'Nest, this is Black Caiman calling in. Please respond, over.' I transmitted the message through my watch.
'Good grief, Caiman. We were starting to worry if you have not yet moved on from the previous area.' My watch almost instantly responded.
'Is it because of the sudden worsening of the weather, sir?' I responded with a question.
'That, and there is also another thing, son.' my watch answered. 'We managed to finally get in touch directly with the National Board of Archeologist here with us.'
'Are you referring to the ones who managed to escape from the first village, sir?' I asked again, extremely intrigued by what Commodore Quentin mentioned.
'Not directly, but yes.' my watch blinked and vibrated. 'Those men who escaped filed in an urgent report directly to the Board of Archeologist, and that was when they decided to send their representatives to us.'
'I see.' I responded, just as I suddenly thought if it would also be a good time for Jessica to explain from the beginning about what she had found so far.
'Then, sir. If I may…' I continued, 'I want to ask for the permission to forward what the archeologist with us has to say so far to the board representative for the time being.'
'Of course.' my watch responded very quickly. 'Whenever you are ready, son.'
I quickly told Jessica that Commodore Quentin had currently been in touch directly with the Board of Archeologist. At first, she did not seem to really follow what I wanted to say to her, but when I mentioned that her fellow archeologists who had managed to escape from the first village had sent an urgent report to the board, she understood right away that they had come to assist us in understanding more about the artifacts.
Of course, she was enthusiastic about it the moment she realized that the National Board of Archeologist was cooperating with E.X.T.I.R.T. But then, a hesitation was suddenly drawn on her face. She did not tell me about it right away, and therefore I asked about it, to know if there was something else about it that might be bothering her.
"Is something wrong?" I asked her. "You do not seem to be too happy about it."
"No, I…" She told me as she stammered a little. "I was just wondering if I could actually describe accurately what was carved on the artifacts."
She finally explained to me that since there was no media whatsoever for her to actually send the actual picture of the artifacts to the board, there was still a more or less big possibility that they might illustrate the carvings inaccurately. She also mentioned that even if one symbol was drawn with different spaces within each other, it could end up having a whole different interpretation in the end, and therefore making the whole drawing entirely false.
"So… do you want me to cancel it?" I asked her again.
She was completely silent, and not even blinking her eye as she put her right hand on her chin. As I waited, I was just thankful that my watch did not vibrated and blinked again, asking me if I were ready to forward her description. Fortunately it did not really take too long before she finally gave her decision.
"It is okay. Better to have a temporary interpretation than nothing at all I suppose." She said as she nodded twice to me.
She quickly picked out both artifacts from her backpack. She glanced again to the first artifact for a brief moment before she looked at me and nodded once, giving me a signal that she was ready to give a full description.
'Okay, here goes.' I transmitted the message through my watch.
Jessica began by giving a rough measurement of the size of the first artifact, saying that it had a trapezium shape, and mentioned on where she had found it as well. She then continued by describing the figures carved there, down to the very detail to the point that she also mentioned about the size of the pyramid and stick figures on it.
As for me, I had to admit that I had some trouble keeping up with her description. It made me had to tell her to slow down several times or else I could miss or mistaken some words. At first I thought that it would take only about ten minutes to finish all the description of both of the artifacts. But it turned out that it nearly cost us twenty minutes just to finish describing the first artifact.
Then, she continued right away to the second artifact. As soon as she began describing it, I knew for sure that it would take a considerably longer time than it had been for the first one, especially since there were some symbols in a more specific order. When she was finally finished with the second artifact, I noticed that we had spent roughly thirty minutes in describing it.
If anything, it was not only the detailed description she gave to me to forward it through my watch that made the time to transmit it to be so long. The fact that almost within every few description, my watch always responded with some questions, mostly about making sure if they had received her description correctly significantly consumed more time for the both of us to finish with each artifacts.
That being said however, it also meant that the National Board of Archeologist really took into account every single word on her descriptions for their temporary analysis. Most importantly, Jessica also seemed to be very satisfied with how the information transfer turned out, especially during the description of the second artifact when she raised her tone and described it with a faster pace.
"Well, I guess it went better than we expected." I said to Jessica just as we finished with the second artifact.
"I am so glad that they asked for details." she responded to me with a relieved tone.
'That is all, sir.' I transmitted the closing message through my watch.
'Okay, son. We will contact you very soon when we can figure out something else from the given information.' my watch vibrated and blinked.
'But, sir.' I quickly responded to the message. 'Does this mean that the artifacts can really explain the reason behind the aliens' motivation for invading us this time?'
'To be honest, we are all in fact still in the dark.' my watch responded, after a few while. 'However, we do know for a fact that the indications so far imply that their presences are more concentrated at the spots around the places where the artifacts were found.'
'True, it is something that should be taken into account for this matter.' I replied, not sure on what to respond anymore.
'For the next step, you should discuss with Golden Jackal. I believe he has already received the details for the journey and paths from his Commanding Officer.' my watch vibrated and blinked again. 'And stay on full alert. We have yet to find any imminent signs of a better weather in your current area.'
'Roger that, sir. Black Caiman out.' I ended the transmission.
As I finished the transmission, I glanced towards both Billy and Jessica. Billy seemed to have finished his transmission some short while earlier and apparently just began to have his lunch, while Jessica looked like she was already half finished with her meal. In the end, I decided that I too should take my meal for the moment since it would be inappropriate for me to disturb him in the middle of his lunch. It did not take me more than three minutes for me to finish my lunch, and I approach Billy right away after that.
"Bill…" I called him.
"Yes. You must be eager to know about our next destination." he responded to me.
First of all, he gave me and supposedly Jessica as well a feeling of relief when he said that there would be no more extreme terrains whatsoever ahead of us, stating that all possible terrains to the mountain were supposedly approachable on foot. However, he also told us the main challenges that we would definitely face in our journey.
He said that since there had been no records of the jungle exploration in the past at all, the cartographers had no idea where we could be at that time. Assuming that we were right in the middle of the untouched jungle, we would have to cover no less than five kilometers to the east before arriving at the outer section of the jungle before we would be able to see a large river ending with a waterfall in the far northeast direction.
Then, supposing that there were no imminent threat by then, we would have to follow the outer section of the jungle to the waterfall, with the exact distance of three and a half kilometers according to the map. If we somehow found some sort of a water stream like a small river, then we could also follow it since it would most likely end up on the very same waterfall.
Once we had arrived at the waterfall top, our first challenge would present before us. It was to cross the rushing river to the other side of it. Since the area had not yet been touched with any exploration team in the past, we should forget about the possibility if there could be any forms of bridge, and therefore the only way to cross it was either to swim, or to cross on foot if the depth of the river was shallow enough.
After that, we would have to proceed into another jungle, but a much less vast one to the southeast direction about more or less two kilometers. By the time we finished passing through the second jungle, we would be able to clearly see a prehistoric crater, as well as the mountain peak in the distance. He also told us that there were no more watery areas after the second jungle, except for what seemed to be a pretty wide swamp about one kilometer to the northwest.
"So this jungle really is an untouched jungle…" I said.
"Yes. And apparently not even the Dutch colonizer had explored any part of this jungle in the past." Billy added.
"Do you think that we are in fact indeed right in the middle of this jungle?" I asked him for his opinion.
"I cannot say…" he replied to me, "Although, I am sure that we have already gotten inside pretty deep."
"If only I had kept on counting how far we have been going…" I muttered as I sighed.
"It should not be that much of a problem though." Billy responded. "Worst case scenario, if we have indeed not reached the middle of this jungle just yet, we just have to cover more distance, supposedly."
Somehow I sensed a faint hint of uncertainty from Billy, particularly from his last words. Nevertheless, I completely agreed with what he said about the worst case scenario of our current situation. I was actually rather bothered on what he had told us regarding crossing the rushing river and the swamp, but then again I suppose there should be nothing to worry about as there were no imminent threat before us.
Just then, I suddenly noticed that the downpour seemed to have stopped all of a sudden. At first I thought that it was for real, but after I paid more attention to our surroundings outside the rock where we had taken a shelter in, I realized that the rainwater was still pouring down in the distance. It turned out that it was not only me who realized it, as Billy very shortly commented about it, sensing that something was not right.
"Are you… seeing this Travis?" Billy said with both his eyes squinting to our surroundings with a low voice.
"And hear it clearly as well." I replied to him very quickly, also with a low voice. "There is something terribly wrong here…"