"It's not too much effort if you want to. You sure earned it."

"Huh, how long should it take to make the round trip?"

"I should be back within an hour."

"Huh, I guess we can wait until you are back to ponder more deeply about our situation or give explanations about capabilities."

"Too bad we forgot to film last night's orgy."

"How do you jump to that train of thought?"

"We can film fuck videos as one of our capabilities."

Taharqi laughs. "Maybe we should have another one later. Do you want me to do anything, show you guys anything, before I go meet my maker?"

Shrug. "I don't know, but maybe Henry can be the expert pessimist again."

"Thanks, I so enjoy being that. How long should we wait for you? What should we do if you don't return? If we start building or creating lights around the place will it get attention?"

"If I don't come back in two hours something seriously wrong has happened—really, even an hour is an exaggeration, but let us be safe—but." He sticks his head out of the tent, looks around, then points towards the east. "See that tall slab of black rock over there, with the purple smoke around it? I should come from there, with Sendhei."

Peers.

"Alright. If something happens we will try to leave some signal either here or there for you to find, okay?"

Gabe returns, alleviated and washed of hands. "So, lets have breakfast?"

"I was preparing some food for you here," says Taharqi, gesturing at the meat. "Make yourselves at home." And he gets up and starts walking out.

"You are great," Gabe says going for the food without a second thought.

"Good luck?"

"Thanks!" he calls. Then he's at the edge of the tower this base is built atop of and he tips forward—

—lets himself fall, headfirst—

—there's a loud crack from the ground a second later and there is absolutely no way he survived that, but if he did the roar of the panthers that can be heard, probably startled by the sound, limits the prospects of survival even further.

Henry does look over to confirm that, yes, that is a dead barbarian. "I should've offered a neater way of offing himself."

"Yikes, I will eat my breakfast before taking a look at that."

"Fair."

They have breakfast and then make an inventory of all they brought with them. Definitely not "travel to a new world" sort of variety, but even everyday stuff a Gabe uses will be quite versatile. Thomas's area was construction. Henry's was electronics with a focus on wifi mesh networks. They might not kick off the information age by themselves, but they sure have a lot.

They check the replication crystal. No visible forms inside, but it's growing. Henry doesn't know how to feel about that.

It takes only a bit over fifteen minutes before there is a barely-visible flash of light from the obelisk Taharqi pointed out.

Good? Good. By that point they have already consumed their breakfast. Thomas is making a toothbrush for himself while accounting for all materials they brought in or have stored as crystal-data.

And in a couple of minutes Taharqi has walked back to the ruins and is climbing the rope ladder. "Hello! This is Sendhei, and these are Henry, Gabe, and Thomas. I hope I have not butchered your names."

    The man that followed him up the ladder is shorter and slightly lighter-skinned than he, but similarly naked and shaven everywhere except for a short mohawk of light brown hair along the middle of his scalp. He's also thinner and has a wirier build, defined as a dancer's body instead of built for combat and survival like Taharqi's. "Nice to meet all of you," he says, hopping the last step of the ladder up and into the tent and smiling at them.

"Likewise," Henry says."You pronounced it fine, Taharqi.'

He is the only one wearing anything (underwear).

Gabe makes no effort to pretend he is not staring. "Hi."