"What I'm saying," I try to tell them for the second time, even if it makes no sense, even if it is impossible, even if we may be heading to our doom, "is that this bridge wasn't here a moment ago, and now it is."

And it is. It truly is. The bridge stands impressive in its construction—wide and tall, built of the purest stone masonry, every crease and crevice meticulously placed. The kind of structure that would have taken—by my recollection, at least, and I dabble in these sorts of logistics; you don't attend the Prime Middleton University for the Magically Attuned without remembering a thing or two about what it takes to erect a magical tower or two—a score of men working without rest for at least a couple of years.

But it wasn't here two minutes ago. Heck, it wasn't here two seconds ago. When you hear arrows landing not two feet from where you stand, followed by the inevitable drums and grunts—they always come together, don't they?—of, well, I don't really know how many orcs we've angered at this point, but it's certainly more than twelve and, less certainly but more hopefully, fewer than a hundred, you stop questioning the impossibility of the structure now spanning a chasm that mere moments before had telegraphed your and your friends' imminent death. Instead, you become grateful to whoever had the foresight to build it and, oddly enough, to scatter sufficient weapons, potions, and scrolls to survive this tryst.
Rushing to grab the closest spell and power gem, you also may ignore, or try to at least, that figure looming above the mountain before you. That one that feels familiar. Handsomely familiar. With impeccable taste in clothing. Why, you'd even think you'd be comfortable wearing those same robes were you, say, a couple hundred years older.

But this is no time for romance, especially not for odd feelings threatening to awaken something new in you, and however handsome—and he is!—that individual may be, it's better to focus on the moment at hand and use our newfound tools to survive the fight.

After all, it seems time is of the essence.