Safety. The aura of the crazy guy with the spear was not felt and Targovishte let out a sigh of relief, her knees going weak so that she sat on one of the large pieces of stone that littered her Wonder.

She closed her eyes for a few minutes, trying to get her breath back, and to calm her pounding heart. It…that had been horrible. And she had wished that she had friends with her…or was better at just fighting...or bluffing. Or had some kind of weapon that had a longer reach…

Her eyes remained closed for nearly five minutes and by the time Targovishte had opened them, she was feeling a lot better. Clamer. With a clearer head. She looked out at the rubble which was her Wonder and just…felt…

Bitter. Disappointed. A whole lot of bad things. This was why she never came up here to visit…it just wasn’t worth visiting. It was a ruin of proportions that she had no idea how to fix. Glancing out towards the deep ravine that separated her Wonder from Belmont’s, she felt…jealous. She had always been jealous.

Belmont had structure...

…Structure that was filled with pitfalls and traps, sure…but still. He had things he could fix. Things that were obvious how to fix and not just…

Rocks. So many rocks.

It didn’t…feel like she had any reason to want to come up here…she couldn’t rebuild a whole fortress…which was what she had decided that this had been. It was a ruin. A legit ruin. Rubble and cracked foundations…

There was no rebuilding something that she couldn’t even figure out the true shape of it…there was no point in being up here.

Everything was dead. Ruined. And she was just one girl with no ability to build anything.

There was a strange, high pitched chirping sound that finally broke through Targovishte’s thoughts and melancholy, and she paused, looking around for the source of it, and seeing a bright green…bug on the stone in front of her, singing up a storm.

Huh.

Living things had come back to Targovishte? Sure it was just a bug…but…it couldn’t have just…come from Belmont…well, maybe it could have if it could fly, but…the bridge between the two Wonders was still a broken mess…just like Targovishte but…

If there were living creatures here…well.

Maybe that was some incentive to start trying to figure out how to do something...

She would never have real shelter here…not with a ruin but…maybe…

Targovishte gave a sigh and hesitated, holding her finger out to the chirping insect and when it hopped onto her outstretched finger, she couldn’t help but smile, just a bit.

She put the bug on her shoulder and began to walk around the ruins, trying to see if anything was able to be figured out. To see if there was any sort of way to mend…well.

Anything.

With the soft, happy trilling of the…well, it kind of looked like a cricket but she wasn’t sure, so, for right now, it would just be a cricket. With the happy trilling in her ears, she began to explore…at least a little bit.

At first, it was all just rocks. Rubble. A mess, just as she thought…but. After climbing over a few large broken columns, she found…what looked like a door. It was large, and looked to have been made of copper…or something like copper. It was green, teal? Like corroded copper. Targovishte hesitated and then pulled on the handle, surprised at the weight of the door. It was…a lot heavier than it looked, but with some effort…and sadly, the loss of her chirping friend as he leapt off of her shoulder, she was able to get the door open.

There was a set of stairs leading downwards, and after a moment of hesitation, Targovishte withdrew a flashlight out of subspace and started down the stairs, shining it so that she didn’t trip on anything.

This was just bound to be more ruins, but as she made her way deeper, using a lighter to light some of the torches placed on the wall, she was surprised to see that…

Things weren’t…so bad down here. Maybe…

She reached out to touch the wall, stumbling over a loose stone and suddenly, the room was filled with light but–

Oh. This wasn’t…this was…

The tunnel went on for a while, joining up with the cavern system that held a good portion of the people living in Targovishte.

The initial stronghold kept getting destroyed. Mudslides, floods. Everything...and the storm cellar turned underground city was finally working as it should be.

There was a tall woman in pinks and greens walking with someone that Targovishte couldn't see, but she heard a laugh and saw the woman gesturing. “So, what do you think, Belmont? It’s the solution that I’ve found. I’m so tired of everything being ruined…so we’ll just live underground and deal with the weather the way we can. The owls will still be in the forest, but our people will be a lot safer under here.”

She couldn’t hear Belmont’s answer, but…she was pleased to really know that she and Belmont had been friends…and had assumed that this was some kind of past memory.

Resting against the wall, Targovishte couldn’t help but grin slightly.

…So her Wonder wasn’t a complete loss. Or…rather it was...but had been for a very long time.

…It was going to be a mess down here and…in the caves…she had to figure out how to really explore these things but…to know that there was more to Targovishte than just plain…truly ruined ruins…

It filled her with elation, and she gave a pleased laugh, the sound echoing through the long hallway.

Okay! It was time to explore a little bit…and then go back to the city. The creep with the spear wouldn’t still be hanging around there, she was sure…and if she could see more of what she had to work with…

Ah! Wouldn’t Belmont be surprised and pleased!