Chapter Twenty-Nine

"You… don't know?" Coran repeated, for two reasons. First, he had never heard an Asura ever use the phrase, and wanted to make sure he had heard correctly. Second, that was not the sort of answer he wanted from a rather important mission.

"The survey team reached another cavern, this one not on our charts." The Krewe chief said with confidence she did not feel. She actually was of the Headmaster's mind… as most Asura really. Not knowing is the greatest sin of them all to her kind. "Attempts to scan or explore this cavern proved fruitless."

"What measures were taken?"

"Our remote exploration unit was lowered into the cavern, and upon entry we lost all communications with it, both transmitting and receiving. A booster beacon in an attempt to restore the connection also failed. We even attempted an arcane scrying…" The Krewe chief rubbed her hands nervously before finishing, "The attempt… appeared to… destroy his mind. He is completely catatonic, unresponsive, wailing in what we think is some form of language, but certainly nothing in our or the S'sleth records."

Coran bowed his head, issuing a short prayer to his patron goddess to the unfortunate soul. When he focused his attention back on the Krewe Chief, his query was blunt. "Theories?"

"None, Headmaster. I… I am sorry."

There was a long pause as Coran processed his options. The Seer wanted something in that cavern. He had to find out what, but certainly wasn't going to send another survey team, especially since it must have tormented the current Krewe to no end to have to report to him with anything less than an extensive tome of minutia.

This naturally led to one option.

"Has the cavern's general location been extrapolated?" He asked.

Finally, the Krewe chief had a concrete answer to provide. "Yes sir! I mean… up to the event horizon at any rate."

"Find the shortest connection point between this cavern and that one, and prepare Vekk's drill for another go." He said, standing up as he made his point, "I will lead a manual exploration mission myself, on a volunteer's only basis."

"Headmaster!" The Krewe chief exclaimed, "You can't possibly!"

"I can't send anyone else, Chief Amirra." Coran responded, "But I also cannot just stand idle. So I will go myself. Now, if you don't mind, I need to assemble my team."

"You have one already."

Coran's eyes bugged momentarily then turned about to cautiously decline. "Devona, dearest… I don't think that's wise… you've already had a close call with the Seers."

"And it's because of that that I should accompany you." The warrior asserted quietly. "I have an idea of what to expect. Whatever is down there can destroy a person's mind. Perhaps you don't fully understand the peril."

She hugged herself then said, "I… have to go. I… have to find the place that the Seer took me, and I would bet the king's fortune that it's somewhere inside there. Please… I have to know as much as you do."

"You will learn soon enough that your place is to say, 'yes dear', and let the woman in your life have her way." Mhenlo's voice carried from the west hall, his inflection sympathetic. "This is true be you king or pauper."

Coran eyed Devona, who shrugged coyly. "I ran into them just after getting dressed. I told you you had a team already."

Coran took the opportunity of his arrival to delay his response to Devona's request, as the warrior's comrades filtered in single file. "I must say I'm rather surprised to see you here. I had assumed that my… discussion… with my father's envoy would have led to a degree of tension."

"Oh, it did." Cynn assured. "The King was furious, from what I have been told. But he can't order us like he does his common soldiers, and we figured if he was able to ignore us in direct audience, he probably wouldn't notice us leave."

At that point, Aiden interjected. "We weren't completely right. The Ascalon Army has formed a blockade if you will at their end of the tunnel. We were lucky to convince them to let us through."

The Headmaster ran his right hand through his hair, nodding dejectedly. "Yes… of course. Because gods' know I need more than one pressing problem on my ledger. Nonetheless, my father is going to have to keep himself busy for a short while longer." He eyed Devona's guild, and said, "There's no knowing of what is inside that cavern. You believe you're prepared for that?"

"We've seen some pretty harrowing things in our lives." Cynn replied confidently. "I'm not sure what can rattle us at this point."

Vekk added his voice to the plans. "You'll also need someone to process the information we gather… and also retrieve whatever information the remote units have if we find them. I think you'll agree I'm most qualified for the task."

"And I know full well that you can't go anywhere without causing trouble, so I'm obligated to join you as well." Yue declared.

"I'd dare say this is becoming a habit." Coran noted at the return of some familiar faces.

Cynn flipped her right hand, and said, "Well, we're a package deal, I suppose. You get one of us, you get all of us. Right, Devona?" She quickly found herself right in front of Devona, dropping a friendly hand on the warrior's shoulder, and a warm grin.

"I suppose so…" Devona answered warily.

"Are you going to be alright?" Cynn asked in a whisper. "Don't be too proud to fall back if it gets to be too much, okay?"

The elementalist was showing uncharacteristic concern and it unnerved Devona slightly. "I… I will…" The warrior whispered back.

"Good. Now, let's go exploring."