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She was still tired when it was her turn again, and she did the best she could. It wasn't as well as she'd been carrying, but the slopes were steep and the footing wasn't getting any easier. Rose tired much more quickly, but if even one step gave someone else the time to recover, she'd continue to take it.

Distance: 70/100

This was the last one--she paused to recount, unwilling to have such a rude awakening that there was another one--that had to be put into place. She wasn't sure how she was still standing, let alone still shoving these massive stereos into place. And yet, there she was. Palms flat against as she pushed with whatever she still had left. She felt her feet slip as the stereo put up resistance and had to catch herself from falling.

"We're almost done with these, right?" she asked.

76/100

After a long break, Ernst was back.

The group - and he noticed it was a much larger group now - seemed to have made much more progress here than they had on the other slopes. Well, that was good. It meant there was a lot less carrying for Ernst to do.

Not that it was much comfort. He trailed in their tracks for a long while, and was pretty sure he only ended up catching up because they had to move as a single group, with the speaker in tow. Also, Ernst had been told that he had uncommonly long legs.

There was far less friendly banter than there'd been before, but that was reasonable. They had come a long way, at this point. He took up the mantle of the speaker handily, when he arrived just because he'd had such a long travel up: lifting it again was surprisingly much easier than it'd been before. That was probably just because he hadn't had to lift something in a while, although of course Ernst's arms were already aching with the knowledge that he'd been working on this for probably hours. As he set the speaker down again, he heard a voice: Marisol. Well, wouldn't she know? There'd only been one trail that Ernst hadn't seen her on. "There are definitely four already at their stations, so this has to be the last," he called, dusting his hands off. He needed thicker gloves.

84/100

The familiar faces were heartening along with the stubborn refusal to give up in the new ones. "We're almost there," she encouraged the others as she dug her feet into the snow and rock, hauling the speaker up yet again. "Think of the warmth we can return to, think of finally putting these monsters in their place so we can go home."

To the Prytaneum, but as far as Rose was concerned -- after all this, she could learn to call it home.

Distance: 91/100

Somewhere was wrong: they were definitely getting far. Ernst looked down at the path they'd made on the way up here. They had to be close.

So he looked back up toward where he imagined the emergency power supply might be, buried in snow, and took his shield from his back, where he'd been slinging it like a very awkward, very tall backpack. Time to get digging again, now with a new, frenetic energy. They were so damned close, and the fact that other people were calling out encouragement, too, made him glad. Look: the end was within sight. And Ernst had helped. In fact, he'd helped a lot. Let no one say he was a lazy b*****d. "Forward, people!" he grinned. With so many of them here, he felt rather sure that shoveling a path forward - and shoveling around the power supply itself, surely, which popped up on the horizon like a giant lump in the snow, which it kind of was, at this point - would actually be productive. They could carry that together.

96/100

Ugh-- almost. But not quite, before his hands were burning and he really went back to hunting for that handkerchief. Mal wished he could have finished it-- it'd be nice to finish it. But that was what teammates were for.

99/100

Ernst only nodded vaguely in Marisol's direction, smirking very lightly. He recognized that competitiveness in her, because he was pretty competitive himself. Now that it was done - and again he pushed himself forward to check that the speaker was actually plugged in, rather than just in place (if only there was a way to check that they were still functional - he didn't know how these particular speakers operated, and he wasn't sure whether Brynn was communicating with them through some magical Wi-Fi or Bluetooth or whether she'd put CDs or, somehow, cassettes in them already) - he turned to look for another familiar face. He'd seen Davor helping mostly because of the bright red of that scarf he always wore.

"My man," he said, bumping his elbow against Davor's shoulder with a grin. He'd been here through everything, too. So Ernst refrained from telling him to please carry Ernst down. Besides, there still might be birds out there: Brynn hadn't executed the plan yet. "Let's get you back in Erica's clutches." He'd definitely appreciate that, right? They'd roomed together for a reason?