In here it’s easier to hear each other speak. The howling winds are quenched to a wavering whistle by the jagged mountain range of junk around them. The quiet noises around them gradually become oppressive. There’s an unsettling loudness to every creak of the towering scrap piles above. Every crunch of plastic shards under their feet. Every word. Every breath. Each rattle and crunch of dislodged trash feels like their trespass is about to be discovered. It discourages too much speech.

For Tamminy, of all of them, there’s a distraction: new materials. As soon as they’re inside she’ll find a small pile of discarded electronics, abandoned just after delivery. It’s not much but it offers the promise of more and better things inside, the chance that everything they’re gambling on is just waiting to be found in this maze. And maze it might be, since the map nailed up nearby shows where different types of scrap are meant to be taken, but nothing about the actual paths leading there. They do, however, have a direction. Something Zandros can draw confidence in as they leave the entrance far behind them. They have to move slowly enough that Tamminy can check that each fresh pile of cars and engines they pass has actually been stripped of viable parts. That gives her protectors more time to check the path ahead, or look carefully over the decrepit skyline that looms over them.

That said, some dangers aren’t so easy to spot. If Zandros sees the glimmer of light from within the scrap, the thin beam of red light at knee height he’s about to stride right through… he clearly doesn’t recognize the lethal danger it signifies.