This isn't the same darkness that hounded him in the Deep Roads, but the alien wrongness about their surroundings puts Kit in mind of the darkspawn encampments and structures that he and his fellows had encountered time and time again. It's especially noticeable in the cannibalized machinery situated in the middle of the engine room, but Kit only has a moment to squint at it in macabre curiosity before Rutile's hand comes down on his shoulder.

Out of instinct he turns to look at his friend and darts out a hand to steady them. "You all right?" he asks--or tries to ask, before Rutile's question reaches him first. He blinks at the question as though confused, before recalling some of what Padparadscha told him about gems early on in his arrival in Aifaran. Likely, a casual contact like that among gems could have resulted in real trouble.

"I'm fine," he says, cracking a grim smile, "I'm sturdier than I look." Which is admittedly pretty sturdy looking for a fleshy creature, so that's saying something.

He looks away from Rutile's outline in the dark towards the strange stone gem set into the middle of the machinery, staring at it with wary, focused intensity. "I've seen a lot of strange stones in my life," he admits as he approaches it, taking cautious steps across the slick ground, "but that's probably one of the strangest."

He's not sure where the impulse comes from, exactly, but without thinking he reaches out to touch the stone's obsidian surface.