Gunnar hesitated for a moment, thinking of whether to give her an answer from what he had guess and inferred from Ella during their talks. But he figured that he should talk to Narrick first before talking to anyone else about his possible bloodline and what it might be.
As he and Jarsa walked towards the camp, she asked about their time out here as an attempt to distract Gunnar from his injuries, as well as in genuine inquest in what they had found here. Gunnar, glad to think of anything else but his pain, began telling her about their weeks here in the forest at the base of the volcano.
He told her of how they had found plenty of the smaller game here but not to many of larger game, now thinking of it, it made more sense. Their was a great bear in close proximity to their camp, and on the mountain there was a demon and some crystoids. Just having one or the other would drive a lot of animals away, much less both.
He also told her of the stash site's progress and how they had found both a heat metal like volcanic iron and ice materials like the ice sapphires. When he told Jarsa that she chuckled.
"The Forge worlds are some the only places in the entire universe that you might find such opposing elemental materials in such close quarters. The chaotic mana state that pervades the three planets causes miracles, as much as it does disasters. This little test is about showing you children just how much truth is behind that statement."
Gunnar had a thoughtful look on his face as he pondered her statement. For to his grandmother and mothers tuteledge he knew a little about the crazy mana of the three Forge worlds of Kelton, Bellius, and Rhya. He knew that Kelton was used as the world to hold the school, The Forge, because it had the mildest mana chaos of the three planets. But he also knew that wasn't saying much.
Kelton was a mountain covered, firey world that was constantly having earthquakes and tsunamis. Bellius, named such because it was judged more beautiful than the other two worlds in orbit around this star, was covered in plains, grasslands, and coniferous forests. It was almost always having some sort of windstorm or hurricane, somewhere on the planet. Rhya, however was almost entirely rainforests and swamps, and the two weren't mutually exclusive, along with a pretty massive desert. It didn't rain as much here as on Bellius, but there was almost always a war going on as there were a number of etremely valueable mines and "Holy sites" for different races supposedly on this planet.
So the juxtaposition of beauty and danger were very real on these planets. Saying that the first forge world, Kelton, was more stable and safer than the other planets, only meant that the death rate of offworlders on this planet was a couple tens of thousands less a year, than the other two planets.
Between the three planets, almost a million people died of non-natural causes a year. People getting killed by storms, mana or otherwise, was a daily occourance on every planet. Fights, both with different races and beasts, were also a major killer. But just the aboslute raw chaos of the mana, killed more people a year than anything else. The people who were born to these worlds had a tolerance to the chaotic mana, but others had to have an iron will and suffer through the pain of their bodies aclimating or they would just be ripped apart. It simply was what it was.
The faster that someone could learn first hand of the truth that valuable materials often walked hand in hand with death, the more likeley they would survive.
By the time the exhausted Gunnar's mind walked its way through that thought process, agonizingly slow due to his dead tired mind, they had reached the edge of the trap radius around the stash site, where the transport landed. As they walked into the stash site clearing, Gunnar saw the other three teachers, including Kilara, standing alosngside a smaller form that he recognized as Cassie.
Stop a the same time as Gunnar spotted the group, they also saw him, and Cassie practically teleported across the distance between them, before enveloping Gunnar in a bear hug that again drew gasps of pain. When Cassie began to pull away, Gunnar simply chuckled and pulled her back in for a hug and said.
"I am glad you're okay Cas. I don't know what I would have done if your weren't."
She nodded her head, unable to speak, and hugged hi back as tightly as he could stand. After a moment they pulled apart and Cassie helped him over to the trasport and the teachers, who apparently had already loaded the stashed materials as well as the Crystoid corpses that Cassie had dealt with. Both as proof that their had been demonic activity and as Cassie spoils of war, crystoid corpses could be used as focusing crystals in near any weapons or energy system that needed focusing crystals.
After loading up into the trasport with the help of the two male teachers that Gunnar didn't recognize, he noticed that their pilot was the same girl, the older student, that had dropped them off. Gunnar smiled a little and gave a short wave before taking a seat in the very back of the transport, as they began to take off.
When he had taken his seat, Narrick walked over and sat beside him and put up a barrier of his own mana over them so they could talk privately.
"Well boy?"
Gunnar looked at him, a little confused as his mind, still tired, stuggled to understand what the older man wanted of him.
"I know you have to have questions about what all has happened to your body and blood. You have now met the bare minimum requirement for recount information, as long as you ask the right questions."
Gunnar's eye cleared of confusion in a split second and questions sprang to his lips but just as he began utter them he caught the trick in narricks words. "As long as you ask the right questions."
He thought for a long moment before slowly asking. "What is the glassy core in my heart and what is it doing to my body and blood?"