A lot of heavy information ran through Gallus' mind like a whirlwind. He opened and closed his mouth repeatedly, trying to pick one of the many questions he now had, both for Meesei and Colours. Each time, he either thought of another question, or was interrupted by Colours or Meesei.

With Colours' final plea, Gallus somehow looked even more confused. He angled his head to the side and responded. "Your pride? I hardly think your ego is our biggest concern here. We have lookouts for any reinforcements, now, but there weren't any trace of them while we were fighting. Now, what were you saying before? Tell us why else you were with them."

[hr]
Through the jungle, Fendros could see a rustling disturbance from his side of the outpost. As quickly as he could, he drew and arrow and aimed, focussing on the shape moving towards them. He didn't know what it was yet. As it closed in faster, he was about to shout out in alarm, but then the shape took on features he recognised. It was Janius' beast form. A naked and bloodstained Peiter was in his arms, and the pale shape clutching onto his back must have been Sabine.

Fendros slowly lowered his bow. Holding the slack arrow with the fingers of his left hand, he turned to the others on their platforms and cupped his right hand around his mouth. "Janius is back! He found Sabine and Peiter."

Down on the ground, Janius didn't regard Kaleeth or Lorag with so much as a greeting as he approached them, slowing his jog. He stopped, panting deeply in the heat, and lowered Peiter to the ground. "The lift. Peiter is injured."

Now that they were this close to the tree with the lift platform, Sabine slid off Janius' back and once again knelt down by Peiter. Just because his bleeding had stopped, it did not change the fact that he was heavily injured. She brought about more healing magic to soothe his pain and tried to help close the injuries, but there was only so much that she could do about silver. By this point, she was not crying any more, but the previous tears were still on her face and her eyes were heavy-lidded with fatigue. She managed to give him a desperate smile.

Fendros had already rushed over to the winch to lower the lift platform, but Janius had taken his own initiative and climbed up the tree in beast form. Upon reaching the top, he was able to help Fendros to the point where Janius was doing most of the physical work. Once the lift was lowered, Janius returned to Imperial form and made his way to find Meesei as soon as possible. Fendros was left to lift Peiter and Sabine up on the platform once they had helped him onto it.

[hr]
After finding nothing in a cursory search of one of the sleeping huts, Tzirret had decided to rush over to storage hut as it was the next nearest. His heart sank as he looked across all the potential hiding spots. Sighing, he leaned his spear against a wall and tried a barrel. It was full of grain. He then tried a crate. "Rhazii!" He called out, emphasising the vowels as to summon them. The crate was full of medical supplies and spare clothes. "Newt!" The next crate had nothing, and the next, and the next. "Rhazii!"

Then there was a small muffled sob from the other side of the room. Tzirret's ears perked up. He didn't know how he didn't spot the blankets haphazardly tossed around on that side of the storage room, but he knew what that sound was. Within another minute, Tzirret had both children, holding them by the hands. Rhazii pulled towards his mother and cried out as soon as he saw her on lookout. Tzirret didn't let him go so as to prevent him from falling off, but he did lead him to her. "Rhazii is unharmed," Tzirret said simply before leading Newt to the main hut.