"W-what? W-why?" Ewen asked. The others looked taken back too.
"Well, this is ridiculous, and Jax was right. This guy was absolutely off his rocker." Xaiden said, running his hand through his hair in frustration. "I mean, he sounds like a cult leader, and anyone can draw things on a map or make up random stories. He talked about facts and proofs, but this is just a story, an absolutely wild and ridiculous story with no proof, nothing to cross reference, it'd be dumb to even try to disprove it honestly."
"Yeah, it's pretty far-fetched. He had me going with his inscription, not going to lie." Jax added. "It would be cool to one up the robo teachers and reveal a major secret and all, but then he gets into all this and it just sounds silly."
"Right?!" Xaiden nodded, "I was looking forward to solving the book code and following his little clues but this is such a let down. I could try to think of it as just a work of fiction, even interactive fiction, but I still don't like the implications already. Maybe I'm a bit more offended because of my family's name is being pulled into to all this, but more than that, it's just.." Xaiden paused, "really? This whole time we thought it was an elaborate code to other bunkers or buried treasure, or something! -- but he really meant portals to other planets like ours?"
"And since that's the definition of impossible, there's no point in trying to find the locations from the map since he probably just drew them himself as 'proof' for his little novel here." Jax said, shaking his head. "So much for an epic adventure, huh?"
No one spoke for a minute or two. Eliana seemed to still be reading, but since she never turned the page, it was more likely she was deep in thought. Xaiden and Ewen sat sprawled and staring at the floor while Jax absentmindedly threw a rubber ball against the wall and caught it. This punctuated the silence with its rhythmic, thud, thud, thud, thud.
"W-well, it was still r-really fun exploring this with you g-guys." Ewen was the first to break the silence. "That's w-what really counts as an adventure, doesn't it? W-we all had fun for a bit, didn't we?"
"Yeah, a pretty epic first bunker discovery, ET!" Jax said kindly.
"You're right, Ewen," Xaiden said quietly after another pause. "I think I'd really amped this up in my mind since we had to wait so long to come back. I probably would have been disappointed no matter what we found, so it's a good reminder that the fun is sometimes in the journey, not always the destination." Jax caught and held his ball, leaning in towards the group. Xaiden continued more cheerfully, "We may as well follow this wherever it leads, fiction or not, it'll still be fun, especially since we're doing it together."
"Shall I continue then?" Eliana asked softly, smiling at the nodding heads.