Xaviers!

After discovering that his ID no longer allowed him down into the cave, Tosh waited until after hours and headed down to the beach. He stripped down to his shifting suit and hid his clothes before turning into Ennio. After securing his waterproof bag, he dove in to the water and headed to the cave's undersea entrance.

The intake pipes for the cooling system are still there, although they now terminate in bend and jagged pieces among the crystals that have grown to fill most of the cave. They seem to be the last remainder of the system that once stood in the cavern, all debris of casing, cables and circuitry having been cleaned up meticulously. The crystals seem to have grown further since Natalie instructed Acala to begin rebuilding them, having expanded past the boundary field Tosh had helped set up. Long pieces of crystal even reach all the way from the floor to the ceiling at angles, which would make it hard for Bruce or even Tosh to traverse through the cavern to the regular entrance, but fortunately Ennio has little problem with that, even dragging along his bag.

At the front of the cavern the crystals are the most dense, centered around the large tip of one shard that is perfectly clear, unlike the rest of them that are glinting a distinct pink in the light of the hallway. As expanded as the crystal structures are, they are still inert otherwise.

Ennio sat near the clear crystal and rifled through the electronic odds and ends in the bag. He powered up a tablet and took out some cables, which he proceeded to plug in to both tablet and crystal using the same curious holes with which he connected the dimensional stabilizer. He then loaded up some custom software to attempt to interface with it.

A line of text is fed back.

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>DECIDED TO STOP IGNORING ME, HAVE YOU?

Ennio sighed, wishing there was room to let Tosh take over. Trying The Kid's cautious approach was getting old.

"Ah, screw it. Sorry Kid, but this ain't getting us anywhere. We're doin' this my way."

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> Alright, you win. Looks like I've no choice then but to take a leap o' faith. What do I gotta do?

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> Got it with me. Sneaking in and out would be mighty tiresome.

He fished it out, presenting it like a treasure.

The crystals seem attracted by it, almost as if they're growing to reach out for it.

"Please don't kill us all. Please don't kill us all. Please don't kill us all," he muttered as he held it closer.

The crystals unfold like a flower, wrapping around the shard and taking it into the greater mass.

Shortly thereafter comes a flicker of light, that distorts until it finally resolves into a genial figure in a servant's uniform.

"Well then, this is a good deal more civilized, isn't it?"

The ferret-man leaned back, "Anything you can do about giving me room to stretch? It's mighty cramped in here."

"It's going to take a bit, I'm afraid. You let things go quite awhile. I can't eliminate them, only restructure them into a more useful form."

"Oh dear, you don't know, do you?"

"The Starlight Citadel isn't a destination, it's a waypoint. The question is quite vast, and it's going to take time before I can resume the function of being this node of the network."

"The poetically-minded would tell you that there's always a lighthouse."

"Otherworld touches all shores, literal and metaphorical. The lighthouse is similarly both literal, and metaphorical. It allows safe navigation, and it provides advanced warning of someone sailing ashore."

"All the lighthouses are connected to the Starlight Citadel, which is overseen by the old wizard's daughter, Roma. She's the Omniversal Guardian."

"Of course a wizard is part of this. There's always a damned wizard."

"By the old wizard... you mean Merlin don't ya?" he asked with a restrained groan.

"One of his names, yes. Or Myraddin of Ruta, the Magus, the Firstborn of the Devil. He seems to accumulate names quite a bit."

"And the Otherworld is?" he asked, guessing the answer.

"Does what it says on the tin, my lad. It's other. I'm surprised you're asking, I can tell you've had a few encounters with it already."