Vera waved the group ahead impatiently, and West hurried to join. Another dim strip along the ceiling lit the passageway stairs and continued out into the large hall at its top. The hall curved off to the left and right, its gray walls dotted by singular dark bricks at regular intervals.

“Can I get a look at the map?” West asked.

“I thought you were keeping an eye on our new companion,” Roman said, handing the map over nonetheless.

West ignored the snark and assessed the map with a quick eye. “So ye’ve been this way a’fore, Sunneh?”

“Y-yes. Most of these early paths, I’ve seen at least once.” Sunny’s voice was soft as the feathers of her wings. “There’s a few t-traps along this hall. It won’t be too dangerous until we get into a room.”

“And we gotta go find where that is, right?”

“Right. Most of the time, th-there’s just one or two doorways open at a time, and the rest are sealed.”

Setting his shoulders and deepening his voice authoritatively, Roman cut in with, “Are there any traps we need to worry about immediately?”

Sunny oriented on the hall. “If we go left, there’ll be a tripline about twenty paces in. It’s easy to s-step over. There’s also a pressure plate later on, if the first doorway is sealed.”

“Yes, those are on the map. So is that the better way to go?”

“I… I don’t know if there’s a b-better way or not.” Sunny shrank back at Roman’s exasperated stare. “I’m sorry, I just don’t–”

“Never mind, clearly there’s no information to be had. Let’s move forward. Vera?”

Sunny’s memory was accurate, at least– Vera found the tripline, and soon after it, the first doorway, which was wide open. “Ah.” The sound Sunny made in inspecting the room beyond was half relief, half wince. “It looks like this room hasn’t been touched since the last time.”

“You’ve been through this one before?” Roman asked, examining the smallish room. It stretched like a wide hallway, with decorative pillars lining both sides. Each column had been smashed straight through, breaking the connection between floor and ceiling.

West raised an eyebrow at the rubble strewn about. “What happened here?”

“Well,” Sunny said, “the p-pillars used to trigger a trap. So one of the groups before….” She waved a hand at the destruction.

“Ah!” West showed the map to Roman, pointing out the room they stood in. “So it’s safe now, and that’s why ye marked the room with an X?”

“That’s right,” Sunny nodded.

Roman indicated the pillars with a raise of his chin. “Are you certain it hasn’t been fixed?”

“Well, I’ve never seen anything repaired,” she said. “The traps usually reset, but once something’s broken, it doesn’t seem to get fixed. But,” her eyes half closed, “I s-suppose there’s a first time for everything….”

Without warning, Sunny hurried forward between the broken pillars, holding her breath. West’s hands startled, too slow to try stopping her. His heart hammered as the Mani, unscathed, turned with a small, fake smile. “N-not this time though, it seems.”

West bit back a curse. “Was that really the only way to find out, lass?” he demanded, following after.

“It was the f-fastest way.” Sunny’s tone was measured and firm, but unable to hold off her stammer. “Besides… even if they d-did work, it’s better that I be the one t-to risk it.” West opened his mouth to argue, but the Mani had already oriented to the doorway at the room’s end. “Let’s move through while we c-can– we won’t always get this lucky.”

Like the stairway between the stage room and the first hall, steps led upwards beyond the open passageway. According to the map, there were five ring-like halls; crossing the first room put them into the second hall.

His curiosity wandering, West asked, “Say, Sunneh, let me ask ye: What’s the closest ye figure anyone’s gotten to gettin’ out?”

Sunny bit her lip. “I don’t know that anyone’s come truly c-close,” she said, small-voiced. “At the fifth hall, though. I think if s-someone who understands Zorrocean w-were there, that m-might be the last step needed.” West caught Roman glancing at Vera, who bobbed her head slightly.

West hoped that exchange meant what he thought it did, but said only, “That’s right useful, thank ye.” A cautious optimism warmed his thoughts. It didn’t seem like it should take them too long to work their way through a few rooms, but that assumed that the challenge was fair… and that would be asking far, far too much.

Following Sunny’s careful instruction to step over a tripwire here, and around a pressure plate there, the group continued down the hallway until they found themselves once again outside of the broken pillar room. They’d completed a full loop without finding a single passageway leading outward, and only one other doorway moving inward again. Nae a fair challenge after all, then. West felt his optimism dwindle like a candle flame flagging in the wind.

Roman eyed the familiar columns like something foul stuck to the bottom of his shoe. “Well,” the swordsman said, “where are we supposed to go from here?”

Sunny shrugged, resigned. “W-we’ll have to try the other room. It could have a way to t-trigger a wall shift and open a new path.” At Roman's displeased stare, she forced a small smile. “Th-there’s always been a way forward, don’t worry.”

“I see.” Roman didn’t seem soothed. “And how often can we expect to have to backtrack like this?”

Sunny’s smile faltered, then fell off altogether. “As often as it takes, I suppose,” she murmured.

On that uncomfortable note, they started down the hallway again, retracing their steps to find the other inward-directed room. At Sunny’s nod, they descended the stairs inside.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

As they gathered in the room, West examined it. It was around the same size as the last, but had no pillars. Instead, a few paces in, a thin gold line separated the familiar stone floor from a spread of broad, square tiles, all gleaming white.

“Sunneh?” West prompted.

“Over there,” Sunny nodded to the far side of the room. The faint archway where a doorway would have stood was sealed, but on the wall beside it, a faint red Zorrocean glyph glowed. “That rune is wh-what makes the walls move. Which ones and which ways, I’m not sure, but… it should open us a path forward.”

“That seems too easy,” Roman said. “What’s stopping us from walking over and triggering it, then?”

Sunny gestured to the white tiles. “This room… those tiles fall away, some of them. There’s a pattern that’s s-safe to walk on, but.…” Sunny shook her head.

Roman looked perplexed, and his confusion darkened into a scowl. “What, you don’t already know the right answer?”

“I told you before, things change.” Sunny fidgeted, eyes downcast. “The mechanics of each room stays the same as last time, but the right way to navigate it– which tiles are safe, for example– doesn’t. It could be the same as last time, or it could be completely…” the woman slowed her speech and turned her face toward the far wall, her lips pursing in confusion, “different….”

Roman followed her gaze. “What is it?” Within seconds, they all heard it– voices from ahead, as though coming from behind the wall on the opposite side of the room.

Roman ordered hushedly, “Quietly, on guard.” His sword rasped from its sheath, Vera’s wand case clicked softly, and West ushered Sunny off toward the nearest wall, out of the way of a potential skirmish.

“Hold on,” Sunny said, eyes growing wide, “I think that’s–”

“– this room!” The voice had a strange quality to it, blurred as though a person was speaking through layers of cloth, but West recognized it just the same. Barely a heartbeat after, and from the sealed doorway on the opposite side of the room, a blurred form walked through as though manifesting from the stone itself.

It was Sunny, but not quite a twin to the woman recoiling behind him. The illusionary creature could only be an illusion, and one badly cobbled together at that, with colors bleeding and motions smudging. Beneath the thick cloth and the draping hood of a rich indigo-blue cloak, the imitation Sunny’s wings were concealed so well that only spellwork could explain it, looking to all the world like an ordinary Mani. This phantom Sunny also carried a leather bag at her side, plus a gaggle of gadgets at her belt– whereas the Sunny behind him, who had little more than a dress and her boots, and both of those torn and worn. Beyond any other differences, though, this doppelganger Sunny smiled. “I’ve come across this one before,” the illusion sang with relief.

Roman glanced at the real Sunny apprehensively. “What’s…?”

“One of… its illusions,” she murmured, shrinking back.

More shapes followed the magicked Mani at a brisk pace, these others even more ill-defined than the first. The voices were clear enough, though. “So you know the way across?”

“It’s simple– you saw the symbol back in the stage room, didn’t you? The tiles on the floor are patterned just the same. Just walk where I do, you’ll be fine.” No stutter, no flinching, no apologies– it was strange to hear the confidence in the illusion’s voice.

Behind him, Sunny closed her eyes. She didn’t need to see what was coming next.

The scene unfurled in jagged flashes. The illusions picked their way across the floor. The floor began to fall through. The vision of Sunny, with a flash of wings, managed to snatch back one of her companions from the brink, too late for another. Of five that entered the room, only three made it to the end where the flesh-and-blood party now stood. The illusion was remarkably realistic in depicting the bloody red blobs of the two that hadn’t made it across, ripped to shreds over a series of blades concealed beneath the tiles. Fading ever quieter, broken shock of the apparition– “The pattern changed, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know it could change–”

The illusion passed.

“Well. Very unpleasant,” Roman said. He spoke calmly, but didn’t seem ready to sheathe his gladius again. “I believe I understand what you were saying. How would you suggest we cross, if we don’t know what pattern is safe?”

Sunny was silent. She’d had her hands over her ears, and she’d barely pulled them away even now. A distant, dazed look was trapped on her face.

“Lass?” West tried, but when she barely blinked, took matters into his own hands. “Well, better maybe that we don’t try and solve it proper at all, then. We jes’ need one o’ us to cross and activate the glyph, right?”

“Wings,” Vera pointed at the Mani. Tension made her voice forceful, almost like a snarl. “Just have her do it.”

“I dinnae think Sunneh’s the best choice,” West said, glancing at her. Sunny didn’t seem to be tracking the conversation at all, staring listlessly at the ground. Even if she wasn’t in a daze though, the ceilings in the room seemed too low for easy flight. “Besides, I got a bit o’ a talent that’ll do here, as it happens. I’ll go across and get it sorted, quick as a wink.”

Sunny blinked, freed from whatever mental tangle she’d been ensnared by. “Wait– no, I can–”

“Nae, lass, ye let me handle it. It willnae take more than a moment,” the Investigator said, gesturing for her to stay put. She followed anxiously, but didn’t stop him as he readied himself at the line separating the solid floor from the untrustworthy tiles.

The trick here was one he’d learned years ago, in the shifting sands of the Great Desert. Closing his eyes briefly, West drew on the murky depths of his Pond, and imagined the surface of it stretching out before him. He didn’t direct the flow of its energy out, not just yet, but visualization was key. Then he could inhale, pulling the energy through his body until the warmth of it tingled at the soles of his feet. West opened his eyes again, piecing together simultaneously the Pond inside him with the uncertain ground in front of him, and moved.

He leapt. He felt the push of the energy beneath his feet, but even that wouldn’t be enough to clear the whole distance at once, and he heard a cry of dismay behind him as he landed solidly among the white tiles. But the energy hadn’t left his feet yet, and now he let it flow out on the surface of the Pond– not as water, but in the ghost image of a giant water lily pad under his feet, barely sinking under his weight as he instantly leapt off again.

The tiles slipped, but only after he’d already passed, his heels already hopping off to the next footfall. Whenever West landed on uncertain ground, at the instant it started to shift, the energy of his Pond filled in, letting him launch off again just before gravity tipped over the floor beneath him. In just a few great bounds, West had crossed to the other side, the clattering of tiles falling in the pit still behind him.

He turned, grinning, to flash a thumbs-up to the others. Roman waved back in rare approval; Vera seemed unimpressed; Sunny looked as though she might collapse from relief.

West crossed the last few steps to the glyph. It looked like it had been painted onto the stone itself– maybe some kind of alchemical compound, primed for enchantment? West studied it with professional curiosity but hesitated at actually fiddling with it. “I jes’ gotta touch it, aye?” he called.

From the distance, he saw Sunny nod – “speak up,” Roman scolded her firmly – “Y-yes, that’s right!” she called back. West put his hand against the glyph. It glowed receptively to his touch, and then a great grinding sound announced the activation of some hidden mechanism in the building.

“Wall’s moving out there!” Vera reported from the far side, making for the hallway.

“W-wait!” Sunny interposed herself between the scholar and the doorway. “W-we need to go together. Wait for West first.” Vera huffed, but didn’t argue. West, meanwhile, picked his way back across – now that he’d scattered a good number of tiles, it was easier to pick out where stable ground was, and he only had to use his Lilypad technique once on the return trip.

“Well done, Investigator,” Roman greeted him. “What was that just now? Are you a magicker after all?”

“Nae, lad, no sort o’ magic. Leastwise, nae by any proper definition,” West said dismissively. “Most anyone could do it with enough trainin’. Once we get out o’ here in one piece, I’ll tell ye as much about it as ye like, aye?”

Roman nodded, satisfied. “Well then. Let’s see what’s opened up for us now, shall we?”