In a nearby nook, an old apartment door opens--the wrong way. A boy peeks his head around the doorway, bright-eyed, and then pads out of an apartment he'd never been in.

A kid wearing thick gloves digging through trash of a more mechanical variety. Scraps of furniture, some kind of machinery, glass and broken plastic.

He glances over to the door and stands suddenly. Minding his own business, yep.

"Hullo," Tav says, stepping into the alley, and there's a sharp ow when he steps on glass with bare feet.

"...Hi? You, uh. Wanna buy some shoes?"

Tav makes a face. "I don't like shoes." 

"Then I guess you're gonna get hurt by broken glass. Bad news, that. Could get infected. Could lose your feet!"

"Psh, that's not going to happen to me!" Tav shakes his foot until most of the glass is gone, and then looks up. "What're you doing?"

"Bacteria care not for your opinion. I'm salvaging. Pretty much nobody cares about this alley anymore so I won't get yelled at probably. You can find good stuff in the junk sometimes."

"Who's going to yell at you?" Glass: gone. Tav hops over closer to where the other boy is standing, and this time not a single shard of glass gets into his feet. "What sort of stuff are you looking for?" He pokes idly at the trash.

Nick quickly stuffs a key picked up from the mess into a pocket. "Never mind that, what did you just do? You did something."

"Do?" Tav frowns. "I didn't do anything."

"You stepped on glass again and didn't get poked. What'd you do to your feet, huh?"

"I think your eyes are wonky." Tav lifts a foot up and pokes at it. "My feet are my feet. I just avoided all the glass, that's all."

...This is a person he wants to be friends with. Mysterious power of some kind.

"If you say so, I guess. I'm keeping all the stuff I find by the way. Useful, some of it. Sellable, the rest."

"What kind of useful? Can I see? Do they do explosions?"

Tav's lack of regard for personal space makes itself very apparent right about now.

In that case Tav gets pushed roughly away. "No explosions. Never any explosions. Topside would just cut us loose and let us fall into the deeps if us shantytowners started fires and explosions."

He picks up a - toy of some kind? Plastic spinny-top thing. "See, this looks electronic. I bet it used to light up or something. I can take it apart and use the lights and wires in something else I bet."

Tav is not bothered in the least when he's pushed, and instead clambers onto one of the piles of trash. "Aw, but explosions are fun! Who's Topside? Is it a big fall? Can I try?"

He doesn't seem too impressed by the spinny-top thing.

"Topside is where the good stuff is. Rich people. But I'm just a shanty urchin, I don't get any of the nice toys, what do I know?"

"Rich is when you have lots of money, right? I don't get it. Why do people always want useless pieces of paper?"

"Not paper, here. Coins. Good solid metal. And money's not something you want for itself really, it's just that everyone knows you can use money to get stuff."

Still digging through the piles. A curved lump covered in grime that might have been part of a refridgerator, once. "Eh, it's metal, at least."

"But that's a really boring way to get stuff. Metal's better when it's used to make cool things, like explosions, or I guess not explosions if you don't think explosions are fun."

Poking around his pile yields nothing interesting on the surface. Tav plops back down, bored already, and decides to try to make the spinny-top thing light up in his hands.

The battery is long dead.

"Well, explosions break stuff. And mostly we don't have a whole lot of stuff to go breaking it willy nilly. There's animals that explode, though. They do it to scare off things that wanna eat them. I think."

Tav fortunately does not know how electronics work. The toy lights up anyway, a stuttering glow coming from all the wrong places, which is gone almost as quickly when he hears about the exploding animals.

"Where can I find those?"

Oooh. Mysterious powers, indeed. "They're called fireflowers! We'd need an airship to go find them. People kill 'em if they get near cities, they don't want explosions around here and all."

"Airship?"

"A ship? Surely you've heard of ships. Unless you're from further away than I thought."

"I'm from Dream. Dream is very far away and it has ships and flying ships and everything. But I've never seen airships in Real before."

He very nearly falls off the pile of debris out of excitement.

"You're from Dream? Another world? Oh me oh my. That explains some things I've been seeing. Sadly I do not have my own airship... I could maybe make one with enough stuff." 

"Is that why you're looking for useful stuff? I can help! But only if I get to fly around too, and look for exploding animals and explore and whatever else is fun here." 

"If you can help me get stuff to build a ship with I'm sure we can come to an arrangement to that effect. I won't like it not being entirely my ship, but what can you do, eh?"

"If I were in Dream I could get you an airship really fast! And I could get my own airship so yours would be yours and mine would be mine and we could race each other! But this is Real and Real is weird."

Lots of bouncing accompanied by a pout. "What sort of stuff do you need?"

"Hmm... If it's gonna be a good ship, lots of stuff. If not... A nice gas bag, wood and cloth and stuff to make the frame, something to make a rudder and ballast controls out of... There's actually kind of a lot to think about to make one proper? I have blueprints back at my house, though. We should go read them."

"Okay! Let's go!"

He stuffs the metal thing into the bag. "Away we go!"

He clambers up to a square hole in the wall a couple feet up. "We go through here. It's one of the wind tunnels to bring fresh air in. It doesn't work very well, but at least we can use it."

Tav climbs up after him.

It's not actually very cramped for kids their size. "Second left, then the first down after a right, and then right again... You know what just follow me."

The chute is made from a curious sort of rock. It's not warm or cold at all and almost looks like it's made of tiny bubbles.

Slightly delayed following, due to him peeking down the other tunnels and looking around and around. Does poking at the rock do anything?

He can collapse one of the minuscule bubbles, letting it crumble into tiny sharp edges. That one was already cracked. "Hurry up, slowpoke!"

A few bubbles broken, and then he catches up.

"Don't poke the floatstone too much. The stuff in these ducts is probably dead anyway, but it doesn't help."

"Doesn't look like it's floating. What happens if I poke all the floatstone?"

"Oh, it's floating. It's just also a wall so you don't really notice. And there's more all around. We fall into the Deeps if we lose all our lift, is what happens."

"We're floating right now?" Tav perks up. "Are we reeeally reeeally high? Can I see?" 

"Once we get to the edge, yes. Do be careful when you do. Right now we are deep in the hive."

More crawling through vents.

Crawl crawl. After a while he starts asking where each vent they pass by goes.

"Other alleys and stuff. They're not actually great for getting around but they're kinda sneaky."

And they finally exit the vents, onto a street. If you can call it that - it has large open sections in between the flat parts where people walk. Rough buildings all alongside, with plants growing here and there. Above and below, too. Stairs, ladders, ropes trailing everywhere. People walking around, not sparing a second glance for two grubby kids. "Here we are, Moche street. You want to see the edge? This goes right to it."

He looks around with undisguised curiosity, and by some miracle doesn't start scrambling up ropes or ladders. "Which way is it?"

"Right this way, honored guest."

Down the street. Past bustling shanty after bustling shanty.

The sunlight is getting brighter... There's open space ahead... Thronged with, yes, airships! Hot air balloons, house-sized stone constructions with engines sticking out, giant arrangements of canvas and wood and rope unloading cargo. "Behold, the weaving district docks!"

Airships! Tav pads closer, ducking around people and cargo, examining the constructions in detail. 

"Ahh, the mighty fleet. Busy busy busy. A lot of these airships are looking for somewhere cheap to dock and do things... We're kind of out of shantytown now, though. If adults look at you funny, back off, okay? They don't like urchins 'round here."

"Why not?" He stops by one of the larger airships and squints at the rigging and the engines. It doesn't look very fast. "D'you want to build one of these? Can we get on board?"

"We might steal stuff! I don't think so. Maybe if we find someone who looks nice and say please and stuff. Be faster to build one maybe. And I want a smaller one. Easier to fly."

"If airships have doors I can sneak us onto one of them," he says with a grin, and looks for any on the airships conveniently out of the way but within his line of sight.

"Oooh. We'll need to leave in a hurry if they find us though. Hmm... Let's go for, that one. Their guard's down."

He points at a medium-size one with a troop of boisterous and possibly drunk adults exiting it.

He gives the ship a once-over. "I need another door too though. Or a mirror. Someplace further away's better, 'specially if we want to get out fast." Maybe near the edge of the docks?

"No mirrors around here."

...He finds a shop's side door, up a flight of stairs and into an alley.

Tav memorizes this area too, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. "Ready?"

"Let's do it. I'll give you a quick tour, and then we get out. Adults will never even know we were there."

Tav grins, and pulls open the door. On the other side is the interior of the airship they'd scoped out. "Where to first?"

"Engine room! Engines are what makes it go."

He leads the way confidently, despite not having been in this ship before.

He keeps an eye out for potential exploration-ruining adults.

None are in evidence. Well, there's the sound of footsteps, but they don't see any.

"Enginessss. Yes!" He looks around eagerly at it all and starts explaining steam power to Tav.

Most of it goes over Tav's head, but he understands enough to get a rough picture of what engines are supposed to do. 

"Is our airship going to have the same thing?"

"Yep! One of the most important parts if you want to go somewhere. Really good engines go faster. It's so cool to see a real, big one like this! Hmm... Next, the lifting gas... And then ballast and rudder and the other controls. Engines, lift, and control, those are the most important bits."

"What sort of stuff do we need? Lots of metal? Can we make one that goes really fast?"

"We can probably go pretty fast... Gotta be careful so we don't fall apart in midair, though. Lots of metal would help... Really we got to see my blueprints later. After we finish the tour." He's wandering the halls again, looking for... Something.

And he's looking for windows so he can peek outside.

Outside on one side is much the same as before. A view of buildings stacked on buildings, ropes and ships here and there.

Out the other side... Is sky. So much sky. Up and down as far as the eye can see, or at least until clouds take over.

The tour continues, with Nick rambling about airship features to Tav.

Sky! He hasn't seen something like that in so long, he wants to be out there--

But here, at least, he needs to make a ship first.

"Why can't we just take this airship," he asks, "and throw out all the adults?"

"...I don't wanna fight marines. 'Sides, that's kinda evil. We're not hurting anyone by looking, but they need their ship, you know?"

"They could always get another one," he says. "What do they need this one for, anyway?"

"To use it to get money to buy food to eat and not die of starvation. I dunno how it works in Dream, but we have to work, here."

"...I s'pose if they need food and if that's the only way they can get food and if they don't like dying then we shouldn't take the ship," he says dubiously. "In Dream sometimes people work but usually they don't like it and it's more fun if I get them to go on adventures."

"Adventures are fun here too... But we have to sacrifice a lot of fun on the altar of not dying."

"People should worry less about dying," he says, as if this were as obvious as the fact that they are currently on an airship.

Nick gives him an unimpressed look.

"What? It's true! People are always worried about dying when they could be worried about other things, like how to have fun and make friends and build airships. Dying doesn't do anything, it's scary in the beginning but it's scary in all the same ways and then you get used to it."

Clearly Tav is as unimpressed with Nick as Nick is unimpressed with him.

"Do you get to come back when you die? We don't."

"I do," he says, "How do you know you don't come back, if you haven't died yet?"

"Well, nobody else has. And I am not willing to make the experiment for myself."

"Well, if it's true, that's one more reason why Real sucks," he says, but his scowl doesn't last long. "Where are we going, anyway?"

"Seeing whatever we can see. Most of it will help in some way. We need to look at the gas bags, though. They're gonna be up somewhere."

That works for him. For now Tav will peep through windows (sky!) and doors and whatever else there is to catch his fancy.

Nick eventually finds the gas bags. They're in a dark, cavernous-yet-crowded room, bulging and flexing leather balloons like a giant clutch of eggs inside the ship. He mutters about control mechanisms buoyancy and centers of balance, more interested in the ship than Tav.

"What do these do? Keep the ship floating?"

"Precisely. They are full of hydrogen! Which really really likes to burn, which is why 'no explosions' is a rule. But it's really light and floats when you bottle it up well enough. You can drop some water to get lighter and go up or let out some hydrogen to get heavier and go down."

"Oooh. What's hydrogen look like? Normal air?" He pokes at one of the gas bags.

"Pretty much normal air, but lighter. People add sulfur so you can always smell it in case of a leak, sometimes. The bags are animal guts with something done to them, I dunno the details."

He decides to test just how light this 'hydrogen' is by attempting to climb onto one of the bags.

"You're gonna puncture it don't do that!"

"It's not going to break!"

And just to prove his point, he backs up a little, hops higher than a child his size should be able to do, and grabs a fistful of leather. The bag is tall, but he's climbed taller things, and a short while later he's positioned himself precariously on the top.

"Ooh, you can see way more from up here!"

Tav is now near the vaulted roof of the ship - there are small gaps in the canvas outer layer, the wooden frame, where he can see out. Nick is mostly looking worried. "Okay so you didn't break it. But there's ladders, you know."

"Who needs ladders when you can do it the fun way?" 

Can he touch the roof if he tiptoes?

Yes, if he clambers across the shifting gas bag nearer to the side of the ship.

Nick climbs a ladder after him. "We've gotta be sneaky, we're yelling, the adults will be super mad if they think we broke one of these."

"Then we just don't break any," he says, but quieter this time, and tiptoes towards the side of the ship, hand still held outstretched towards the ceiling above.

In something that tries to be both a whisper and a shout, "We are doing investigation, not playtime."

He stops. Turns. "What's the difference? Investigating is exploring which is playing."

"Well, investigating is serious business, while exploring is more adventuresome."

"Oh, so investigating like spies. You should've said so earlier." He lowers his voice. "Did someone sneak flowerfires on board so that they'd explode and destroy the whole city? Is that why we're here with all the hydrogen?" 

And he's off again, this time casting about for suspicious creatures or characters, peeking over the edge of the gas bag.

"Ugh. Nothing's going to explode. Fireflowers get kicked off or exterminated- Well, I guess it's possible someone smuggled them in but I don't think so."

This kid has some serious playfulness issues.

He rolls his eyes. "If nothing's going to explode, then what're we investigating?"

"How to build a ship! We're... We're stealing secrets, does that work?"

"Ooh. Secret-stealing. I can work with that."

"Like, right now I'm trying to figure out how they put gas in without letting any out..." He's staring thoughtfully at a bundle of machinery attached to the bag and a truss about halfway up.

Tav stares at it too, but complex machinery can only hold his attention for so long.

"Have you figured it out yet? Can we go steal some other secrets?"

"We gotta do it right. I'm wondering how they measure it... Maybe they just guess." He sounds offended at the idea.

Well, it doesn't look like Nick needs his help here, so Tav will sneak off and look at other surrounding mechanisms.

After all, he thinks, the other boy could be wrong about there not being a secret conspiracy aboard. 

He peeks at the entrance. Anyone eavesdropping nearby?

Well, there's someone walking around on the lower deck. He can hear the footsteps.

He glances back at Nick, and then pads quietly out the door.

...Nick notices and starts running after him.

The footsteps pause, then pick up their pace. Towards him.

He's not going to let the footsteps catch him if he can help it. He sneaks along the hallway, ducking in any nooks and crannies he can find. 

Then, remembering Nick's words about urchins, he plucks at his clothes and changes them into something nicer, looking more like the people at the docks. Not the best disguise, but it'll have to do.

The footstep owner says, "Could've sworn I heard something... Oh well!" They sound a bit clueless, really.

He will stay hidden until the owner of the footsteps is going further away and then sneak in the opposite direction.

Footsteps get quieter and quieter and stop.

Sneak sneak sneak. He's not sure where he's going. Maybe he should've followed the footsteps after all. 

For now he's going to poke around rooms and inside desks. Maybe there are maps! Or blueprints! Or secret correspondence!

Adults can be sneaky too. She was hiding in a small alcove and grabs him by the arm. "A-HA! Knew there was someone currying around. Why you on our ship, little brat?"

Nick makes some kind of frantic hand motion behind this mean lady's back!

Tav has no idea what that hand motion means!

"Ow! That hurts!" (It does, but only a little.) He tries to squirm out of the lady's grip.

"Yes, I meant it to hurt. Teaches you a lesson. You steal anything, brat?"

Nick breaks into a run and body-slams her from behind! Adults are much bigger so she doesn't fall over but the grip should be squirmable now. He shouts, "RUN!"

Tav hightails it out of there. 

It's probably a good idea to leave, now, so he looks for a door and also is Nick following?

Yes, very quickly. And that woman is recovering and starting after them! "Out out out out!"

Out! 

He flings open the nearest door and jumps into the empty alleyway on the other side. "Close it behind you!"

He slams it shut, just around the corner from the lady chasing them. And then he grins. "We got away, at least!"

"Of course we did!"

"High five!" He holds his hand up.

High five!

"I learned a lot too. Or at least I think I did. I want to go fix my plans now. Wanna see them?"

"Sure!"

Off they go. Nick knows his way around the very vertical, twisted streets of this city pretty well.

"My parents aren't the greatest adults. Might be best if they don't see you."

"I don't know any adults that are good. D'you want me to sneak in, then? Or hide somewhere nearby? I'm good at hiding." And this place looks to be full of suitable hiding spots.

"Hiding might be the way to go, yeah..."

He grins, and without further prompting, scrambles onto a nearby water tank, hauling himself up over rusty old rungs until he's out of sight.