Fractal faced back to Lips. After all this sudden silence of the underground tunnels, now he was in a very talkative mood (despite some inflexions in his voice which clearly show disguised pain): "I'm afraid I don't have any connections who deal with Aztlaner magic... but I could ask around, with enough time..."
Mouse message then reached his earbuds. His hurt hearing sensors got the hurt voicee of the kid. Diligence, confidence, fear, despair, hatred... all of them were emotions that grew strong in the tunnels. And now sadness came to join them.
For the ones looking at him, Fractal expression became a little more serious.
@Mouse: "Mouse, don't stress yourself too hard on this one; you made your best, and it really was great, even though it was not a beautiful thing. Try not to think a lot about today... It was an ugly day, but it is all over. Let's prepare to climb back to the light, ok?"
His voice was tender, yet firm. He knew there was really not much he could do to cheer or console Mouse, but he couldn't stay quiet. And, all things considered, it was another step in surviving the shadows; getting rough around the edges, losing fractions of yourself at a time, sacrificing the bit to preserve the whole... and hoping that the fraction could be rebuild before the whole was gone.