"What the hell are we supposed to do about this?"

  Our party had routed into the Blasting Mountains between a pair of mountains and trekked through the valley for a few hours. We could not see very far, as the smoke seemed thick in the air that day; we covered our mouths with wet cloths to cut down the acrid sensation of breathing in hot ash.

  We turned south and were surprised to stumble upon a ravine cut across our path. The steep, jagged slope opened to darkness below and it was certainly too wide for most of us to cross. Orwyn had us turn back and we trekked further into the mountain range.

  Unfortunately, the terrain conspired against us further. The path grew rougher, strewn with boulders and gravel to slow our progress, then it turned into a steep uphill on all sides to tire us further.

  We did not feel truly at a loss until we came to the top of that steep incline and found the temperature rapidly rising. The air glowed red and orange and our assumption of imminent lava seemed woefully inadequate.

  Lava settled in a large lake at the top of the hill, stretching as far as we could see even as we walked along its shore. The smoke cleared enough for us to see above us, revealing not a sky but an enormous overhang of rock leaking streams of lava from above. It was obviously impassable, and I exclaimed the absurdity of the situation.

  No one had an answer, but we all at least agreed on the question.

  A short break was called while Orwyn attempted to orient himself with his maps and Borin wandered off to scout the area a little. The dangers presented to us may have been absurd, but for the time being they were stable. A lake of lava was not going to burst upon us, and the rock shelf above would not have formed in such a way if it was likely to collapse. We even felt that we had some safety from the smoke and storms, as the constrained climate of our overhang protected us from the chaotic airs of the volcanic range.

  Borin came back after an hour, satisfied with his findings. "We may as well call it here today. There's a bridge of sorts that has formed over this lake, but it's more exposed and a storm is brewing over it."

  Orwyn nodded his agreement. "This rock feature isn't documented on any of my maps that I can recall. I'll need to see the stars if I want a better idea of where we are. Does it seem safe enough to find the sky at night?"

  "Probably," Borin responded with a shrug. "Really, I'm not sure day or night affects our danger levels much. Maybe the cooler night air is less likely to cause a storm or something, but I'm pretty sure most of the light is from molten rock."

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  The lake beside us was piping hot, a glowing orange that melted everything that approached its center. I could see how, with enough of these lava lakes and rivers radiating light into the cloud of smoke, bouncing around and combining and reflecting off the glassy earth, the area could be bright enough to rival the sun, choked out as it was from above. The problem with finding the sky at night would not be stumbling around in the dark, but the difficulty in finding a clear view.

  Sure enough, as Damien made food and the rest of us constructed our tents for the night, Borin and Orwyn failed to find a view of the sky.

  "I have a vague idea of where we ended up," Orwyn explained upon his return, "but not well enough to navigate us towards the normal north-south corridor from Wystole." He showed me on his maps roughly where we entered the Blasting Mountains - inexact, but he had reasonable confidence in it - and then showed me the various places within the mountains we could be. "Our whole path to this point only bears vague similarities to my maps and descriptions, and we haven't been able to keep a consistent enough pace to judge distance very well. We're almost certainly east of here," he said while pointing at his map, "but beyond that who knows. We could be north or south, we could somehow be dead-on with my estimates. Hell, we ended up at the mountains faster than expected, maybe we ended up going faster through this section, too."

  Our frustrated navigator ranted for quite some time, only putting his maps aside to finally eat and crawl into bed.

  When we all awoke - presumably in the morning but it was hard to tell - we packed up camp and trudged over to the bridge Borin had found the day before. It was an impressive structure, to the point that I had a hard time believing it was natural. The stone reached over the lake in a graceful arc, a ridged top with an underside covered in stalactites as if it was slowing dripping into the lava. The smoke cleared unnaturally in its vicinity, the singular entity in this gods-forsaken land meant to be viewed in all its majesty.

  I looked to Drifter, who had an odd sixth sense for danger, but he had no reaction to the oddity of the bridge. I looked to Orwyn, who even upon seeing it with his own eyes could not connect the structure with any drawings on his maps.

  I was feeling paranoid - it felt dangerous, but it was hard to pin down exactly why. It was a singular crossing point in an unnerving situation, sure, but it was also an absurd place to lay a trap. Even we were unsure how we got there.

  Crossing the bridge was uneventful enough. In its own horrifying way the lake of lava was quite beautiful, especially looking across from the middle of it. The streams of lava from above fell gracefully into the lake, spreading from the impact point until they faded into the flat surface. The black rocks floating in the lava, slowly melting, hardly seemed solid as they gently meandered through the semi-liquid lake.

  The smoke eventually moved back in, however, ruining our view and blocking us from seeing how close we were to the end. We proceeded slowly, not wanting to stumble or trip off the bridge.

  After a while the bridge rumbled under us, causing a sense of panic to run through me. It was not helped by Drifter's comment: "Oh, that explains it."