"The two I speak of are my mate and eldest daughter. The last any of us had heard of them was that they had arrived safely at the nest of our sister tribe to the east, and shortly after then was when we stopped receiving communications from them." Raldel pulled a map out from a shelf on the wall and rolled it out onto the table, pointing to a spot far to the northeast. "This is where they should be. We don't know if the empire is there yet or not though."

"I appreciate your offer, however i'm not sure I could allow you to go there. A small team of sentries would do just fine to go and find them, and you will be to busy to go anyway. Once you are well I expect to send you with a team to Tel Nof to hopefully convince them to join forces with us." Just as Raldel finished speaking, Opal and Onyx walked back in. 

Opal greeted his father curtly, and shot a dirty look at Tarentek before taking his place beside Raldel again. Onyx still had her shawl tied up over head so it created a hood, and her face was shadowed as she stood off to the side. "Nice of you to rejoin us Onyx," Raldel started. "Where did you go this time?" He didn't seem to actually be interested in what she would say next, and she knew that he wasn't. This was a normal thing for them, her father would absentmindedly ask her this every time she ever had to be brought back, and then the topic would be ended before she had even gotten past saying she was at the sea.

She decided to play it differently this time. Instead she kept silent, at least until her father prompted her again, and even then she started with, "I'm not really sure. I was near the sea, but I didn't go down to the water like I normally did. Instead I stayed up the shore, by some of the ruins and the road that went through them." She realized that she still had her shawl in a hood and took it off to fix it. She didn't realize until she had got it back on right that Raldel was waiting for her to say more. "Oh, sorry I thought that was all you were going to listen to." 

Opal rolled his eyes and shot another look at Tarentek. "Well? What happened there?" 

"Nothing, at least for a while. Then I heard something approaching and saw some of the creatures that were part of the empire. I think they were scouting out the roads and searching for things to scavenge." Onyx finished and waited in silence for their responses.