"Right," Johte agreed.<br/><br/>He turned toward the breach, braced his hands against the stone, and drew a deep slow breath- and just like that, the nerves were gone.  His fingertips brushed his temple and Procion could hear the subtle whine of his cybernetics before he crouched and scooped up his pack with his left hand, then began to squeeze into the crack.<br/><br/>"Just try to stay close to me," he whispered.<br/><br/>The scuffing of his feet caused loose stone to grind together, a scattering of pebbles tumbling into the darkness to splash softly into the water.  Johte froze, listening.  The faint echo of the splashes died away, leaving only silence.<br/><br/>With a soft grunt, he kept moving.  The passage narrowed, cold stone pressing in on all sides, forcing him to turn sideways, preventing him from even glancing back to see if Procion was even following him.  And then his right foot shifted forward and encountered only air.<br/><br/>"There's a drop, but it's not a long one," he whispered to the Sith.  As he slipped out into the open air of the massive lake-chamber, he grasped the stone of the fissure with one hand and maneuvered his body into a half-crouch, bracing one foot against the chamber's wall.  When he let go, he went skidding down the angle of the wall in an inelegant slide, his back to the stone, his robe protecting his flesh from being torn open, his contact with the wall slowing his descent and softening the sound of his body splashing into the water.<br/><br/>The icy chill of it drove the breath from him in a raw gasp and stole all traces of the warmth that had been tingling in his skin, making him blush at Procion.  His eyecaps glowed subtly in the dark, twin points of soft red light, as he turned to look back the way he'd come.<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>