I followed the other three down hallway after hallway. Varus was in the lead, adamant that they could find the exit through trial and error. It was difficult to walk on the vine-covered floor, and the drops of water from the ceiling were beginning to soak through my clothes. The situation was quickly becoming highly unpleasant.

They turned a corner and after some steps, Cris’s light reached far enough ahead to show a dead end.

“Varus, it’s time to switch to another plan,” Cris said. She pointed to the wall on her right; a large patch of it was bare, and the faint smell of ash lingered.

“It’s the wall I burnt,” Karl said. His tone said that it was impossible. They had been making sure to focus their movement towards a single direction, and yet they had somehow circled around to where they began.

“The poppies won’t let us leave that easily,” Cris said, but Varus scoffed at that. “Like you said before, they’re just plants. Though I can agree that we mustn’t be thinking clearly thanks to them. My head is feeling foggier and foggier.”

“What if we burn them all away?” I asked, looking toward Karl. His ability to spout liquid fire from his palm had been clearly effective.

He shrugged. “Maybe. But then we’d also have these tight corridors filling with smoke.”

“And the mist would remain in the air,” Cris added. “But I know that the effect of the drug lasts only half a day. And since we’ve ingested it indirectly, it’s likely to be not even that potent.”

So there were two problems. The first was getting rid of the invisible mist, either by destroying its source or some other means. Then, with the passage of time, they would hopefully recover. The second obstacle would be finding a way to leave without again ingesting the hallucinogenic mist on the way. I put this into words, and the others agreed.

A fifth existence within the poppy dungeon listened to the group of four as they discussed their options. As they prattled on, the vines that had been turned to ash were beginning to discard their scorched tips and pull themselves forward into the empty space on the wall. Their movement was hardly noticeable, but if one were to watch, it might look like a blank canvas being gradually consumed by the unstoppable progress of time…

In the worst case, the entity might have to take action. It waited to see whether the group would discover a way to save themselves.

Varus attempted to tear the vines from the walls with his bare hands, but with the slipperiness, the toughness of the roots that disappeared into the stone walls, and the sheer quantity of the growth, it seemed that any significant progress would take far too long. Worst of all was the mist that poured from the torn vines, which only fuelled the paranoia that we were unable to think clearly at all, or even see our surroundings for what they really were.

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“Hey!” Varus shouted without warning, trembling the walls, or such was the impression I got experiencing the heftiness of his voice. He charged away in a flash, heading for the T-junction that was our only path out of this corridor, while shouting for someone to stop. I glanced at Cris and Karl, and then we dashed after him.

Fortunately, Varus didn’t need to be told that it was dangerous to get separated. He waited at the junction and pointed in one of the directions. “I just saw a girl. We have to follow!” He began to run again. Cris called out at him to stop, that it was likely just an illusion, but Varus didn’t hesitate, even though he was heading straight into pitch darkness. We had no choice but to give chase after his large figure, as it kept pace just at the reaches of our vision.

“It could have been Holly or Rea,” Karl said between breaths. That might have been so, but at this point they also had to worry about themselves.

Varus paused for a moment at the corner ahead, ensuring that we wouldn’t be left behind. As we reached the corner, I prepared myself to speak up and say that this could be a trap, but Varus had already taken a step around the bend. His body suddenly disappeared. It looked as if it had simply fallen through the floor, but there was only solid stone and vines there…

That changed as I rubbed my eyes. In fact, the floor here was clearly collapsed. A cloud of dust rose from the hole, indicating that Varus had fallen in and hit the floor below.

“Varus, are you alright?!” Cris called in a panic. The man could be heard coughing below. “I’m fine, I’m not that brittle, Cris!” he called back up.

“This place is pissing me off,” Karl vented, apparently unable to remain calm. “It really is toying with us. What the hell is this…”

Cris looked concerned too. She knelt at the edge of the hole, and looked for Varus. He was standing among the remains of a broken wooden table, and as Cris increased the brightness of her light, I could see bookcases filled with tomes all around him.

“At the very least, we’ve been able to stick together,” I commented. “Even if the poppies can mess with our minds, perhaps it’s unable to do anything as drastic as making us unable to see or hear each other.”

“Even so, this is a bit of a mess!” Varus said, still managing to grin, albeit only derisively. The drop was at least three metres down, so he wasn’t able to simply grab the edge and pull himself back up.

As we pondered what the best course of action might be, Varus looked through the mess he had made. After a few minutes he called to us. “You might want to come down here after all.” His eyes were glued to the pages of a certain book.