"You think I do not know this? Yet I have gone to the Dead Zone many times and that is the result, every time, without fail or exception," he said sharply, golden eyes hardening for a moment as he regarded the other king. "It uncomfortable and disturbing, but it is what happens. I avoid it as much as possible. I can fight without my Talent, but there are dangers here that we would best not be faced without. As if that was not bad enough, the Castle can and does regularly take them away here on its whim when it changes its very form."

He looked at the stone walls again, as if expecting them to morph just to prove his point, but they remained calm stones.

"The expeditions are journeys we at the Castle have gone on to find answers to our predicament, because we have seen or heard something that warrants it. The last was to a meteor far away, in a village of giraffes. The things that came from it... were unsightly, to say the least."