Missteps V.2

Chapter Eleven – Down the Hall

With their treasure safely stored away, the group had two more doors as a way out of the room. Jun used his new dice set, and chose to open the door on the left. Everyone gave him a wide berth as he himself braced for another undiscovered trap. He was happy to find that besides the door sticking a bit and opening with a jarring creaking sound, there were no needles involved.

The hallway beyond was very long with no light sources of its own. The end of it was hidden in darkness. With their lights held aloft, the group started out.

For the majority of the group, the hallway was shorter than expected as they soon reached the end after about ten minutes.

The same could not be said for Ander, Elaine, and Kerri.

“I know my legs are short, but this is ridiculous!” Ander yelled as he watched the others move over twice his speed down the hallway. He ran to try to catch up, but found that he got no closer than before.

“Didn’t they teach you how to run properly at the Circle?” Kerri smiled, but it was forced as she too tried to run and catch up, to no avail.

Carric stopped. “What are you two talking about?” The half-elf turned around. He couldn’t help the grin that came over his face when he saw Kerri and Ander both haphazardly running in place. Just a couple of paces behind them was Elaine as she walked.

Elaine caught Carric’s eyes. Even though he’d stopped, she still didn’t seem to be getting any closer. The cleric groaned. She must be in an illusion. With that the illusion broke and she made real progress and soon stood beside Carric. Both Kerri and Ander watched incredously as their human companion suddenly overtook them.

“It’s not real, it’s an illusion.” Elaine called back.

Kerri stopped. Her breath came in gasps. “What do you mean it’s not real? See this wall? Real.” She reached out to lean against said wall, but recoiled with wide eyes. She gingerly reached out and touched it again. The wall had a slight hum to it. Kerri closed her eyes and pressed both hands to the wall. She hummed and matched the tone that emanated out of the wall. With that connection, she could follow the vibrations all around her in the walls, floors, and even crisscrossed invisibly through the air. She stepped back. “Oh, that’s what you mean.”

Ander also pressed his hand against the wall, but felt nothing besides his own heartbeat as it drummed throughout his small body. He bent over his knees and panted. He cursed as he watched Kerri suddenly speed up and meet with Elaine and Carric. Behind them, he could see Lia, Iados, and Jun as they conversed amongst themselves.

The wizard thought to himself, there was no way everyone was that much faster than him. But, from what he’d heard everyone did live a more active life than him. After all, he spent most of his time bent over books and cauldrons, not swinging from a mast or trouncing through forests. He gritted his teeth and kept walking.

Jun went over and stood behind Elaine. “What is he doing?” His eyebrow lifted as he saw the halfling continue to trudge in place, a scowl smeared on his features.

Elaine sighed. “He’s trapped in an illusion.”

“How do we get him out?”

Elaine shrugged. “No idea. You’d think that a magic-user would be able to recognize magic like this.”

Kerri snorted.

Carric side-eyed the two females. “I don’t really think you two can talk, you were caught too.” Neither of them said anything.

Jun walked over to Ander and knelt down next to him. “What are you doing?”

“Walking.” The halfling grunted.

Jun pointed towards Elaine. “She says this is nothing but an illusion, what do you say?”

Ander stopped and faced him. “Listen, just because I’m not as physically fit as all of you, doesn’t mean that you need to make excuses for me.” The halfling turned and continued walking in place.

The berserker sighed heavily and moved to directly in front of the wizard. “We’re not making excuses, Ander. Look at me, I’m not moving, I’m perfectly still. Are you getting any closer to me?” For the first time, Jun saw a bluish mark in the halfling’s iris.

Ander rolled his eyes. “Of course I’m not, because you are so far ahead.” He shooed the berserker away. “Move, and I’ll catch up all on my own.”

Jun went back to the trio, who had been joined by Lia and Iados.

“Obviously you didn’t have any luck.” Iados said.

Jun shook his head. “Whatever kind of magic this is, it’s got him trapped steadfast. Any suggestions? Can we just pull him out of it?”

“From what little I’ve learned about illusion magic, sometimes the safest thing is to let the illusion play out.” Lia advised. “We could risk injuring him if we just yank him from it.”

“Let’s give a few more minutes. If he’s not out of it in ten minutes we’ll yank him.” Carric shrugged. “It’s about time for lunch anyway, so it’s not like we can’t take a break.”

Jun volunteered to stay and watch the halfling, and the others went down the last ten feet to the corner of the hallway. Eight minutes later, a very tired Ander waddled past Jun and towards the picnic spread. He was very quiet as he devoured the dried rations and stale bread. Kerri wordlessly magicked away the sweat stains on his clothes as they all ate their meal.

During the break, Jun took a moment to check Ander’s eyes. The blue mark was gone.

Around the corner was another hallway, similar to the bare stone hallway they’d come through before. Kerri held her hand to the wall, but didn’t feel the hum as before. Ander mumbled a spell and a purple film covered his eyes. He looked down the previous hallway and could see the illusion spell that covered three-fourths of it. When he looked at the new hallway, he saw no sign of any illusions or other magic in the immediate vicinity.

Both magic-users conveyed their findings, and the group breathed a sigh of relief before they headed out. This hallway was much longer than the previous one, and they didn’t run across anything besides stonework till about forty feet down. That’s when they found the door.

It was a very simple wooden door set into the stone with a narrow stone trim around it. It had black simple hinges on its left-hand side. What drew everyone’s attention, especially Ander’s, was the large, polished, silver door handle.

Through the last of the magical film Ander was reassured that the door knob was not magical. He reached out to grasp it.

Just as his hand grasped the smooth metal, Ander realized too late that the door, was not a door. A tooth-filled mouth opened up front of him, and within seconds he was cocooned in a wooden prison. Ander felt the gelatinous and slimy form of the creature slid against his skin as the creature squeezed him.

“Help me!” Ander screamed just before the creature slid itself over his mouth. The wizard was instantly nauseous as he tasted the bitter and rancid slime on his tongue.

Everyone pulled out their weapons. Jun and Iados both started to whack and slash at the creature.

“Let him go!” Jun punctuated his words with strikes of his hammer.

A wood textured tendril lashed out and slapped Jun in the arm.

Carric fired an arrow that lodged itself in the tendril.

The creature unfurled itself and dropped the wizard. It lost all of the wooden texture and instead stood up as a lanky humanoid shaped blob that nearly reached the top of the eight-foot ceiling. Two tendrils whipped out of the side and shot towards the group. The blob leaned down and roared, its toothy maw out in full display.

Everyone dove to the sides to dodge the tendrils. Everyone, but Ander.

The wizard rolled back behind the creature and sneered. He raised up a finger and the same flame as before lit up. He hurled it at the creature.

The creature cried out as the flame hit it and that area of its body instantly firmed up. The creature twisted it’s torso around. A third tendril emerged out of its chest. The tendril snaked forward and latched itself around Ander’s ankle. Ander was thrown heavily into the stone wall.

The wizard groaned as the tendril retracted.

Jun bounded over and positioned himself above the halfling. The creature moved to attack Jun.

Suddenly its body went rigid. The creature screamed as it began to melt into a glossy puddle. After a few moments, the screams stopped, and an arrow and bolt were left in the goopy mess.

Iados sighed heavily as he sheathed his sword. “That could have been a lot worse.”

“You know what that was?” Kerri asked.

Iados nodded. “It’s a type of ooze that’s usually employed to protect treasure hoards. As you saw, it can look like practically anything. More than a few of these things ended up in our cargo hold.”

Carric knelt down and gingerly removed his arrow. “Do these things usually stay dead?”

Iados nodded. “Usually, unless you pay for the add-ons.”

Kerri’s eyes went wide. “Add-ons, you mean these things are man-made?”

The akudaem grinned. “The ones I’m familiar with are. There’s a group of gnomes who specialize in them. Last I heard they were based outside Esterwill, but that was a couple of years ago.”

“These oozes are very much at the top of my hate list.” Ander grumbled as he examined a putrid smelling new stain on his jacket.

“What’s the story there?” Kerri knelt down and ran her hand over the stain. It took a few passes for the magic to dissolve it.

“My first year at the Circle, some of the upper classmen decided to pull a prank and hide baby oozes disguised as mints under all of the freshmen class pillows.” Ander explained. “They were so small that there wasn’t any real danger, but mine somehow ended up my nose, and down my throat. The little thing fought the whole time, and gave me the worst indigestion of my life.”

“That sounds awful.” Kerri patted his shoulder comfortingly, but she did make note of the uses of baby oozes for later use.

“I couldn’t sleep with a pillow for weeks, I was always afraid that there was something under it.” Ander shuddered. “Let’s just get going, I can see another door just up ahead.”

Leaving the puddle behind, the group headed off towards the next door. On the way, Jun took a good look around and found that unlike the fountain room and the previous hallways, this hallway had visible dust and small animal droppings.

The next door was the same as all the doors they’d encountered before, wooden and simple. The handle wasn’t locked, but did give some resistance when Jun turned it.

On the other side was a broom closet. There were two literal brooms in there with their straw molded away in clumps, and the wood warped. Ander was the first one in the cramped space. Behind the brooms he discovered a small slit in the wall. It sat a couple of feet off the ground, was only a few inches wide and a foot long. When he peered into it, he saw a very small pinprick of light along the very back.

Jun hunched down next to the halfling. “See anything?”

“Maybe,” Ander took the lit stick from the berserker and stuck it into the slit. It only went in only a few inches before there was an audible crack and the space when dark. When he pulled the stick out, the lit tip had broken clean off.

“Well that’s cool.” The wizard grinned as his gaze went back and forth from the broken stick to the slit. Jun didn’t see the appeal, mostly because he couldn’t see anything in the dark room now. Ander pulled the circumluci out of his pack and turned it on. “I’m gonna need ten minutes.”

Jun sighed and left the closet. Behind him he could hear as Ander pulled out other items from his mess of a pack.

“He’s found a slit in the wall, and won’t leave until he finds out what it does.” Jun explained when he joined up with the others.

“Should we leave him here and continue exploring?” Iados asked.

“A couple of us could at least go down to the end of the hall,” Lia pointed. “There’s another turn, and at the very least and we could see what’s there.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Elaine stretched and headed for the closet. “Since Ander’s got the other light stick, let me see if we can borrow the light ball so we’ll have some light while you explore.”

“Can’t,” Jun interjected. “The slit broke the stick, so now he’s using the light ball.”

The akudaem shook their head. “I don’t need light. Thanks to my ancestors I can see in the dark quite a bit.”

Lia smiled. “Same here, and I bet my eyes are better than his.” She grinned at the akudaem as she handed her quarterstaff to Kerri. “Iados and I will go see what’s around the bend, and wait for you guys there till Ander’s done. That way we can alert you if there’s any trouble.” The two of them didn’t wait for confirmation before they started down the hall.

Once they were out of human eyesight, Elaine leaned over and whispered to Kerri. “Want to place a bet on how much ‘scouting’ they actually do?”

The half-elf grinned. “What’s the point when we both know the answer?” She watched as their two scouts joined hands before they disappeared around the corner. She turned to face the rest of her group. “So, what do we do in the meantime?”

“I’ve got those dice we found. I could teach you guys an old soldier dice game while we wait.” Jun pulled the dice out of his pocket.

“Why not, it’s not like we’re on an actual clock or anything.” Carric settled down against the wall.

Around the corner, Iados and Lia were making out.

“Not that I’m complaining, but is this really the best place to do this?” Lia asked as they came up for air.

“Hey, you’re the one who volunteered us for recon duty.” Iados smirked. “Are you saying you don’t want to make out with me?”

She shook her head. “That’s not what I said, and if we weren’t in this dusty dungeon I might try to do something else to you.” She gently bit his lower lip.

“You know, there were some beds back there.” Iados purred. “They’re a little moldy, but I’m sure we can work around that.”

“You sure you want to risk that illusion again?” Lia brought her hand up to trace one of his small horns.

“Maybe we can just kick Ander out of that broom closet instead.” Iados suggested softly instead after a moment’s hesitation. Lia laughed and the two of them resumed their previous activity.

About half an hour later, Ander emerged from the broom closet, a satisfied smile on his face.

“So what’s the verdict?” Jun threw the dice. They settled on a 6 and a 4, a result which made Jun hang his head. Carric smirked as he scooped up the dice next.

The halfling stowed the circumluci in his pack. “It’s an interesting spell. Just about anything you put in the slit just breaks. I tried the broom handle, a little bit of paper, and even one of the small knives I have on me. The tips just broke off of all of them. Eventually I stuck my hand in. Didn’t even feel any pressure on it.” Ander made a show of holding up both hands after Elaine’s eyes went wide. “There were some runes carved into the stone. I took a rubbing of them to show a colleague I know back at the Circle. This kind of magic seems just up his alley.” Ander looked around. “Where’s Iados and Lia?”

Kerri pointed over her shoulder. “They’re supposedly up around the bend scouting.” She grinned. “We’re all pretty sure they’re doing something else.”

“Is anyone concerned about that behavior?” Ander sat down with the small group. “I mean, isn’t that the kind of behavior that causes drama in a party?”

“In the long run, maybe,” Carric shrugged. “I was under the impression that this party was done once we’re done clearing this place.”

“Well, since we’ve been working so well together, I’ve kind of been playing around with an idea.” Ander said.

“What kind of an idea?” Kerri grinned as her 2 and 3 beat out Carric’s 4 and 2.

Ander took a turn rolling the dice. His 5 and 4 were ignored. “The Circle employs groups to go out and explore. They hear rumors of places, like this, and will send a group to check it out. I was wondering if you guys would be willing to form a group like that.”

Silence descended on the group for a moment as they considered.

“What all would be entailed if we did agree?” Kerri asked.

“Well, we’d have to submit a request to the Circle, and get certified. Once certified we’d receive badges and papers sanctioning our group.” Ander explained. “The money we find and certain items would be ours, barring any powerful magic items. Reports would also have to be submitted on the mission.”

Carric grinned. “So, we’d be adventurers.” Ander nodded. Elaine rolled the dice, but couldn’t beat Kerri.

Jun stood up. “It’s something to consider at the very least.” He cupped his hands and yelled down the hall. “We’re on our way to meet you!” He winked at the rest of the group. “I figured we’d give them a bit of a heads up first.”

Ander tapped Elaine on the shoulder. “Would you mind lighting this again?” Ander held up the stick from before.

“Not at all,” Elaine tapped the tip and it began to emanate a soft glow. “Why can’t you do that yourself?”

The wizard shrugged. “It’s not one of the spells in my spellbook is all.” The two of them lagged behind the others as they headed down the hall. “I focused more on offensive spells for this trip. This is the first time I’ve really been away from home, so I was more concerned about getting back in one piece.”

She nodded. “I can see that. Going back to the party idea, how many sanctioned groups does have the Circle have currently?”

“Not many,” Ander explained. “Each group has to have a Circle member within their ranks. Nowadays there aren’t a whole lot of members who want to leave the safety of the Circle. Most of the adventuring types left and joined groups about thirty or forty years ago. A large number of them went missing, and that’s turned a lot of the younger members off volunteering.”

“What happened to them?” Carric slowed his pace to keep up with the two of them. Ahead, Kerri and Jun filled Iados and Lia in on what Ander had found in the closet.

Ander shrugged again. “No one really knows. A few remains have been found over the years, but not all. It’s assumed that they died in battle while adventuring. We can’t bring them back to life, and most of the bodies were too old to communicate with.”

“So, what you’re saying is that there’s quite a few unfinished jobs out there.” The corner of the ranger’s mouth turned up. Elaine gasped and hit him in the arm.

Carric rubbed his arm. “What was that for?”

The cleric crossed her arms. “For being rude and disrespectful to the dead. We’re talking about whole parties dying, and your first thought is how to benefit from their deaths.”

“It’s not like I knew them.” Carric countered. “Besides, if Ander wants us to form an actual sanctioned party, then I’d like to know what the job market is like.”

Iados’s head popped up around Jun. “Sanctioned party? What kind of party and why does it need sanctions?”

Carric turned around and jerked a thumb down at Ander. “While you two were messing around, Ander here proposed the idea of the seven of us forming an adventuring party and working for the Circle.”

Kerri looked at Lia. “Would that contradict with your work for that door group?”

The elf shrugged. “Don’t know, but Ander’s idea is interesting. I really hadn’t given much thought to what would I’d do after this.”

Iados nodded. “Me either, I was going to wait and see if I survived this job first.”

“This isn’t a decision that needs to be made now.” Ander held his hands up. “We can talk about it once we’re done here, but it’s something to keep in mind.”

Everyone nodded, and they set off down the hall in silence.

Twenty or so feet down, the barren rock hallway changed. A small alcove came into view with a pile of what appeared to be cloth at least five feet tall and at least ten feet wide. An ornate rug made with swirling designs of reds, blues, yellows, and whites covered a majority of the fifteen foot hallway. A tapestry similar to what they’d found in the tomb from the graveyard hung on the wall. This one showed people sitting in pews while a person in black robes preached. The hallway ended in a large metal door with no handle.

“Wow,” Ander pushed his way forward towards the rug. “Look at the workmanship.”

“That’s an awfully nice rug down here.” Iados commented with a raised eyebrow as he reached out and grabbed Ander’s arm. “That and the tapestry are probably the nicest things we’ve seen.”

Ander rolled his eyes. “Your point?”

“My point, is that so far everything down here from the brooms to the beds earlier have been rotted with age. Why isn’t that rug?” Iados nodded down at the rug.

Ander paused to consider that point for a moment before his eyes lit up. “Because it’s probably magic!” He tugged his arm out of Iados’s grasp and approached the rug. Already the tips of his fingers had started to glow a soft purple.

“What’s the worst a rug can do?” Jun said as he and everyone else watched Ander step onto the rug. As they watched Ander begin to cast his spell, the corners of the rug twitched. Before anyone could warn the halfling, the opulent rug had rolled itself into a ball, with Ander in the middle.

“Help!” Ander cried out, his voice muffled as the rug twisted around him. Lia had to stop herself from rolling her eyes at the sight of Ander once again cocooned.

Jun grabbed his warhammer and slammed it into the ball. From inside the fabric prison, he heard Ander grunt in pain as the rug-ball was thrown into the wall. The rug loosened its grip enough for Ander to shimmy out.

“That hurt!” Ander yelled up at Jun as he crawled towards the group.

Jun grimaced. “Sorry.”

“Well now we know that fabric isn’t a good shield.” Carric sent an arrow at the rug, where it pierced a hole through it.

“Don’t damage it!” Ander yelled out.

Elaine paused as she aimed her crossbow. “Then how are we supposed to stop it?” “If you give me a little bit of time, maybe I can find its command word to make it stand down.” Ander explained as he got to his feet. “Do you have any idea how much we can sell an enchanted rug for?”

“Do you know how much a rug that size must weigh?” Carric asked back as he sent another arrow that pierced the fabric. “As a reminder, we still have to carry everything we take from here through the forest back to town.”

Ander waved towards the berserker. “Jun’s strong, he can carry it no problem.”

“What am I doing?” Jun yelled exasperatedly as he dodged the rug that was now trying to smother him.

“Capturing the rug!” Ander yelled. Jun sighed. He dropped his warhammer and instead tried to grapple the rug into submission.

“Shouldn’t you be helping?” Lia asked Iados as the two of them lounged against the wall.

“I’m sure Jun doesn’t need my help against a rug,” He answered. “Besides, I kind of want to see how this ends.”

“A copper piece says Jun gets wrapped up.” Kerri held up the coin in between two fingers.

“Nah, he’ll tear it apart first.” Lia said with a smile.

“I think you’re both wrong,” Elaine chimed in as she joined them, crossbow back down at her side. “Carric’s going to take it out first.”

“Just to be fair, I’ll put a copper in on Ander taming it.” Iados laughed as the four of them settled in to watch the show.

It took about ten minutes in all, between Jun wrestling with the rug, Ander shouting out seemingly random words, and Carric shooting arrows out every so often. Finally, just as Jun had evaded another attack from the rug, an arrow struck the rug and a flash of light emanated out. Everyone closed their eyes from the intensity, and when they opened them again the rug was in tatters on the ground.

Ander fell to his knees. “I was so close!”

“Good shooting.” Jun said to Carric as he ignored the halfling.

Carric grinned. “Good dodging, I was sure that rug almost had you a few times.”

“If I let a rug get the better of me, I’d never hear the end of it.” Jun laughed.

“That would have been such a funny ballad. ‘The Story of Jun vs. The Rug’, I’m sure it would’ve been a hit.” Kerri giggled. “Oh well.”

Iados ambled up to Jun and Carric. “While you guys were playing with the rug, the rest of us went ahead and checked out a couple of things. The pile of rags in the alcove is nothing but mold at this point. We used my club to shift around in it.” He pointed to the tapestry. “Lia and Elaine noticed that the tapestry has an outline of what they tell me is Zhagra’s symbol in the background. It’s faint, so you have to kind of unfocus your eyes to see it.”

Lia walked over. “When I went look behind the tapestry, the part I touched nearly crumbled to dust in my fingers. I managed to lift a small corner near the floor, and peeked behind but I didn’t see anything. This thing definitely isn’t magical, and time has taken any other value it might have had.”

“What about the door?” Jun asked. They all watched as Ander made his way over and began to examine the walls.

“We couldn’t find any opening mechanisms.” Iados explained as he too watched Ander. Not two seconds later, Ander pried a section of the rock out, at eye level to him. Behind was a lever. The akudaem’s jaw dropped. “Obviously we didn’t look hard enough.”

Carric crossed his arms. “This place was built by dwarves, makes sense that the lever would be eye-level to a dwarf, or halfling.”

“Well, shall I do the honors?” Ander reached out and pulled the lever. With a grinding noise, the door began to pull up like a portcullis. It got a few feet off the ground, before there was a loud snap and the door crashed back down.

“That didn’t sound good.” Kerri said as Ander furiously moved the lever back and forth in its holder. Jun went over to the door and tried to pull it back up. However, neither he nor Iados could get a grip good enough to brute force the door.

“Well, back down the hall.” Kerri sighed. She turned on her heel and led the way.

“Remember everyone, the hallway isn’t that long, and it’s only an illusion.” Carric told everyone as he followed. Lia went over, and gently guided Ander away from the door.

“Hey, there’s still two other hallways we haven’t explored yet.” Lia reassured him.

“I bet they won’t have any magic rugs though.” He cast a mournful glance at the pile of tattered fabric as they passed.

“You don’t know that,” Lia grinned. “Come on, it’s not like you haven’t already found a cool magic item. You found the light ball, that’s cool.”

“Yeah, but it’s not worth very much.” Ander sighed dejectedly. “You can find quite a few of them back home.”

“Is money all you look at?” Lia asked exasperated. “What about your spirit of adventure?”

“Spirit’s all fine, but you can’t buy or rent an apartment with it.” Ander explained. “My girlfriend and I want to move in together back home.”

“Oh, well that’s sweet,” Lia's tone softened, a little taken aback.

“Wait, if you’re moving in together, then why are you trying to form a party that’d make it impossible for you to actually live there?” Iados called out over his shoulder.

Ander waved his hand. “It’s the symbolism of the whole thing. It’s a signal from me to her that I want to move to the next step in our relationship.”

“I think it makes perfect sense.” Kerri said as they rounded the corner.

Elaine scoffed. “Please, your idea of moving in with a guy is to crash at their place for a week while you perform at the local tavern.”

“Hey, I’ve saved a lot of money that way.” Kerri countered. “Besides, I never accepted their offer until there was at least a small chance of the relationship becoming more than just a booty call.”

“I usually give a relationship at least a year to progress enough before I call it off.” Lia chimed in. “Of course, I’m an elf and we do tend to take things slow and savor them.”

“So a year to you might be what, six months or so to the rest of us?” Kerri asked.

“Maybe,” Lia said with a shrug. “You’ve also got to factor in the chemistry you have with the other person.”

“Chemistry?” Ander’s brows knitted together. “How does science have anything to do with feelings?”

Lia laughed. “Oh, quite a lot actually. I mostly just mean how well the two, or more, people get along together and complement each other. And not just in the short term, but long term too.”

“Yeah, if you guys aren’t that compatible, then you won’t last and it’ll be heartbreak city for everyone.” Kerri added.

“Isn’t the whole thing that ‘love wins’ no matter what?” Carric's face scrunched up in confusion.

Kerri’s gaze shifted to floor. “That’s rarely ever the case except for stories.”

Jun answered stretched his back. “My daughter’s mother and I tried to be a couple after Kai was born. At some point before her first birthday, the relationship fizzled. We started questioning what kind of future we wanted, and we had different ideas. Love can be a great instigator, but you still need timing and perseverance to make it work long-term.”

“Some relationships have an expiration date, and you can’t change that. Trying to fight it usually ends in heartbreak.” Iados turned to look at Ander. “How about you and your girlfriend, have you talked about the future?”

“We have, but now I’m thinking we need to talk more.” Ander rubbed his head. The girls had gone quiet as the boys had started talking amongst themselves. As Iados talked of expiration dates, Elaine shot a glance at Kerri, whose face remained impassive.

As they rounded the corner and headed back up the illusioned corridor, Kerri got stuck for a moment before she was able to continue on.