Karl considered the options for a moment. “I think that we might have missed a side tunnel. Do you remember how the other one was hidden? There might have been another like it. The city down there has dozens of tunnels leading out into the mountain, so what are the odds that the one that leads outside doesn’t have a single branch?”
Alice smiled as she considered the options. “Well, it’s worth checking before we try sneaking to another tunnel and hoping that it heads in the direction that we want.”
The closest tunnel was only fifty metres away, but at ground level, and it had fairly regular traffic through it. That clearly wasn’t an optimal choice.
But there was one about seventy metres to their left, and that one was halfway up the wall and also looked abandoned. It was also slightly lower, so he could have Rae make them a zip line and everyone could slide over.
Prince Corbin looked back down the tunnel. “Let’s check all the walls back to the last room. If that doesn’t show us any missed branches, we will try for another tunnel. I know Darryl and Muffin don’t really understand how valuable that portal is, but we absolutely need to find our way to it.”
Rose bristled at being called Muffin, but she fell into her position in the middle of the pack as Karl led them back up the tunnel, using his swords to check both walls for anything that wasn’t as solid as it looked.
But after only a dozen paces, he paused.
“The tunnel isn’t the same. We’re headed down again.” He informed the others.
It took them a moment to realize what was wrong with that statement. They had been on a steep decline all the way to the chamber, so they should be climbing back up the ramp now, but according to Karl, they weren’t.
Corbin cast some sort of elementary spell, and a handful of marbles appeared in his hand. He scattered them on the floor, some in front, some behind the group, and they all rolled away.
“Both sides are downhill. We’re definitely in an illusion, or the tunnel was changed.” He agreed.
Karl closed his eyes and whistled softly, letting Rae’s echolocation tell him what was around them.
“This way. Behind us is still the chamber, but the real upward tunnel is on our left. In front of us is solid rock. Everyone hold hands and follow me for a few steps.” He instructed.
That sounded a bit foolish to the others, but they followed the instruction, and when Karl got four steps through what had looked and felt like solid rock, they were in a new tunnel.
He took a few more steps, then pulled everyone to them, and called Rae to her space, then brought her back out again. She couldn’t close her eyes, so she was unable to get past the illusion on her own, even though she could clearly tell that what she was seeing was not right.
Once they were all in the new tunnel, Karl took out a strip of cloth from his bag, intended to be a bandana or dust mask, but it would do as a blindfold.
He needed a bit of eyesight to use Thermal Vision, and the folded over cloth made a hazy, but not completely impenetrable view, though he couldn’t see anything in the dark with normal vision.
“Alright, illusion resistant eyewear engaged. I will lead us forward, just warn me if there is anything strange going on with my actions so that we don’t get separated.” He informed the group.
There was a short pause, and Karl turned back to the group, only to find them staring straight ahead. There wasn’t anything there by his vision, though.
[Rae, what are they looking at?] He asked.
[No clue. They all look pretty freaked out, though. Maybe swat at the air with your sword or something.] She suggested.
Karl did, and everyone started moving again, looking around as if expecting to be ambushed.
“I’m pretty sure we’re still in the illusion. I didn’t see what you do, and when I waved my sword around, you all came back to me.” Karl explained.
“If it even got Corbin in its trap, perhaps we should find another alternate way.” Larry suggested.
“It does seem as if they put in significant effort to trap this tunnel, doesn’t it?” Karl agreed.
[And there are elves in the tunnel behind us, I can hear them.] Rae added.
“Going back is no longer an option, there is someone in the tunnel we came from. Stay close, and ignore anything that you see. Close your eyes and hold on to someone’s clothes if you have to, just keep following me.” Karl ordered.
He led the group down through a set of winding corridors until he sensed a door on the left, then he pulled everyone inside and closed the door behind them.
They were in another of the brazier rooms, and everyone was giving him strange looks.
“Sorry, the Elves were catching up to us, and this was the first door I found.” He whispered, motioning for silence.
But they continued to wait, and nothing happened. There was no magical writing, and the sound of running footsteps and swearing in the corridors faded after a few minutes. Then it returned, as the patrol retraced their steps, but they didn’t stop outside the door, and just kept moving back toward the tunnel mouth that Karl’s group had stopped near.
“What do we do now? There’s no second exit from this room, and there’s a whole city of them out there.” Dana asked.
Prince Corbin sighed, then smiled. “I have either the dumbest or most brilliant idea ever. When the guards passed by the second time, I managed to record them for my disguise spell. I can disguise everyone as the patrol, and we can just walk through to our goal.”
Alice chuckled. “Definitely one of the dumbest. How are we supposed to get back out once they notice we’ve gone through the portal? You know they will have it under security, and the disguise spell doesn’t last long, so we won’t be able to spend time scouting, even if we spoke their language.”
“How about we use the disguise spell to look for a way out? At the least, they wouldn’t attack on sight if they mistook us for guards.” Larry offered.
Corbin raised his hand, and suddenly, everyone looked like the dark skinned Elven guards. They were all the same height, with the same hairstyles as they had before, but it was at least enough to get them through a cursory examination.
“Alright, let’s go see if we can find a way to the portal.” The Royal Ranked mage instructed.
Karl sent Rae back to her space to help with the disguise, and opened the door, only to find that they were no longer in a hallway, but a large courtyard in the middle of a fantastic city.
His first instinct was to close his eyes, and let echolocation tell him the truth, but when he did, it still seemed to be real.
He turned back to the group. “What do you think the chances are that we stepped into a trial and didn’t notice? We didn’t get a notification in here, but what if that was because I was leading us blind through the illusions when we entered?”
Prince Corbin stepped up beside him and looked out at the city, which was made up of twisted black spires, with a bright blue sky overhead, and alien looking plants growing everywhere.
“Well, we aren’t in the underground city, that’s for certain. Let me check with a locating spell.” He whispered, in case something nearby could hear them.
He cast the spell and shook his head. “We’re definitely inside a trial. Either that or we’re more than a thousand kilometres from where we were yesterday. I can’t locate any of our other Clansmen, and there is nothing coming in over the radio.”
Alice took a device out of her pack and nodded. “We’re not in contact with any government signals. I would say that we’re almost certainly inside a Trial of some sort. What does the outside of the building we’re in look like?”
Karl stuck his head out, and found that the door was black oak on the outside, and they were in one of the many black spires.
“The same as the ones you can see across the road. We’re on the main floor of a spire.” Karl explained.
Alice nodded. “Which means if we leave, this entry point will probably vanish, and we will have to complete whatever sort of trial we’re in before we can exit. This sort of situation matches with the reports that we got from other Elites, but they reported losing huge amounts of time while they were in strange trials, or simply didn’t remember anything.”
“Great. So is there any way to see what sort of mission we’re on?” Larry asked.
There was one sure way to tell.
[Quest status]