As they climb, the sandy soil is hot and thick with coarse plants, wearing harsh on softer garments and softer skin.  Tak and Alphonse are able to reach the rocky lip of the hill first, and it's only moments before they realize that the ground forms no hill... rather, it is a caldera.  The slope begins steeply, then gradually smooths its way down to a lake of fog into which the knotting, contorting trees disappear down into the fog below, their thick ropes of moss and fines like dead ships' ropes into a gray sea.<br/><br/>Hallen sits at the edge of the ravine and stares down.  "There's an island... down there," she manages between panting breaths, sweat mixing with black dirt and sand and smearing her shift, her face and arms.  "The fog... it wasn't there, last time."  She unties her waterskin from her belt and takes a long drink, then reseals it.  She stares into the gray pool, and as they watch they can see the shimmer of black water as the fog parts.  "I can feel her down there," she says angrily.  "She's watching us."  She wipes her face with her forearm.<br/><br/>As if in answer, the fog lifts, parting as with a breeze, though the oppressive heat of the swamp doesn't abate.  The noise of the cicadas fades, the twitter of frogs becomes silence.  There, a ring of water forms a hundred meter-wide eye, blue as the sky it reflects, and the iris in the middle is a black and green island, perhaps thirty yards across, dotted and irregular.  Nothing moves along the dark rocks, and trees and scrub brush.<br/><br/>Hallen checks the others, then begins the walk to the lake's shore.<br/><br/>They've soon reached the banks of the still water, where the soil and sand are glossy and black flecks of smooth obsidian.  From the trees on the island, effortlessly and without warning, steps a figure... long, graceful, and humanoid.  It is a woman, as expected, standing just over a hundred feet from where they stand.  She is naked, her long, supple limbs held in a posture that is neither aggressive nor ashamed-- she seems defiant, fierce.  Her hair is black as the volcanic soil, a wild mane parted on her head and down her back to her ass, a matching triangle visible at this distance between her legs.  Firm muscled, well-framed and strong, and with the pert full breasts that hint at vigor and youth, she stands purposefully visible to them and waits.<br/><br/>Lifting one arm, they can see that her hands are tipped with large, fierce talons-- but she does not speak.  She holds her hand as if lifting an invisible orb for their display, and water bubbles and rushes in the lake between where she stands and the group on the shore, as of a great mass suddenly rise to the surface.  The woman lowers her arm, then, and the porous stone of the lake bed breaks the surface of the water, forming a bridge across to her.  She curls her hand in a beckoning gesture, looking on with stoic gaze.  Her face is beautiful, a match for her body, but she shows no recognition at all of Hallen or of the others, except to beckon them closer.