Mother Rosa nodded approvingly to Thea. "Wise counsel as always, Thea. You are all working together well as a team, and unfortunately, that often means one person may be isolated and taking risks while the rest of us must wait and fret. Believe me, I wish to see Kye's return as keenly as you all do. But I have faith in her skills, and in the rightness of our cause."<br/><br/>Mogmurch's journey back down the slope was much quicker than the ascent, especially now that he knew that nobody was watching the slope itself. A little over an hour after they had departed, the goblin scout came running up to the group. "Kye is safe and in mopition on the Stone Table," he said, fumbling a bit with his Common words. "The wagon is there, nobody driving it. They have a tent, and one guard outside, and a cattle pen -"<br/><br/>Rosa interrupted the goblin, her voice laden with anxiety. "And the priestesses? Were they in the pen?"<br/><br/>Mogmurch nodded. "Half a dozen women in the pen. Couldn't see much from where we were, but they didn't look hurt. The guard was watching them."<br/><br/>Rosa breathed a sigh of relief. "So they are there, and safe... but only six? There were more than twenty priestesses in the temple, and we didn't find any of their bodies there, nor on the trail. Have the others been taken underground already, maybe?" She took a breath to calm herself. "Thank you, Mogmurch. This is... this is good news, better than I had feared."<br/><br/>Mogmurch turned to Thea and the others. "We should be able to get up the slope without them seeing or hearing us. We only saw one guard, and he's looking at the women, not patrolling. Don't know if anyone's in the tent, but it's big enough for four people."<br/><br/>Meanwhile, up on the mesa, Kye had settled into a position behind a rock where she could easily watch the camp, and with her uncanny stillness, there was nothing to draw attention to her. She was able to watch the scene more carefully, drawing in sharper details as her eyes grew accustomed to the distance and the light.<br/><br/>There were definitely six women in the pen. Some were naked, others were draped in shapeless grey blankets. A couple were pacing around the pen, but were careful not to touch the poles or the ropes strung between them. The others huddled on the ground, sleeping or talking quietly to each other.<br/><br/>Kye was soon able to resolve the voices coming from the camp, and realized that they originated from the object on the easel. There were definitely two female voices and one male, engaged in conversation. Their language was unfamiliar, but after about ten minutes, the tone of their conversation became very familiar indeed, with the two female voices crying out in an exaggerated parody of lovemaking.<br/><br/>As the guard watched and listened to the object, he unfastened his breeches and soon had his hand on his cock, entertaining himself in a very physical fashion. After the voices reached their climax and became quiet again, he stood up and waddled over towards the pen, shouting something at the women inside, still jerking his shaft as if proudly showing it off to them. Most of the women turned away or buried their heads in their hands, but one stood defiant, glaring at her captor contemptuously. "If you're man enough, come in here and try it!" she cried at him in the Common tongue. If the man understood her words, he gave them no heed.<br/><br/>In the lull after the shouting, Kye's keen ears could sense a faint humming from the direction of the cattle pen, like a distant beehive, and an even fainter hum coming from the wagon.