The 'helicopter' was a huge, ungainly thing, a metallic box with a glazed, rounded nose and a pair of vast fans sitting atop it.

Grimm gaped at the sheer size of the metal monster. With its battered, parti-coloured walls, the thing looked like some enormous, angry dragonfly, ready to wreak revenge on some giant who had been so foolish as to swat at it

"What in the Names is this thing, Grimm?" Drex pulled at the mage's sleeve. Her eyes were wide, and Grimm could not tell if this was from horror or astonishment.

"I think it's a Technological flying machine." The words sounded ludicrous, as if he were announcing the arrival of some mythical beast whose name was used to frighten recalcitrant children.

"I've always wanted to fly," the girl said, with a wistful sigh, and Grimm now knew her expression had not been one of fear, but one of eagerness.

Xylox regarded the machine with a faint sneer on his lips, although, of course, the senior mage was too proud to show anything as unmanly as fear or uncertainty on his face.

"Gentlemen and lady, your carriage awaits," Foster said, his voice muffled by the strange mask over his face. "Don't worry; it's pressurised, heated and air-conditioned when in flight. A few moments more of exposure to the high altitude shouldn't cause any further trouble, and that's all the time it'll take me to load the prefab sections and other gear into the chopper's equipment hold. We should be taking off in four or five minutes, assuming I get clearance from Control."

Once again, the Technologist used words far beyond Grimm's ken, but the mage took it that Foster meant the adventurers would not suffer any recurrence of what he thought of as the 'Mountain Sickness,' an ailment that had nearly been the end of them.