A path in the midst of desolation

Somewhere in the vast, arid expanse of the Chihuahuan Desert, Mexico -

While Eleonora struggled with the ghosts of her past in the Hollow Earth and the Cancún base prepared for a descent into madness, Seraphina and Rafael, Aria's parents, embarked on their own desperate pilgrimage. The desolation they found in their Sierra Gorda sanctuary in Querétaro had left them heartbroken but with a renewed determination: to find their daughter, and to do so, they must first find Eleonora, Aria's grandmother, the only one who might know the young mage's whereabouts.

Their former connections with the White Brotherhood, though diminished, guided them through an intricate web of clues and forgotten knowledge. They had spent days piecing together the pieces: consulting cryptic Lodge texts, meditating for visions, and even tapping into discreet worldly contacts to track the last known movements of the "real" Eleonora before her disappearance nearly two decades earlier. Everything pointed north, toward the vast and lonely expanses of the Chihuahuan Desert, a place of austere power and the supposed home of a lineage of ancient shamans, known in more esoteric circles as followers of the teachings of Don Juan Matus, guardians of a knowledge said to be able to bend perception and walk between worlds.

Their journey was arduous and fraught with caution. They moved like shadows, avoiding the main routes, aware that agents of the Consortium or the Thirteen Families might still be on the lookout for any movement by the Sisterhood survivors.

Finally, they arrived at the region indicated by their clues: a landscape of desolate and haunting beauty. Mountains of bare rock stood sentinel against a sky of relentless blue. The sun beat down with a ferocity that seemed to evaporate the soul. The silence was almost absolute, an "eerie silence" that, according to Don Juan's teachings, was pregnant with power and the presence of the unknowable. The air smelled of creosote, ancient dust, and the promise of a distant storm.

As they moved deeper, following not a visible path but an intuition guided by her own magical sensitivity and the cryptic instructions they had received, Seraphina felt a shift. Reality itself seemed... thinner here. Shadows danced strangely on the periphery of her vision, the outline of the distant mountains seemed to undulate subtly, and a constant sense of being watched by invisible, ancient eyes enveloped them. It was a "place of power," to be sure.

They weren't looking for a village or an obvious structure. The teachings spoke of how the true men and women of knowledge of this tradition lived in perfect harmony with the desert, their dwellings indistinguishable from the landscape itself. After hours of searching, following a pattern of rock formations Rafael had memorized from an old Brotherhood map, they found what they were looking for: a series of narrow canyons opening into a small, hidden valley, almost invisible from the outside.

In the center of the valley, there were no pyramids or temples. Only a few modest adobe buildings that seemed to have sprung from the earth itself, and the thin smoke of a solitary campfire. The place radiated an immense stillness, a concentrated energy that was both powerful and profoundly peaceful.

Two figures sat near the campfire. An old man, his skin tanned like old leather and wrinkled like a map of the desert itself, his eyes black and glittering like shards of obsidian, watched them arrive without surprise. Beside her, a younger woman, perhaps in her sixties, with a similar serenity, was weaving something with agave fibers. There was no ostentation of power, only an impeccable presence, a total attention to the moment.

Seraphina and Rafael approached with the utmost respect, stopping at a safe distance. Rafael made an ancient sign of the White Brotherhood, a gesture of peace and the pursuit of knowledge.

The old man, who could have been the very Don Elías of legend or one of his heirs, simply observed them in silence for a long moment, his eyes seeming to read their souls.

"We seek knowledge, Guardian Elders," Seraphina finally said, her voice slightly shaky despite her resolve. "About a woman of great power and wisdom, a healer named Eleonora, who was a guardian of children with special gifts. She disappeared from our world almost twenty years ago. And about her granddaughter, Aria, our daughter, whom we left in her care and who now we believe is in grave danger, at the heart of the storm raging on this planet."

The old shaman nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving theirs. "The threads of fate are woven in strange and often painful ways," he said finally, his voice Low and resonant like the desert wind. "Many search for answers when the world breaks and ancient horrors awaken from their slumber. The woman you call Eleonora... her light was a shooting star in a dark time. And the child... she who carries the fire of dawn in her hair and the truth of the earth in her spirit... her destiny is intertwined with yours in ways you are only beginning to understand."

Seraphina and Rafael felt a surge of hope, so intense it was almost painful. These shamans, these followers of the legendary Don Juan, seemed to know. Would they have the answers they so longed for? Could they guide them to Eleonora, or to her daughter Aria, before it was too late?

The desert held its secrets, but for the first time in a long time, Seraphina and Rafael felt that perhaps, just perhaps, they had found a path amidst the desolation. The need to know more, to discover what these enigmatic guardians of ancient knowledge knew, was a flame that burned brightly in their hearts.