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Hector materialized a hovering cube, heating it up enough to generate a bit of light.

Roman snapped his fingers, creating a few fleeting sparks. Selena and Nadim simply whipped out flashlights from their packs--which prompted Roman to stop bothering with the sparks altogether.

Even with all these new sources of light, however, their circumstances hardly changed. The darkness all around them just seemed to keep going and going. The flashlights scanned around, only to find an empty vastness.

It wasn’t until they turned the light toward the ground that they finally gained some useful information.

Rock.

They were in some kind of gargantuan cave, apparently.

And there was also another monument in between everyone. It was much smaller than Rathmore’s Gate and didn’t look at all similar, other than perhaps being mistaken for a completely natural rock formation.

Then again, perhaps it was completely natural. Technically, Hector still didn’t know if Rathmore’s Gate was man-made or not. It could’ve started out as a natural phenomenon, so maybe this little thing did, too.

Oddly enough, it looked a bit like a chair. Or a melted one, at least.

The peculiarity of its shape made Hector wonder what kind of history it might’ve had. Perhaps he could even use the Living Core to learn more about it, but now didn’t really seem like the proper time for such things.

In the end, he had actually consulted Caster a little with regard to the proper use of Rathmore’s Gate. While it did seem like a risk, Hector ultimately decided that being able to cross-reference information between both Caster and the Living Core was quite the useful thing. If something didn’t add up, then he would know to be wary of lies--or simple mistakes, if he was feeling generous.

But that didn’t turn out to be a problem. Everything Caster told him about the Gate’s operation did indeed check out with the Core. Which was a start, Hector supposed. Perhaps he’d even allow Caster to examine the Gate properly next time.

Assuming the guy didn’t return to the Gate on his own to examine it in secret. Which seemed more and more likely as Hector kept mulling it over in a background thought process.

They could cross that bridge when they came to it, though.

As far as the actual operation of the Gate, though, things had proceeded smoothly until their arrival just now. Finding the appropriate “window” to Intar had been something of a hassle, especially since there turned out to be several of them.