Earlier than normal on one day, Tasha called for a stop for the evening. Everyone jumped down to the sand and began unpacking their tents and dinner gear. I wasn't sure at that point how much trust I rated in their group, but this sort of surprise put me on high alert.

"Is everything okay?" I asked her casually as I walked over. "We're stopping pretty early today."

"Actually!" she said with a smile and raised eyebrows. "I am stopping here to show you something. Are you game for a little hike?"

She clapped her hands as if she were in for a treat.

"I, uhm... sure?"

I'm sure I sounded as wary as I felt, but she just muttered, "great!" and headed off to grab some gear.

"What are we going to see?" I asked her when she returned. My Agent gestalt-intuition didn't sense any menace in her, but I might've mentioned not liking surprises.

"You'll see, you'll see. I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise."

I sighed. What, can she read my mind now? Wouldn't that be troubling.

We headed off toward what appeared to be a rock formation in the distance. As we drew closer, it became more of a spire, and against the darkening sky, I could swear I saw some sort of glow around it.

That was certainly a surprise; my avatar wasn't supposed to have much Mana sensitivity. Was I imagining things from a trick of the light at sunset?

"Do you see it?" Tasha asked me suddenly.

"The spire... or... the glow around it?" I asked her uncertainly.

"Ah, good!" She clapped her hands again, smiling delightedly. "Then this trip won't be a waste of time. Let's see..."

After a short hike up the base, we walked up to what looked like a blank wall, upon which Tasha placed her hand. Her eyes closed, and she seemed to just stand there, feeling the warmth of the rock for a few moments.

The whispering, humming sound was the only warning I had before something that looked like purple, glowing vines spiralled out from her hand in an interlocking pattern of a complexity I couldn't hope to follow. Lavender flowers seemed to sprout all around it as the vines set into place, and a scent I couldn't quite place filled the air around me.

I jumped back, not expecting to be able to see Mana channelling so clearly. At least, I had to assume that's what it was, from descriptions I'd read. She looked at me sharply.

"You could see that too? Interesting. Hmm. Unexpected..."

Tasha was muttering to herself under her breath like a Carad scientist making notes on a particularly interesting experiment.

"Sorry," she continued finally. "Well, let's go."

I nearly had "go where" on my lips, but when I looked back where her hand had been a moment before, there was a rough cave entrance.

I followed her down.

A dim, lavender-tinted glow came from further within, reminiscent of the strange halo I'd seen around the spire.

Relian eyes were theoretically better at the dark than Carad eyes, and I could guess that it gave me a slight visual advantage in the cave, for keeping my footing. But it was something more than that. I felt as though it was not quite light I was seeing by. A shape ahead in the cavern path widened into a full cave floor, where my next surprise awaited me.

"Whoa... incredible," I whispered, suddenly distracted enough by the sight to forget about my worries over her motives.

The crystals themselves were beautiful enough. They lined the walls of the cave in a motley assortment of shapes, colours, and angles. But a fey light shimmered from them in waves, and I was pretty sure I was seeing more in them than a shape-shifted Agent-Relian should have.

I could hear something, too, like a sound just barely on the edge of one's hearing, so I strained my ears to listen. Almost like a young child singing innocently in the background. The harder I strained to hear it, the louder it became.

Tasha was smiling at me. "Only a little bit of Mana channelling, she says."

Her face swam back into focus as I pulled myself away from the siren song of the cave walls.

"What is this place?" I asked quietly.

"This," she said in a quiet whisper, herself, "is the Holy Cathedral of the Initiates. One of the largest veins of Tear Stone on Casilan."

"What?" I whisper-yelled in shock. "This... but..." I chuckled a little. "I thought it was a building in Relia or something."

Her eyebrow shot up. "Oh? So you've heard of it, but didn't know what it was. I'm more surprised that you've heard of it at all. It's one of the closest secrets of the Initiates."

I was too bewitched by the ambience of the cave to berate myself for slipping my facade for a moment. These were things I shouldn't have known. Ahh well, too late to take it back.

I closed my eyes and listened to the singing, which seemed to be coming from inside me as much as around me. The waves of lavender light were visible even with my eyes closed. It calmed me so that I could proceed with a level voice.

"All right," I said slowly. "Stop me if I'm belabouring the obvious: why would you invite me into this secret and holy place? I'm just some mercenary you hired."

"Would you believe," she said, turning to me with the same smile she'd used to concede the Ka Te match, "that as an Initiate, I saw promise in you, and wanted to scout you?"

I stared at her, deadpan, for a few seconds, waiting for the laugh to crack from her joke. But it didn't come.

"No. I don't believe that," I said finally, turning back to the crystals.

She shrugged.

"Well, believe what you will. Oh! That's interesting!"

Tasha was pointing at my BPG pendant, which was glowing slightly. I'd never seen it do something like that before, and considering what it was, and what it did, that was alarming. Had a BPG even been taken into a place like that before? The concentration of Mana in that place must've read well above any charts I'd seen.

Instinctively, I reached down and cupped it in my hand, and it began glowing even more brightly. Images flashed through my mind, places I'd been, and people I'd been, long ago. Some of them I couldn't remember ever being. The intimate moments of strangers who were somehow me. Centuries of loneliness and strife, of sacrifice. Pain.

I'd never experienced anything like it, and I'd never heard of an Agent experiencing such a thing. A less strong mind might have gone mad.

The cave, seemingly more alive than ever before, perhaps even trying to comfort me, began to sing. Audibly this time, judging by Tasha's reaction. Her glance was darting around, as if surprised by what she saw in the cave around her.

I wrapped my hand around the pendant and... Felt. The unstoppable force of the cave's Mana met the unbreakable dam of my hardened Agent heart, and the dam lost.

As if on cue, a hazy image of a young child appeared in the centre of the cave floor, apparently the source of the song. The child looked familiar to me, like a word on the tip of my tongue. If only I could remember. I mentally pushed harder...

Off to the side, through the waves of light, I could barely see Tasha staring at me with her scientist face again, as if she were taking notes on this strange specimen she'd found.

The cave was awash with colour and song, and I let its tides pull me away into peaceful oblivion until Tasha gently led me out into the cold desert night.

We sat together silently on a rock ledge outside the cave for a long while, just staring out into the moonlit dunes, listening to the sound of the sand on the chill wind, and looking at the distant lights of the camp. The residual heat of the rock from the harsh, sunny day, warmed us from below.

Finally, I broke the silence.

"What the heck happened in there? Was that what you were hoping for?"

Tasha looked over at me, and she stared at me quietly for so long that I started to wonder if she was about to start lecturing me, or just too tired to talk about it.

She looked back out at the dunes and spoke to them instead.

"Every Relian can hear, see, and channel Mana to some degree. Some more than others. You have a certain something about you, and I was curious."

She turned to me again, and I felt that her look was half studying scientist, and half suspicious martial artist readying for a threat.

"The Mana currents flow through and around you in some very strange ways. And part of it has to do with that Tear Stone necklace you have. I would give a great deal to study it."

I bet you would, I thought grimly, shocked back to the present of my mission. I stood up and brushed the dirt from my pants.

"Sadly, neither of us are up for sale," I replied with a sing-song tone and some finality. "Back to the camp?"

Tasha nodded back at me, and we started back down to the base of the spire, but I could feel her considering eyes on me still.