She turns to her right, where her pheripheral vison suggests the wall opens out.

Oh. I'm up a fucking mountain. 

I had better get down from the mountain, then. This looks like a nice death by exposure within a half hour. 

She looks down, then immediately regrets that life choice. 

Yeah. No problem. I got this. Just don't fall on the giant ice spikes. Simple. Straightforward. Refreshing. 

One minor miracle later, Evenstar gets down the slope without breaking her neck.

The pools below are, at least, very pretty. I wonder where I am. Terraria? Minecraft? Some other tile-based game? I don't think Minecraft usually comes with hot springs...

The rest of the terrain looks relatively straightforward as long as I don't fall into a snowdrift or break my neck slipping on ice. Well, I am Canadian; I have practice. 

The rest of the crossing is indeed more straightforward. 

Okay, I made it to the pools. Now what? There are wild sheep here, but I'd better not approach them; the last thing I want is to be gored by a ram as the permanent end to my very weird day. 

A glimpse of stonework catches her eye.

Wait, what's that over there?

Some sort of abandoned shelter...? A sign of inhabitation is good, at least.

In the center of the "shelter" there's a long, perilous-looking staircase that descends into the darkness. But she has little to lose and much to gain - there might even be people in there who can explain what's going on.

She screws her courage to the sticking point and carefully edges down the handrail-less spiral staircase, inches from a several-story drop. It is NOT A FUN EXPERIENCE. She sticks as close to the central pillar as she can.

Who designed this place?

Her courage is rewarded with a short hallway at the bottom with a fallen-open door. It looks like whoever was here could have just stepped out for a few minutes.

No sense in coming all this way to chicken out now. She goes to see what's through the door.

Behind the open door...

A small room with four beds, two on each side, each of which has a small chest next to them for holding gear. There is an entirely too literal lava lamp, which somehow isn't frying her. 

Okay. This is totally normal. Shelter. This is shelter. I should be relieved. I'm relieved, right?

Something buzzes gently against her hip, but she's so caught up in the find that she barely notices. She's going through the chests for anything left behind by the former occupants.

The chests are both better and worse than she expected. Potatoes, stale biscuits, and a small scattering of green gems. Which could mean anything. 

Evenstar closes the door firmly behind herself, presses her back to it, and proceeds to have an intense anxiety attack for the next... while. A while. She doesn't want to risk the stairs back up and she doesn't want to go wandering around the country alone. Her best hope is to eat stale biscuits, stay put, and wait. Someone will come by eventually... right? Right. 

I'm going to be okay. Probably. Maybe. I think. I really really hope. 

Right about then, a black-haired girl appears on the same mountainside. She's wearing a lightweight, ankle-length, blue skirt, and a deeply v-necked purple t-shirt. 

I don't remember heading toward the mountains, Sable thinks. Why are we in a cold-looking mountain?

A kinda square looking mountain, Ruby adds. All blocky and cubic.

Hailey cuts them off. Memory discontinuity or spatial discontinuity. We weren't in the mountains. Now we are. Next actions?

She looks down at their feet. They're standing on a snowy ledge.

Before we freeze or fall?

The obvious next step is down, Maya notes. We climb moderately well. She looks out at their surroundings.

And we appear to be near a hot spring, judging by the lack of snow surrounding those pools and what might be steam wafting up.

They start hiking down the side of the mountain, carefully finding the shallower parts of the slope as they go. It's a little tricky in a few spots, and they slip a few times, but they regain their footing easily enough.

Eventually, they reach the pools. Steam is visibly wafting up. 

This was a hell of a hike. We deserve a rest to warm up our feet before we continue.

Sable pops her shoes off and hikes her skirt up and soaks her legs in the warm water.

Ahhhhhhhhhh...

While she soaks, she investigates the weird, almost phone-like vibrating feeling she had earlier. It almost felt like it came from her pocket, except she doesn't have pockets in this skirt. She reaches in and pulls... a book? From the pockets she still doesn't have?

She has an inventory. That's fucking cool. So what's up with this book and why was it vibrating?

It opens to a chapter titled "First Steps", and a diagram. She pokes the bed icon on a whim, because wow she'd sure love to be back in her cozy bed right now. The pages of the book flip of their own accord, turning to a set of instructions.

Y'know, Hailey interjects, Maybe the author's onto something? This hot spring feels great, but we're burning daylight, and it would be really smart to find shelter before it gets dark. Let's fuckin' go, dork.

Sable shakes her head sheepishly and gets out of the water. Hailey's right.

She dries herself off, puts her socks and shoes back on, and heads down further, looking for anything that would make a good shelter.

Well. That sure looks like it could be shelter. She steps inside the weathered-looking stone structure and makes her way down the spiral staircase with its conspicuous lack of safety features.

Wait, are those footsteps coming down the stairs? 

They are.