Not many people realize it, but being a scientist can be a dangerous job. You never know when a laboratory accident could cut your thread short. It's even more dangerous when your laboratory is the Basin itself.

That is why we have contingency plans for when an expedition vanishes. I, or someone like me, is deployed to investigate the disappearance and do what is necessary to salvage everything that can be salvaged.

We don't know what to expect when we go to our work. Perhaps the researchers got themselves lost in the wilderness. It is our job to find them. Perhaps they crosses into territory claimed by one of the Collective's many enemies. We must liberate them, or at the very least their notes. That is why we go alone; in such circumstances sending another group could be the beginning of a war.

That is why I, Teenea Windwhisper, found myself walking through six inches of snow up on the mountains. We had heard rumors that the mountains held a passage to a cave complex that was rich with subterranian life forms, and had sent a team of scientists to investigate. The entire mission was to take no more than two weeks.

That had been nearly two months ago. I was not even the first operative to be deployed to find them; three others had been sent and failed to return. If the scientists were still alive, it would be a miracle. But even if they were dead, their research notes had to be recovered.

It was after two days of searching through snowbanks that I found a passage running deep into the underbelly of the mountains. I did not know if it was the passage that the rumors had spoken of or not; but it was in the correct area and if it was the first that I found it would most likely be the first that the scientists had come across. That meant it was the one they most likely would have explored.

So I went down into the darkness, sword in one hand and a torch in the other. It was a twisting, turning passage that reeked of mold and dampness. Here and there I could see water dripping down from the top of the tunnel. But there were no signs of life.

I could not tell day from night, but I slept three times as I explored the passage. For the longest time it had all been the same, all dampness and no life. But in time I found a path that began to take me upwards, closer to the surface. The smell of rot intensified as I went up, and the tunnel began to widen.

I found myself walking into a cavern with walls painted with primitive images of animals, illuminated  with faintly glowing crystals. I did not know what to make of it. I thought that perhaps I had stumbled across the last remains of a primitive culture that had been lost to time, and wondered what these walls had seen. But it was not my place to ponder such things. I pressed on.

Near the other end of the cavern I finally found what I was looking for. A few words of Lucidian had been written on the wall, marking the passage that had been taken by the expedition. Knowing that I was on the right track, I increased my pace as I went deaper in to the tunnel system.

It was not long after that I found smears of blood on the floor of the cavern, and chunks of crystal laying alongside broken feathers. It was clear that not only had the expedition been here, there had been trouble. A little farther down the passage I found broken scientific instruments and a torn notebook.

It was quite likely that the scientists had come to a violent end here. But I could not know for sure unless I found the bodies. It was my duty to press on and see what I could find. So, with sword in hand, and I went to either rescue my comrades or to avenge them.

The light grew brighter and brighter as I advanced down the tunnel. More and more paintings graced the walls the farther I went. Here, there was an image of a great fire-breathing lizard. There, a picture of a bird being bled to death upon some foul altar. I tried not to pay any attention to the images, but they proved that I had to face a truly savage culture, devoid of civility and artistic talent. I put such thoughts from my head as I pressed on. There was no sense in worrying.

It did not take much longer for me to reach the end of the tunnel. I stepped out from the tunnel and onto a ledge, and I could scarcely stop myself from gasping at what I saw. I was near the top of a great cavern, far larger than any I had ever seen. At the very bottom I could see huts and movement. From my perch it seemed as though ants were walking through a child's toy village, but I knew that that would change as I got closer. I knew that I could only be looking at some manner of hidden village, lost to the Basin of Life until this moment.

The ledge extended all the way around the cavern, wrapping around the edges and forming a ramp downward into the village. It was covered in rocks and rubble, and I went as quietly and discreetly as I could. About halfway down I heard voices speaking some unknown, chattering language. I dove behind a rock and held my sword at the ready. Soon a pair of creatures passed by me. They looked to be Dracnari, but they were larger than any Dracnari that I had ever seen. They walked hunched over, as though their shoulders were too heavy for their body to fully support. They smelled of blood and rot.

They were great brutish things, but I had been trained in the art of combat by the finest masters of Hallifax. And although there were two of them, I knew that any Trill worth his salt could slaughter any number of such savages, if it was necessary. I decided that any attempt to establish friendly contact and assimilate them into the Collective was doomed to failure, and so as they passed me I sprung out from my hiding place and struck out at them.

My sword cut through scale and muscle as though it was nothing but empty air. The first of the brutes died before it knew what hit it. The other stared at me as I pulled my sword free of its fellow's carcass. It almost looked as though it was trying to puzzle out just what had happened to its dead compatriot. I did not hesitate to take advantage of its confusion. I swung my sword, but this one at least had the wits to try to get out of the way. It bled, but it did not die. It spat fire at me as I came upon it for another blow, but getting out of the way was trivial for one who had been trained to combat the imbeciles who make their home in Gaudiguch. I came upon it and dealt the death-blow.

It seemed that the creatures were not so threatening as they had seemed. They were large, stupid, firebreathing brutes, all muscle and no mind. One could mistake them for Gaudiguchis, and I did entertain the notion that this primitive culture may have originally been composed of several populations, one of which eventually migrating and founding that foul city.

I wiped their blood off my sword and dragged the bodies behind a rock before I pressed on towards the village. There was work to be done.

I slowly crept into the village. It was a terrible place, full of half-collapsed huts that looked to be held together with mud and prayers. The inhabitants lived like animals. Perhaps it is better to say that they were animals, for I saw no glimmer of intelligence in their eyes.

I snuck from hut to hut, trying to avoid contact with the brutes as I searched for the lost scientists. I was not entirely successful, but I was careful to slaughter any of the ghastly reptiles that I met before an alarm could be raised. I took no pleasure in doing so, but neither did I feel any guilt.

It took me hours to search the village. I should be grateful that I did not actually have to enter the huts to find out if there were any captives inside, since every wall of every one of the huts was full of holes. There were no living souls to be found, save for more of the disgusting natives. However, I saw a few feathers scattered on the floors of one hut. It was my only chance of finding another clue as to the location of the lost expedition, and so I had only one choice.

I smashed my way into the pitiful hovel, sword at the ready. I was the only living creature within the hut, but I found more feathers and chunks of crystal on the ground. Old frayed rope was piled on the ground near them, and in the corner of the room I found a sack.

I opened it, of course, to see what was inside. I found half of what I was looking for. It was filled with research notes and scientific instruments. I took the notes and left the instruments, since they were far too heavy for me to recover.

At that point I decided that it would be best for me to flee from the village and return to Hallifax. I had no reason to believe that the scientists were still alive, and to keep searching was to risk losing the notes. I began to creep my way out of the village, terminating another of the natives who threatened to reveal my position as I went. However, when I was perhaps halfway out of the village, I heard a terrible scream. The voice sounded Trill, and so I felt compelled to investigate.

What I saw next was truly terrible. A great crowd of the natives had gathered around a roaring fire, upon which sat a great stone pot. Near the pot there were two trill, wearing the robes of a field researcher. I drew the obvious conclusion, that the final two survivors of the expedition were about to be thrown into the pot. It appeared that the natives were not only ugly, filthy, and stupid, but that they were also cannibals.

I began to go over my options in my mind. If I left the scientists to their fate, I would most likely be able to escape to Hallifax with the notes. It was quite likely that those notes were of greater value than the lives of two scientists, especially two scientists who managed to get themselves captured by such pathetic creatures. On the other hand, it would be far better to deliver both the notes and the scientists to the city, if that was possible.

Besides, it is hard to abandon comrades of the Collective to such a ghastly fate, and the natives had proven themselves to be incompetent fighters. I had reasonable odds of success, and so I resolved to engage the enemy.

I spread my wings and took to the air before soaring down upon the crowd, shrieking like a hunting eagle in the hopes of causing them to panic. People of my profession are trained to combat such savages, and I employed a certain magical technique to make myself shine as I charged them. I had hoped to strike terror into the hearts, and indeed many of the creatures fled before me before I had a chance to swing my sword. Far more of them fled when a few of their fellows found themselves reduced to lifeless pieces of meat.

My sword made short work of the rope that had kept my comrades from taking to the air. I ordered them to fly, and to their credit they did as they were told without panic of hesitation. I performed an impromptu lobotomy on another of the creatures, my sword taking the place of a scalpel, before I joined them in the air.

Our wings kept us safe from our enemies' claws, but we were in a cave and as such we could not fly so high that we could avoid thrown rocks. Thankfully poor aim was among the natives' many and varied flaws.

We managed to escape the caves without further incident. I do not think that we were pursued, which saved me the effort of killing more of the brutes. Once we had left the tunnels, returning to Hallifax was a trivial affair. The surviving scientists and their research were returned to the city intact, to the intellectual benefit of the Collective. I was debriefed and given an award for my courage in one of the discreet ceremonies of which my superior officers are so fond, and thus did I fulfill my duty to the Collective.