Askia's final cry of defiance was promptly ignored, for the Beholder felt again an unsolicited attempt at touching his mind. He was already starting to draw on the power of his [i]Ring of Mind Shielding[/i] when his eyes picked up the source of this magic. Jill was pointing at him and whispering. She did have a certain affinity for contacting him more privately... Dyn lowered the magical shields enough to hear what she had to say for herself. First thing addressed was in fact Askia's inability to combat the Beholder, but that had been obvious from the start. Nobody could combat him. Why the captain preferred to have the insufferably wretch in one piece was beyond the Beholder's comprehension (which, obviously, meant Jill was simply being colossally idiotic), but he would humour her for the time being. As for trying to work together, Dyn chomped at the apparent bait, devouring it hook, line and sinker. He responded to the message via the trace magic the spell would allow him.

Jill would feel the alien mind of the great Dyn'yer'zhead reach out to her in turn. The touch was never pleasant to a creature of lesser intellect and comprehension, that being anyone, and it often left them feeling dirty afterwards for one reason or another. Perhaps it was the fact how the telepathic communication of the creature felt like it was creeping inside the head of the recipient, slithering around from one part of the brain to another, gliding on the surface and the tendrils of the garbled words and ideas reaching out everywhere. Nonetheless, the message itself always came through clear. "I already asked her to do so. You can see the results." That was all such a simple transmission spell would allow him. He would explain in more detail later, as Jill would undoubtedly ask. The Beholder was not one known for lying.

The stream pushed against the travel of the group, until suddenly it began circling around them, Dyn having grown bored of fighting the underwater current. They were now travelling in a smaller stream in the middle of it, which actually allowed faster and rather comfortable travel even to those who were not quite as capable swimmers as the natural inhabitants of the elemental plane or magically aided in the process. The structure they were supposed to be mapping appeared to be magical in nature, something that bothered Dyn greatly. It could all be a trap, for all he knew. Any wall could launch forward, any corridor could be an unending trap. And when Jill set her attention to the door beyond which a pile of treasure lay, he just had to spit out his warning: "We have arrived in a magical structure with a convenient room of treasure right at the entrance and this does not strike you as even remotely odd? For all we know, the trinkets and baubles are but an illusion to disguise the snapping jaws of a Dragon Turtle. If you so want to find out, cast a spell of magic detection, pronto, so that my might over the water need not wane during the investigation."

[@JBRam2002]