The tension in the sanctuary was a constant, low hum that mirrored The Void outside, punctuated by the silence from the missing reconnaissance team. Days turned into a week. Hope dwindled, replaced by a grim certainty for most survivors. Gus's muttering grew louder, casting blame on Kael and Captain's reckless decision.
Captain maintained his outward composure, but the strain was visible in the lines around his eyes. He checked the reinforced exit constantly, listened to the reports from the outer patrols, but there was only silence from the grey regarding Everla and her team.
Kael continued his attempts to sense the team, guided by Elara. It was an exhausting, often frustrating process. The threads of their presence in The Void were faint, easily lost in the overwhelming thrumming. Vispera's warmth would pulse with effort, straining to reach out, but the sheer distance and the nature of the grey made it incredibly difficult.
He would sit near the fire pit, eyes closed, Elara beside him, holding the map. He'd push past the numbness, past the mental voids, trying to find Vispera, trying to listen through her.
Sometimes, he felt only the vast emptiness, the cold indifference of The Void. Other times, he'd pick up faint echoes – a feeling of movement, a direction. He would point weakly on the map, "Go... there..." or "Move... this way..."
These senses were sporadic and unreliable. They didn't confirm the team's safety, only their movement. They offered no information about potential threats encountered.
And with each attempt, the Bedel demanded its toll. It wasn't always a major loss. Sometimes it was a subtle wave of disorientation that lasted for hours, making it hard for Kael to track simple sequences of events. Sometimes it was a brief intensification of the numbness, making the physical world feel even further away. Sometimes it was a flicker of something else, a vague feeling of a concept slipping just beyond his grasp before Elara patiently helped him grasp it again.
Elara documented everything, her notes filling with observations on Kael's state, Vispera's reactions, and the vague, fragmented information Kael conveyed. She cross-referenced this with her lore research, looking for patterns, for explanations of why sensing was both possible and costly. Was the Bedel punishing the act of seeing into The Void? Or was it a price for using Vispera's energy in this way?
One afternoon, during an observation session in the lower chamber, Captain brought out a salvaged radio. It was old and crackly, rarely useful for anything but picking up distorted static from the grey.
"We'll try this," Captain said, his voice devoid of real hope. "Maybe... maybe Vispera can sense frequencies? Or maybe if the team has a similar device... a resonance?"
Elara looked skeptical. Kael's sensing was intuitive, tied to the fundamental nature of The Void and Vispera, not technology. But she nodded, willing to try anything.
Captain tuned the radio, filling the small chamber with loud, grating static. Kael flinched, not from the sound itself (his physical senses were numb), but from Vispera's violent reaction. Her warmth flared, pulsing with a feeling of intense "WRONG! HIDE!" directed at the static.
Kael gasped, covering his ears with hands he couldn't feel. "Wrong! Hide!" he rasped, stumbling back.
Captain and Elara were startled by the strength of the reaction. Captain quickly shut off the radio. The silence that followed was heavy.
"What was that?" Captain asked, his voice sharp.
Kael was trembling, Vispera's warmth still agitated within him. "Sound... wrong... HIDE from sound!"
Elara looked at her notes, her mind racing. The Void was silent. Its thrumming bypassed sound. Vispera was a being of light, tied to a different form of perception. Normal sound, especially loud, distorted static like the radio produced, was alien to The Void, perhaps even painful to Vispera. The Bedel from this attempt was immediate and severe – a wave of confusion that made it hard for Kael to string simple words together for several minutes.
The experiment with the radio failed, but it provided a crucial piece of information: Kael (or Vispera) reacted strongly and negatively to conventional sound frequencies that clashed with The Void's nature. It was another piece in the puzzle of how Kael's unique connection interacted with the grey. It also highlighted the unpredictable nature of the Bedel's triggers.
The chapter ends with the passing of time increasing tension about the reconnaissance team, Kael's sensing attempts being unreliable but demanding a Bedel, and an unexpected reaction to conventional sound revealing more about Kael's connection to Vispera and The Void, adding a new element to Captain's investigation.