that actually mattered. She'd have needed to exclude all of the livestock and that became difficult quickly as the list of exclusions grew.

It was enough to make Sophia want to dig out the warding diagrams she had in her pack. Unfortunately, she'd never really studied wards beyond the absolute basics, so while she might be able to detect or even bypass Xin'ri's wards, there was no way she could set up one that was better than the ones Xin'ri described.

While they waited, a number of them headed back down the tunnel. Now that it was open, there was no real reason they all had to be at the surface; sure, it took some time to cross the tunnel, but it was still only a few minutes. Scout wanted to check with Othala, Horus wanted to check on the camp, and Lan'ti wanted to see if anyone still inside had any better ideas.

It wasn't until Ci'an started her scouting that Sophia realized she had an option … or, more accurately, Cliff did. He could temporarily materialize monsters, including the Echoes of Sophia, as long as they were part of his Collection. That was what his new Sphere, Vestige Invoker, did. It just wasn't something she'd actually used for anything yet; she forgot he could do it.

Heck, half the time she forgot Cliff was even there. He didn't speak up very often.

The thing was, she was pretty sure he could control all of his vestiges. That meant he could search the same way Ci'an was. The only issue was that too many searchers would be impossible to hide; if they blanketed the area, anyone watching would know something was wrong. An owl in the daytime was bad enough.

Sophia discussed what to do with Dav, Taika, and Xin'ri and ended up having Cliff summon only one vestige: Sophia's main Echo. She was large enough to carry Taika and her pastel coloration tended to disappear in the daytime sky. If she was seen, she was "just" a bird; no one knew what a dragon looked like and she was closer to the size of a bird anyway.

Not that Taika would let her be seen. That was the point of having her carry the chinchilla illusionist. Taika couldn't manage perfect illusions in motion but he could make her far harder to see with Invisible Ink. Taika hoped to be able to hide more than one vestige in the future, but he wasn't sure he could manage at a distance while they moved.

That night, they'd do it more thoroughly. Cliff could summon a lot of vestiges to search; once they cleared an area, Xin'ri could move in and ward it. Eventually, they'd be able to ward the whole area without any threat of someone already being inside the wards.

For now, though, Sophia and Dav just had to watch for anyone coming near the hilltop bunker and hide if they weren't Los'en or Ci'an or Taika. Xin'ri was far too busy warding the bunker itself to help with the lookout. They didn't expect Ci'an or Taika to return before Los'en and the rest of the hunting party arrived, because that would mean they'd found either their enemies or a sign of them. Sophia didn't think they'd be that lucky.

No, they'd find whatever they were going to find at night, when their enemies weren't watching. Even then, though wouldn't all be able to search, but anyone who could fly without lighting up the sky would be able to.

That number didn't include Sophia, naturally. She could send Cliff's vestiges to search but she was far too obvious herself.

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