No loss, then. More coffee for the Mycologist. The rich taste and warmth ground him. Especially the warmth. He isn't shaking anymore, but he still feels so cold.

"Well," he says carefully, "my supplier of amber has to stock at a different place then, I suppose. Then again, I have very little doubt that our Professor-Emissary would tell us something about interpretation of language, perhaps something pertaining to Platonic ideas. Provided we have the guts to ask them."

He mulls his coffee over and finally settles: "Well, how unprepared can the second set catch us?" The tone of his voice suggest that he expects the second set to shoot him point blank.