Taddeo and an odoriferous but no longer limping Punchy lead the way, followed by Greenleaf, Zaljan, and Edric. The light from Zaljan and from Edric's staff mingle, throwing shifting shadows of the party against the walls.

As they round a bend, they see, up ahead, that the tunnel widens and smoothes into a perfectly circular opening, which is ringed the whole way around with fine, sharp protrusions. They look a lot like teeth.


Anthony finds himself in a small stone room with no visible exits, lit dimly by blue-green phosphorescent rocks on the ceiling.


They hear, faintly, "Hello, anyone there?" Then silence.

After half a minute, Ruth whispers, "I'd rather risk having to hide than wait to be caught." She tugs Emma with her and continues down the passageway. "Ahh," she says a few paces later. "We are going the right way."

Ahead, the passage widens into a huge room, filled with slabs of rock as polished and reflective as mirrors, jutting up sharply at all angles, covering the floor and ceiling.

"Ahoy!" yells back Sparrow's dwarf illusion. In a softer voice, for Ruth's and Emma's ears only, he adds "He shouldn't see either of you in any case, Unless he has a funny mask like the funny mask man."

The dwarf leads the way into the Hall of Mirrored Rocks, and quite suddenly Sparrow has a lot to do to make sure that his illusion reflects correctly in all the mirrors. A place with this many mirrors is very very tricky...

"Looks like a trap!"

Punchy exclaims, cheerfully, before striding carefree into the room.

Nothing happens, except that he can now see another set of teeth-like structures up ahead, faintly catching the light amidst the cave's gloom.

Taddeo follows much more cautiously.

"Strange that we haven't met any other kidnappers. I assume the dogs fled this way as well. Keep a look out."

Zaljan stops at the "teeth", crouching down to poke them with his medicine stick. "Funny rocks."

Edric rolls his eyes and sighs deeply when he sees the rocks. "Hat, are you showing the fastest way a person can get to that runed opening without seriously endangering his life or limbs?"

The hat continues to point in the same direction.

Anthony hears, very very faintly, "Ahoy!"


The dwarf illusion continues leading, with Emma and Ruth behind, outpacing Sparrow. Suddenly Emma yelps and rubs her forehead.

Ruth puts her hand out, touching what appears to be empty air. A hundred reflections of her do the same thing. "He made us close our eyes through this part," she explains, "and now I suppose I know why. Illusion magic." She begins feeling around for a way through. Emma helps. They find two empty spots that look like mirrors. Ruth asks, "Which way, Mr. Sparrow?"

"Ground rule." says the dwarf illusion. "Don't trust the ground. It might not always be there."

He thinks a bit more, then adds "Emma, put your hands on your mother's shoulders. Ruth, place your left hand on the wall to your left."

Once they have done this, Sparrow will create small globes of illusory darkness about their heads, preventing them from seeing and forcing them to rely on their sense of touch. "Move forward carefully." he says. "Ruth, keep your hand on the wall, let it guide you."

And carefully, on the lookout for traps, Sparrow follows Ruth and Emma along through the maze...

"Well, you led the way last time."

Taddeo walks forward, stopping right before the teeth. He pokes at them with his rapier.

"However, I'm not as . . . well lets just say I want any scars I get to be more dashing and less 'Ahhhhh! A hideous monster!'"

Zaljan lays his hand on one of the rocks and tries to get the spirit to tell him the story of how these rocks got this particular formation.

The spirit explains that they've been warped by the too-powerful magic used to seal the cave entrance many years ago. Other things have been warped by that, too.

The party hears a scraping, sucking sound coming up the dark tunnel behind them.


In this fashion, the three successfully exit the room.

Rounding a bend, they come face to face with a well-looking but unremarkable human man, who stops and looks at them blankly.

"That doesn't sound good."

Taddeo backs up, turning so he can see both directions much easier.

"Noe, it doesn't! Let's fight et!"

Punchy breaks out in a huge grin and turns to pummel whatever kind of hopefully-a-huge-blind-cave-worm-thing is coming up from behind.