"Here, it must be here." Achilleus shouted, as he led the group past the third crack decorating the mountainside.
"You said that, the last two times, mudbrain." Benkó grumbled, but he tried to keep it as quiet as possible. Razvan was already looking at him quite sullenly, the last time he had distracted Achilleus from the road. All he needed was for them to fight with the Motumisz boy again, as is their custom, and then both of them would be punished because they couldn't control themselves.
"And if everything is right, then..." Achilleus began, climbing over a fallen tree. "Yes! It's there! Here's the enterance." The boy put his hands on his hips with a triumphant face. "Come on, peeong boy! You'll walk here with me! I don't know how much light there is in there, and you're the only one of us who can make light." He grabbed Benkó's wrist and pulled him into the cave.
"Hey! You're not even asking me if I want all this?" The Bokló boy objected.
"I don't think you have much choice, Benkó." Suk shrugged. "Achilleus is right. You're the only one of us who doesn't need a torch to make light. And none of us have an eternal lamp hidden away." The Zovárd boy rolled his eyes.
"I have it here, but it's no longer lit. I don't think we'd get much done with an empty lamp." Rahul remarked, and his friends started giggling. They were all aware that the eternal lamp that Rahul had won at the Heginjülin when the team first met him had long since gone out. Contrary to their name, these lanterns don't burn forever, only for a year, but that's a lot longer than an average lantern burns.
"I mean, it's not a bad idea to take it out. I can light it and then we'll have light in the back." Benkó looked back at the chüvigh hegin, to which Rahul nodded.
"Give me a moment and I'll find it." He said, but he was already up to his elbows in his small bag and he was fiddling around in it. "No." He narrowed his eyes. "Not this one either." He squinted. "This one?" He looked up at the ceiling of the cave, but quickly shook his head. "No." He grimaced. "Ah! It will be, this one!" He grinned suddenly. "Its right there..." He started to pull his hand out of the small bag. "Come out now!" He growled with the lantern, when with a popping sound the lantern slipped out of the bag. "Here it is!" Rahul said with a triumphant face.
"What's in that bag by the way?" Teveli blinked widely towards the side of the team's chüvigh member, at the bag.
"I don't really know either." Rahul scratched his head with one hand. "I should unpack and organize what I need and what I don't." He added. "Benkó! Catch it!" He threw the lantern to the Bokló boy, who immediately caught it, then conjured a blue flame on the tip of his left index finger and lit the eternal lantern's wick.
"Try not to shake it too much! It gets extinguished easily." He said as he handed the lantern back to Rahul, but the Koál boy just started to grimace.
"I don't want to disappoint, but then I might not be the best choice to carry the lantern." The boy noted, looking suspiciously at the lantern burning with a small blue flame.
"Then give it to someone else." Benkó shrugged and, conjuring a blue flame above his left palm, he turned on his heel.
"I'll take it." Citar rolled his eyes as he carefully took the lantern from his friend's hand. "Go ahead, I'll stay behind with Wandi." The Bolacsuk boy smiled as he took the danovus's hand.
"If you're sure." Rahul said carefully.
"Of course I'm sure." The other chuckled.
"I didn't even know you could be careful Bolacsuk." The poison-mixing hegin of the group noted in a laughing voice.
"Shut up, Suk! Before I make you shut it." Citar grinned evilly at the boy.
"Guys, that's enough! Stop barking at each other." Razvan interrupted the pair.
"Yes, boss." The two boys said at the same time, thanks to which the team was finally able to head into the cave.
Unlike the underwater cave on Cannibal Island, the cave on Szelevu was dark and damp. Every step of the team members was followed by gurgling sounds. As they progressed further into the cave, water literally flowed from above their heads in some places and not just dripped. Of all the Athamana and surface creatures, Razvan probably handled the situation the best. The others soon began to get annoyed by the sound of the continuous dripping water.
The leader of the Athamanas was not bothered by the matter just because he grew up in a stalactite cave system, in some parts of which stalactites still actively grow to this day. So for him the atmosphere of the place was more nostalgic than disturbing. Another member of the small group who wasn't bothered by the sound of the water was none other than Llyr. The undersea-walker ex-minister of foreign affairs literally relaxed more and more the more water sounds surrounded them.
Finally, the Athamanas could not even say how long they had been going down into the depths of the cave when they finally reached a part of the cave corridor where the water began to rise. At first it only covered the soles of their boots, then slowly the heads of their boots then all of their boots. Then they were soon walking forward in waist-deep water, when Benkó stopped, making the team stop.
"The passage deepens quickly here. I think we only could use our light this far. I don't know what Marianne's miracle clothes are capable of, but I don't think they can make fire waterproof too." The boy grimaced as he lowered his hand into the water, extinguishing the blue light that illuminated the cave from the front.
"If we get underwater, I have algae with which we can make light." Llyr offered quietly, as if only a little mouse had spoken.
"Then that's discussed. Undersea-walker, give everyone some of that algae." Tele Tete smiled. And Llyr took out the plants and distributed them among the team members. "From here on, it might be wiser for our undersea-walker to go ahead with Benkó and Achilles. You are the one who knows the conditions down below best." The Tele man continued seriously.
It is true that the undersea-walker did not like this idea that much, but when no one from the team objected, he needed to give in and do what he had to do. So he stood at the head of the team, directly behind the quarreling pair. Although Tele Tete did not say it, it crossed his mind that he should send Llyr in front. The only reason he did not do it was because he did not believe that the undersea-walker would not accidentally get himself killed at the first opportunity.