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Conventional wisdom would dictate that he should dive back into the Forge himself and try his damnedest to retrieve Hector as quickly as possible, but that was not an option, at the moment.

He'd been shut out. By Rasalased, no less.

He couldn't even sense the flow of ardor within the Forge, anymore. And Rasalased had stopped talking to him, too. Whether that was because the Dry God no longer COULD talk to him or because he simply wished not to, Abbas did not know.

But the last thing that Rasalased had said to him was to "sit and have patience."

And Abbas was doing his best to listen to his revered ancestor.

But holy Oasis, it was growing more difficult by the minute.

He had not expected Rasalased to show up like that and completely throw a wrench into everything. If he'd known this was all going to happen, he never would have suggested that Hector touch the Forge in the first place.

Garovel, for his part, was shockingly calm. He was just hovering there next to Abbas and Worwal, waiting quietly. The expression on his ethereal, reptilian face had remained unchanged this whole time.

'Are you not concerned?' Worwal had asked him.

'Eh, not really,' said Garovel. 'I'm used to these sorts of things happening. This is just Hector being Hector.'

Abbas didn't know if he could really believe that. Reapers often liked to put up a veneer of self-certainty and confidence, in part to help put those around them at ease and in part, perhaps, to stroke their own egos. So maybe the reaper was just acting.

But if he was, then Abbas had to admit... Garovel was damn good at it.

And it made a degree of sense, as well. Abbas had known there was something strange about the young Lord Darksteel. Even if he wasn't as old as he pretended to be, that didn't mean he was weak or harmless.