The ascent from the bitter salt floor of the Salt flats to the granite rim of the Quarry climbed six hundred feet over two miles of dangerous, unlit switchbacks.
The road had been cut into the sheer dark rock face seventy years ago by the early mining syndicates, paved with rough-dressed limestone blocks that had worn smooth and slick under decades of heavy freight wagons and acidic sulfur drizzle. On the left rose the upright, weeping rock wall of the mountain, scarred with old drill holes and weeping ribbons of iron-red water. On the right fell a sheer, three-hundred-foot cliff edge into the jagged scree beds of the lower gorge. The moisture in the air was freezing. It condensed on wool sleeves in tiny beads of sulfuric grease that stiffened the cloth until it rasped like sandpaper against the wrists.
Len Vey walked in the center of the transport column, his boots moving with the steady, rhythmic deliberation of a courier who had learned his craft on the high passes of the Tern Road.
His Level 5 baseline improvements worked in quiet harmony to keep him upright. - Surefoot caught the tiny slips of his boot-heels on the damp lime slime, re-centering his balance before his muscles could strain. - Long Breath paced his oxygen intake in the thin, sulfur-heavy air. That kept his chest muscle from seizing despite the steep twenty-degree incline. - Road Sense carried the deep shakes of the mountain through the soles of his boots, warning…
