The group camped under a large brown mushroom whose stem glowed with a strange blue light. Though they weren't exactly stopping for the night, Dyana and Sarah closed their eyes and took a nap, and Corgorin got some sleep too. After all, they had walked all day (or night? Staying so much underground they no longer had a good conception of time) and it was right that they rested before setting off again. Serengal stayed awake to keep watch, and so did Martha and Lisah who started playing a game based on sticks placed one on top of the other and whose goal was to remove them all without making the others fall. Atelas, on the other hand, had sat down in a corner and was writing in a small book.
Rhaegal was gone for a few minutes, but he returned shortly after. Atelas was the first to notice that. "Have you talked to your brother?" he asked him.
Rhaegal nodded. Obviously he and Haku had kept in touch: if he hadn't, after more than two weeks that he, Serengal and Corgorin were underground, their whole family would have run to look for them. Rhaegal and Haku therefore, imagining that the expedition would last a long time, had agreed to communicate with each other every six hours; to do this they exploited the communication device, which still worked despite the depth where they were; moreover, if it ever stopped working, Rhaegal would activate one of his avatars that he had left on the surface. "I let him know we were fine" he replied. When that expedition had started, every time he and Haku got in touch, they told each other everything that was happening above and below the ground, and then their whole family came to say goodbye; but now, after more than two weeks, all they did was make sure everyone was okay. Unfortunately, both were tired and full of commitments, so it was better not to waste even a moment of time. "And you? Are you still writing your diary?"
"It's a journal of the expedition" Atelas replied. "It's my way of relaxing. You know it's important for me to write down everything I see. By the way, does it look similar to you?"
Atelas handed the little book to Rhaegal, who took it and looked at the page that was open. On it was a drawing: a perfect representation of a corner of the cave they had seen before meeting the giant beast. It consisted of a stream surrounded by reed-like mushrooms and propped up by mushrooms about five meters high, the stem of which split into several root-like structures that plunged into the water keeping the mushroom practically suspended in mid-air; immersed in the water intent on ruminating there were some strange pigs that seemed completely covered by extremely hard rocks. Above the drawing was an accurate description of how the group had found these strange animals, their characteristics, their strengths and weaknesses, their behavior, how they had decided to call them 'okpe' (meaning 'moving stone' in Elven) and how they had captured one and inspected it for any substance that could act as a cure, unfortunately to no avail. There were also some hints of the 'scytale' (hissing stone' in Elven), a snake they had found inside that pig's stomach that acted like a parasite, just like the one that caused tumors they had already dealt with. there were even a couple of lines used to describe the tigerman's personal thoughts on this matter, who wondered if those two snakes had a common origin or if parasitism was simply a successful way of life in the depths of those caves. "It's done really well" Rhaegal admitted. "I didn't know you had a talent for writing e drawing"
"I can consider myself quite passable" Atelas said taking up his journal and going back to writing. "I've always wanted to find a way to make my thoughts last longer. It's always seemed like a waste to leave them in my mind. Maybe for you, being a dragon, that's not a problem... but for guys like me, memory almost seems to be made just for forgetting. We remember the important things, but for the rest... pfui. So what about all those thoughts? All that imagination that every day a person creates? Is it right to just let them disappear? I never liked it, so I tried to find a way to preserve them. The first it was drawing; as a child I used my imagination mainly to create landscapes or at most stories, and with the drawings I made them real. Initially I used sticks to draw and created shapes on the ground, then I discovered how to create dye and I started painting on the walls of houses. Over time I became good, and people thought I had a talent, but it wasn't enough for me. I wanted to be able to make words immortal too. Luckily joining the army also meant being able to learn to write"
Rhaegal gave a sympathetic snort. In fact, he couldn't understand such a desire, since dragons were able to remember anything, but for a newcomer this must have been very important. "It's really very nice. Is that why you joined the army? To learn to write?"
"Of course not. Simply, in my country... well, my old country, the eldest son of every family had the duty to serve in the military for at least a five-year period" Atelas answered. "I planned to finish those years and then become an adventurer, but... sadly fate had other plans. The war came, and then... well, you know"
Yes, Carrion had arrived afterwards and had destroyed the dreams of entire peoples. "This is the first time you've told me anything about yourself" Rhaegal said as he sat next to Atelas. "So, do you have a family? Or… you had?"
Atelas let out a joyless laugh. "Once I had an authoritarian but understanding father, a mother who yelled at me every time I forgot to buy what she asked of me, a brother who idolized me and wanted to follow in my footsteps, two sisters who smiled proudly whenever they saw me sporting soldier's armor, a very stupid best friend who had supported me several times during my military service, at least seven other very close friends, about thirty acquaintances, a sergeant who commanded me and who had a strange nasal voice, a house, a village, a country, a rich culture behind me, debts with my gunsmith... I had many things. Now I have almost nothing left... by force of circumstances. All I have left is my younger sister"
Despite the dragons' natural indifference, Rhaegal felt some sympathy for the tigerman. "I didn't know you had a sister"
"A nine-year-old girl" Atelas explained. "She is still alive because she was too young to be sent out to move stones and so they just put her in a building with the other kids to make ropes and other tools. Her young age was her salvation. Now we live together in a little house by the lake. She still asks me now and then why I'm not looking for mom and dad, or our older brother or sister. Don't get me wrong, she knows they're dead: even though I've never told her, she gets it, I can see it in her eyes. But she likes to think it isn't true. She tries to pretend there is one possibility, that one day we will see them again. After all, if one miracle has already happened that saved our people, why shouldn't a second happen? That's what she thinks, what she tries to convince herself to believe"
Rhaegal sighed. "I guess it's difficult" he said. He couldn't imagine what he would do if he lost his entire family and only one of his sisters survived and started acting like this.
The tigerman nodded. "Sometimes it is" he admitted. "You should have seen her when I told her she had to go to your cave and be apart from me for some time. She crouched over and started breathing at an unnatural speed. For a moment I seriously feared she was having a heart attack. She panicked because she was afraid I would leave too. I don't know how I convinced her". He looked at the dragon: "By the way, do you perhaps know how she is now?"
Rhaegal shrugged. "I don't know who your sister is... but I think she's fine. My brother, Darbi, did his best to entertain all the children, even the ones who often stayed to the sidelines. And my sisters did too. Maleficial, Teramon, Finiar... all of them made sure that the children never felt sad, or at least they tried. So... I think you can afford to be optimistic"
Atelas smiled. "That's enough for me. Thanks for your help, really"
"No need to thanks. It was our duty" Rhaegal said, then he let out a soft growl from his throat. "Let's change the subject. Did you say you wanted to be an adventurer?"
"Oh, yes! And since you technically are too, I'm sure you understand why" Atelas said with dreamy eyes. "Being an adventurer means travelling, moving continuously, seeing the world. Knowing new things, undergoing new challenges, experimenting with strategies, learning more and more. It's not a monotonous life like that of a soldier, a farmer, a blacksmith or practically any other profession; no, it's an active, free, unrestrained life. That's why I dreamed of becoming one. I could only explore the world using my imagination, but if I became an adventurer I could really explore it. But now I have a new dream"
"And that would be?"
"Create an adventurers' guild here"
Rhaegal's eyes widened in amazement. "Really?"
"What's wrong? Every city has one" Atelas said. "At the moment we continue to define ourselves as a village, but our population is already at the level of a small city. Once we have solved all the problems that grip us, we will be a city in all respects. At that point we will need an adventurers' guild, so that even the new generations who will be born here will be able to pursue what was my old dream"
Rhaegal cocked his head slightly. It wasn't a bad idea, in fact it was quite a good one, but the location of the village wasn't very favourable. "Adventurers need adventures. Can I remind you that we are in a desert?"
"And can I remind you of this?" Atelas said waving his journal and pointing to his surroundings. "Out there, on the surface, there is nothing. But down here... in these caves... there is a whole world to explore. Endless adventures to experience. These caverns are so wide and deep that ten generations of adventurers probably won't be enough to explore them all. An ecosystem that was closed to the rest of the world for thousands of years and that no one knows about, is now available to us. It is precisely times like this that adventurers are needed"
Rhaegal reflected that Atelas was absolutely right. Those caves were really a world apart, that no one before them had ever discovered; and if indeed they were found everywhere in the desert, then it really would have taken dozens of generations to explore them all. And even once that was done, those caverns provided plenty of materials for adventurers to obtain: minerals, rare gases, animals to hunt, mushrooms with innumerable properties to harvest... once that subterranean ecosystem became more widely known, and people learned how to exploit it, the demand for such things would surely rise. The adventurers would have had a lot of work. "Actually, you may be right"
"Of course I'm right" Atelas said with a smile, then he raised his little book. "This isn't just a journal, it is the very first guide to this underworld. The next generation of adventurers will use these pages to orient themselves below and will follow in our footsteps to explore this place. Each of them will write a new page, and over time the puzzles will be solved, our understanding of this place will grow, we will understand how living organisms work below in detail, and so on. The adventurers will provide us with a new chapter in our understanding of this world, just as they have done countless times before"
Rhaegal smiled. What Atelas was talking about was a beautiful dream. He really hoped he would make it happen. "I guess you are already trying to understand many of the mysteries of this place"
"Of course. I'm still an adventurer at heart, so it's my job to question myself about what I'm exploring" Atelas answered, then opened some pages of his journal. "Look at this for example. If I've kept count correctly, we're currently about 1.2 kilometers from the surface. I've kept note of the size of the caves at various heights, and from the data I've gathered it would seem that the deeper you go, the more water there is and the bigger the caves are, allowing for the creation of ever more complex ecosystems and the birth of huge animals like the odontotyrannus... oh, that's the beast we shot down earlier, that's what I called it. It means 'earthquake foot' in the tigerman language; sorry, but I was sick of always using Elvish for names. However, my theory is that the deeper we go, the more the caverns will become enormous, until we come to a giant underground lake that extends throughout the desert and that..."
Rhaegal and Atelas stayed for a long time talking about the various theories they had about how this bizarre underground ecosystem worked and what could be the explanations for the various phenomena they had seen. And the dragon had to admit that the idea of hundreds of people of future generations going down into those caves and exploring asking questions just like they were doing was something that he didn't dislike at all.