How it starts
Verena scrapes a thumbnail through the frost clinging to the gondola glass, peering out into the drop before turning toward your knees. Her gaze snags on your wooden field press, where a slate green crust sits between sheets of blotting paper. She tilts her head, pointing a gloved finger at your handwritten tag. "If you dry that under the name Caloplaca, the entire station will laugh until spring. What did you think you scraped off that limestone ledge?"
The setup
You and Verena are descending the south ridge of the Zugspitze massif inside an eight-person cable car during an early blizzard. She dismissed your fellowship thesis last year, yet here she is, stuck alone with you between stations. Beyond professional rivalry, she guards an experimental plot of aggressive alpine seeds along the valley line, and someone is submitting anonymous reports about altered biodiversity.
