It was the dawn of the third (arguably the fourth) day that Vaile had spent in this place. He had nearly mapped out every one of the loping streets, but before he tackled the last one he decided that he would try something a little different today. As he opened the door to his room and went outside, he paused for a moment as he heard the sound of something moving behind him. He turned around to check his room and found that nothing was amiss.

However, there was one small change that caused some minor concern. The sheets on his room’s bed were placed in such a way that the sides would reach down to the floor, but one of the sides had been slightly pushed inwards and under the bed. Vaile kept his eyes on that part of the covers before deciding that it wasn’t worth the trouble. Either there was nothing wrong or there was something under the bed now that would almost certainly try and rip him apart if he investigated it. Ultimately, the best option was to simply pretend that nothing was wrong and prepare for an attack when he came back.

Then again, he might have accidentally moved that part of the covers inward by himself and just failed to notice, but given how spooky, creepy, and otherwise strange everything in this place had been up till now, he could not rule out that something had sped past the open door and under the bed. Well, if he had set up the defenses properly, then it wouldn’t matter either way. After all, closing the room up would set all of the defenses up again, and there were multiple in place that would (supposedly) reduce any unwanted visitor to a paralyzed prisoner once triggered.

He decided to bite the bullet and closed the door behind him and then made his way outside. It was time to try finding a different path to the exit.

…

Vaile looked up and down, studying his handiwork. Sure, it had taken a few dozen potions, but he had finally done it. Before him was a parkour enthusiast's daydream; a bunch of random bits and bobs piled high enough to allow the person climbing it to reach the rooftops. The assembled mix of boxes, barrels, and whatnot made a stairway that led up to the joined rooves and would allow him to try and use the lack of streets to his advantage.

Vaile carefully navigated his way up to the rooftops and stood triumphant as he finished his climb. Thankfully, the fog bank was just a few inches above his head, and the lack of solar glare that the fog bank provided allowed Vaile to take in the sights and see that….

Vaile squinted, took off his mask, looked again, looked down at his mask in his hands, wiped the ‘glass’ that covered the mask’s eyeholes, put the mask back on, and then squinted again. He was not sure what he had been expecting, but what he was seeing was certainly something else. Aside from the gaps provided by the nearest street and intersection, there was nothing but a seemingly endless sea of roofing.

There were no gaps where streets would have been, nor were there any chimneys or even any places where the flat upper part of the roofing would slope down a bit. No, it was a fast flat plain made up entirely of shingles that stretched out for what looked to be an eternity. Well, almost eternity.

There was one part of this sea of shingles that was out of place, besides the obvious fact that the entire place was nothing but a nearly endless plain of flat roofing. There was just one singular spot where the flatness gave way and tipped downwards, leading to a hole that obviously went somewhere. Vaile made his way over to this indentation and saw that there was, indeed, a hole there. And, to his surprise, the inside of that hole had a ladder leading down to what seemed to be a cobblestone road section that was entirely cut off from the rest of the road by at least fifty meters of pure structure.

Vaile looked up at the fog bank. By his estimate, he didn’t have much more daylight to burn, which meant that it was not a good idea to try and risk being caught out during those two hours of madness just so he could find out where that one random door on a wall down in the bottom of the hole went. He booked it back to where he came from, parkoured his way down the pile of stuff that he had made earlier that day, and beat a hasty retreat back into the inn.

He was running low on time to prepare as it was, for the street lamps were beginning to turn on and the fog was slowly starting to sink down. With all the haste of a ma who knew he was trapped in a horror movie, Vaile bolted for his room and entered it, slamming the door behind him which reset all of the defenses. Vaile once again took his position, seated cross-legged in the middle of a magic circle, and nodded off to sleep. Soon after, the banging on the door began, but Vaile had already drifted off to dreamland by now, with the aid of a potion.

…

However, in his haste to get to safety, Vaile had neglected to prepare for the eventuality that there could be someone or, perhaps, something hiding under the unused bed. However, Vaile’s paranoia back when he had first set everything up had actually proven to be valuable in more ways than simply keeping the unwanted guest during the nightly hours of craziness.

What was under his bed was locked in place, unable to do much of anything aside from watching the night pass and hear the people on the outside trying to get in. Well, on the plus side, it didn’t need to worry about what would happen if it stayed beyond that place for too long. Seeing as how hasty Vaile was to get in and out, it knew it didn’t have much time between the periods when the defenses would kick in. Despite it and its kind’s hopes to do something, the being’s speed had become a liability.

It just needed for there to be an opening where it could smudge up one of the traps, and then it would have the entire night to try and communicate with Vaile. That was if the man didn’t immediately fall into a deep, deep sleep immediately after getting back in, of course.