It takes about ten minutes of simply sitting before the room seems to quit spinning in their heads and the wave of nausea subsides. Now, of course, the intrepid group has a choice to make: 'Which way to go?'. Not only that, but they have no idea which way the came from...
"Pet me!" Rosy demands of Sam as soon as she has her equilibrium back.
Minstrel Sam lays flopped out on his back. "Sure," he says to the doglin, while staring dazedly up at the ceiling. "Just move over here so I can reach ya."
Hannah tries to get herself in order again after experiencing the violent spinning of the room. "Should we check the doorways for any signs of what may be beyond them, or just pick one at random?" she asks, holding her stomach and still looking a little green about the face.
Tristan gets to his feet, steady at last. "Investigate," he says. "And perhaps see if there's any way out beyond these doors."
The fey knight starts tapping at the floor and ceiling with the sheath of his sword again, looking around for any distinctive details.
The floor and ceiling sound distinctly stone-like and solid.
Hannah nods in response and wobbles towards the doorway nearest her. "Give a shout if you find anything interesting or deadly," she quips, trying to calm the nerves of the group. She looks inside that passageway without going into it just yet.
After lying next to Sam long enough to be calmed back down, Rosy suggests, "You should yell down each passage!"
"And see who answers?" Sam pats the doglin.
Hannah discovers something amazing in the passageway! A whole lot of dark.
"Oh, yeah, that too," Rosy agrees. "But yelling is good on its own."
Just on the off-chance that something interesting will happen, then, the girl takes the doglin's suggestion and whistles sharply through her front teeth, into the corridor.
Tristan fishes a lantern out of one of Souhait's saddlebags, and lights it. He gets out a charcoal stick as well, and numbers each of the entranceways while Hannah whistles.
The whistle echoes down the dark passageway and fades. About five seconds later a rumbling growl answers the whistle. It almost makes the room shake.
Peaches remains on the floor, not willing to get up until a direction is settled on - just in case the room starts spinning again.
At the sound of the growl, Rosy notes, "That wasn't Sam's tummy!"
The old fae scratches behind Rosy's ears. "Well, Tom was legendary for being able to find anything, Hannah, but I never was able to get a straight answer from him on how he did it. One time he said, 'I just think like whatever it is I want to find. So if I were a deer, I'd hide in a herd, and the herd'd in a deep forest.' So I said, 'So when you went out to find the Queen's ring, you thought in circ--'" His anecdote is cut off by the growl. "Whoa, what was that?"
Souhait whuffles at Peaches reassuringly, then flicks his ears at the answering growl. "Maybe not that way." Tristan shines his lantern in the direction of the growl anyway.
Hannah quirks an eyebrow at the noise and looks up to see what number Tristan has assigned to that passage.
Number one. Tristan started labeling from where Hannah was.
Bearing that in mind, Hannah walks to the doorway directly across from Passage #1 and whistles into it, as well.
Again the whistle echoes and fades off in the distance. And just like number one, about five seconds pass before a reply comes. Only this time the reply is a high-pitched cackling, followed by the sound of fingernails scraping across slate.
"That's ... information." Tristan makes note of it. "Try them all and see what our choices are?"
Hannah nods. "You want to try the rest of the doors near #1 and I'll try the rest near #5?"
Peaches whinnies at the harsh sound of nails-on-slate.
Tristan agrees, and starts with #2.
Seeing this, Hannah moves on to #6 and whistles again.
And for Tristan's trouble, he gets he pained and rasping reply of "Braaaaaaaaaaaaains."
While Hannah gets an equally disturbing reply, only hers is one of something slimy and squishy splooching about.
The old fae huffs as he gets back on his feet. "You know, I bet we're going to hear something that sounds pretty unappealing from each of these passages."
"A choice of dooms is still a choice." Tristan tries the third. "The squishing sounds are almost pleasant."
"You could try playing some music," Rosy suggests to the minstrel. "You can use that to charm monsters, right?"
Sam chuckles. "Oh well, sometimes it works... Sometimes music lacks the power to sooth the savage beast, because the beast is just plain hungry." He looks around. "Other times, Tom would say, 'It's always in the last place you look,' and then he'd pick the very unlikeliest of the options. I'm not sure how to rate monster sounds for likeliness, though."
"Well, beasts down here can't be that hungry," Rosy reasons. "I mean, how often would they get to eat anyway? If they were hungry, they'd be trying harder to lure us in to their lairs, right?"
Each doorway gives a different reply. Seven: Screaming and wailing. Eight: The sounds of a horrific bonfire. Nine: Hard to say, but it sort of sounds like more spinning blades. And ten: The sounds of meat being chopped into little pieces.
As for Tristan's experiment on number three, The sound of something really large being repeatedly smashed into something immovable.
Tristan does #4 to complete the set.
Number four is ... oh my ... the rather lurid sounds of heavy breathing and a creaking bed.
Cautiously, Rosy goes to passage #1 and sniffs at it.
It smells musty.
Once all the doorways have been tested, Hannah claps her hands together. "Then there's just one more thing left for me to try," she says cryptically and begins spinning around in the center of the room! Once she's completed a few revolutions, with one arm outstretched, she wobbles again to a halt at Door #5. Instead of walking into it, however, she whistles down it once more and listens for any response.
Hannah gets the same response as last time she tried five, a high pitched cackle and the sound of nails on slate.
Sam listens curiously. "So, there's something at the end of each of these passages that's just designed to eat us, burn us, smash us, chop us up, or squish us flat. I think I'll just stay here for now."
"So. Do we pick the one that sounds most horrible, or least? The cackling reminds me of your Bandit Queen. But ... " Tristan shakes his head and looks at the ceiling and floor again. "I think we're missing something. These paths don't feel like anything real." He peers through the ruby monocle to see if it's any more useful now than before.
Nothing quite seems to stand out in the monocle for the time being. No obvious work of glamour in this room.
Rosy goes around, sniffing at each passage for clues. Specifically, animal-smelling clues or fresher air.
Hannah hms and nods when she hears the noise. "At least they're consistent, which is interesting to note," she murmurs. "So, which Doom does everyone prefer to face? As much as Sam might like to, we can't linger here forever."
Every passage smells exactly the same to Rosy.
"What was it we're looking for again?" asks Sam.
"Prince Feegle," Tristan answers.
"Weird!" the doglin says. "Everything smells exactly the same! Is that magic?"
"Well, I would prefer to find either the Prince or the person responsible for putting us through all of this," Hannah says, smiling.
Sam points out, "People, unlike objects, are able to move."
"Possibly the glamours at work here don't operate against scent," Tristan comments to Rosy. "None of this feels real. If there's something alive at the end of any of these corridors, why is it staying there?" He hmmms at Sam. "You think they might come to us, if we wait?"
Or a way back out of this nasty hole, Peaches adds, for Souhait's ears.
Sam says, "Prince Feezle seems like the kinda guy where if you set a puzzle out, he'll stop at nothing until he's figured out the answer. I dunno so much about our 'host' though, with the traps an' all."
"And if he's her captive, assuming it's a her, then he won't be able to move much, will he?" adds Sam.
Souhait gives an emphatic nod to Peaches.
"I say we go with #1," Rosy votes. "The noises can't be real! One of these is supposed to go back the way we came, and there weren't any monsters or machines that way."
"Then if that's the case, we have to go to him," Hannah says. "He can't very well come to us if he's trapped or bound. So again the question: which Doom do folks prefer to face?" She looks askance at Rosy. "That one sounds as good as any."
"Or as bad. I'm afraid I have no insights here, m'lady. I will gladly follow your lead," Tristan says to Hannah.
Hannah grins at Tristan. "Don't worry, I have no insights, either." With that, she draws her rapier and heads into Corridor #1 - slowly, so she can examine things as she goes and the others can follow.
The doglin's tail wags happily as she follows along, trying to keep in front of the horses just in case there are weight-triggered traps.
As Hannah heads down passage number one, nothing leaps out to devour her ... so far. Instead, it just seems to lazily head forward, curving a bit now and then.
Minstrel Sam follows along with trepidation.
Hannah doesn't relax at this but she doesn't stop moving forward, either.
Tristan walks beside her, his own sword in one hand and the lantern in the other. He tries to keep his bearings, and track whether the passage is curving more one way than they other. And whether it's level or sloped.
Peaches lets Souhait take the lead again.
And on and on they walk. After about ten minutes of curving, ascending, descending, and who knows what else, they exit the passageway into a large room. Ironically, as they step out of the passage, the group can make out eight other doors that also exit into this room. About thirty feet ahead the floor simply drops away, leaving a great chasm before them. And as luck would, of course, have it ... they can just make out another door on the far side.
"There's a curious absence of growling thing here," Sam notes to Hannah.
Tristan hmms. He bends to make a mark on the floor, a "1". "Let's go back and try one of the other passages," he suggests. "I'd like to see if they all end up here."
"Oh wow, wow, woo!" Rosy barks, running to the other passages. "Do you think all nine of the passages come here?"
Hannah smiles back at Sam. "Indeed - unless the growling beast is at the bottom of this pit," she replies, pointing to where the floor is no longer there.
"Well, there's also an absence of grinding, chopping, burning, and panting things," Sam points out to Hannah. "But they too could be in the pit."
Hannah walks out into the room as far as she can and looks around - including up. She wonders if there may be any way across...it's either that, or they shall have to use the old trial-and-error method with the doors they can reach...
To test this theory, Rosy runs to the edge of the chasm and peers over the edge.
The pit looks extremely deep. In fact, Rosy can't see a bottom. Nor can Hannah see any obvious way across.
Next, Hannah looks through her monocle at the place where the floor has fallen away.
Since the others have decided to investigate, Tristan enters as well. He marks the doors he can reach with numerals, saving "5" for the one opposite that they can't get to.
The minstrel eyes the other doors suspiciously. "Say, weren't there ten archways from the room we were just in? How come there are only nine doors on this side?"
"One goes back to the room we came in through of course," Rosy notes.
"Right, right," Sam says, slapping his forehead.
The hole continues to look like a hole to Hannah, alas. Unfortunately for Hannah, though, she leans a bit to far and starts falling in the pit! The darkness looks as if it's going to swallow her up and then ... thud. Hannah's face hits something hard. To the others, it looks like Hannah is laying in mid-air.
"Oooo, how'd you do that?" Rosy asks Hannah. "Can we use you for a bridge?"
"Ow," says Hannah, in a muffled voice from the floor. "I think I hurt my pride."
The bard yelps. "Tristan, catch Ha--"
This is of course, cut short by Hannah's failure to fall any farther.
The heroic explorer has discovered ... the pit is a floor made of really thick, and very clean, glass.
Tristan lunges forward to try to catch Hannah, although he misses and it turns out to be less necessary than it seemed. He offers to help her up instead. "Nonsense. I know you're only trying to repair mine. It's not working, by the way." He smiles at her.
"Yeah, I'm sure Tristan knew all along!" Rosy says, trying to cheer up Hannah. "He'd have never let you fall over otherwise!"
Hannah rolls onto her back so she can take the offered hand up. "Well, it was worth a shot," she says cheerily, once she's standing again. "Clever trick, this," she continues looking at the glass floor.
Peaches shakes her head, and goes to wuffle encouragingly at Hannah - without actually venturing onto the transparent surface.
"A practical joker, that's what we've got here," Sam says with a grimace.
The glass floor stares back .... glassily.
The fey knight crouches and tries to mark a line on the glass with his charcoal.
Rosy steps out onto the glass, and then gets on all fours to try and feel her way across.. just in case it gets thin suddenly.
The glass floor now has a black line on it. For all of ten seconds, anyway. It dissolves before their very eyes.
Tristan glances over his shoulder to see if the marks by the entrances have lasted longer.
The one on the floor has moved to the wall, just above the door. Someone also added face making a rude gesture.
"I think you're right about the practical joker, Sam," Hannah says when she sees the face on the wall. "Anyway, shall we go on?"
Tristan hmms. "I don't know. I'm ready to try Sam's notion, and stay here instead."
The old fae ponders this, then drags his lute out and begins singing as he follows Hannah. o "I'm gonna sing the Doom song now, doom de doom doom doom, do de dooooom..." o
Hannah looks at Tristan curiously. "I thought it was his notion to continue forward!"
Rosy, meanwhile, has inched her way across the expanse. On the far side now, she's standing next to the door. Hopping up and down, she waves at them, shouting, "Hey hey! It's solid all the way across!"
"Nope, I argued for staying where we were," Sam says mid-song. "Dooom de doom doom, doom de doom..."
The knight can't control a wince. "Have a care, Rosy. It was only a few minutes ago that one of these rooms tried to spin us to our deaths."
Hannah just shakes her head at this, looking somewhat confused. "Well, if you wish to try waiting, I wouldn't say no to the chance of a rest. Although Sam would have to endure watching me fall asleep in your arms," she teases the knight, glancing between him and the minstrel.
"Oh Kings of Mirari spare me from such a grisly fate!" Sam says with mock horror and despair. "Oh woe is me, boohoohoo."
"Ooo, please do. I haven't gotten to watch someone die in their sleep in an age," the unfortunately now all too familiar voice cackles in the air.
"If you're trying to talk me out of it, you're not succeeding." Tristan grins at Hannah. He follows her when she crosses the room towards Rosy.
Hannah looks around at the sound of that voice, then back to Tristan. "I can ignore this person if you can," she tells him softly. "If you still want to stay."
Across the glass Hannah goes. While it's minorly disconcerting to be walking over nothingness, nothing bad happens. Soon enough the pair reach Rosy on the other side. She's chasing her tail.
Tristan looks around after the voice speaks, trying to discern the direction of it, and if anything else in the room has changed. He nods to Hannah. "I want to find out what happens. And think; perhaps some other inspiration will come upon us."
Sam hears a voice whisper in his ear, "You can stay if you want. I like old meat..."
Hannah nods and smiles gently. "Then we shall rest a while," she says to everyone, taking a seat near the doorway and leaning her back against the wall.
The old fae scoots closer to Hannah and Tristan for no obvious reason.
Tristan marks this door with a 5, and sits next to Hannah. He doesn't actually relax, despite her proximity. Instead, he looks around at the marks he's made and notes how they've already been altered. He's staying alert, waiting for the next trap to be sprung.
He doesn't have to wait long. The room starts to grow darker, even with their lanterns. Its like something is snuffing out their light.
Peaches whinnies from the other side of the glass, not too keen on crossing it.. until the light starts to fade. Then she's galloping across.
Hannah reaches for Tristan's hand. "Stay close," she says to them all. "This may just be a tactic to scare us into going forward...but it's best to be careful."
Tristan glances through his monocle, and shakes his head. "Hmm. Would you lend me yours, m'lday? I'm wondering if stacking one atop the other makes any difference."
Hannah offers her monocle to the knight.
Tristan stacks them together and looks through both at the same time with his right eye.
Minstrel Sam opines, "Seems to me like someone gets their kick out of scarin' us. Take Mr. Bottomless Pit. If that were a real death trap, there'd have been just one piece of glass for a bridge." He looks over at Hannah to see if she agrees.
Hannah nods. "Or annoying us," she adds, indicating the rude face on the wall.
Looking through the stacked monocles is .... strange to say the least. The air looks like its swirling and twisting before him. No, wait, its forming into a pair of large and nebulous hands!
"I know what you mean. The spinning room and the blades seemed earnest about killing us, true. But the fall down here? And this? It's like a game of some kind." Tristan squints at the hands forming, then starts a bit, leaping to his feet. He thrusts at one of the 'hands' with his sword. "The monocles show hands," he tells the other.
The room continues to grow dark. The air in the room has started whipping around now.
"What are they doing?" Hannah asks the knight.
Rosy starts barking for no apparent reason. Maybe she just doesn't like wind.
One of the hands grabs Tristan's sword and the fey knight suddenly finds himself in a tug-of-war!
Sam gets to his feet and starts fishing in his pack for a torch. "Gettin' pretty brisk down here," he says. "These hands, they attached to-- oy!" That last would be surprise as Tristan appears to be getting yanked around by thin air.
"Grabbing my sword." Tristan hands the monocles to whoever's nearest and uses both hands to hold the hild, trying to keep the blade steady. "Can you stab it? They're about midway down the blade."
As the monocles are handed off to Hannah the wind gets even worse. It's at that moment all hell breaks loose and the lights go out. Everyone feels hands, tentacles, and other disturbing things grab onto their bodies in the darkness! Hannah's hand is violently wrenched away from Tristan in the darkness!
Hannah fights against the things holding her and calls out desperately, "Tristan? Tristan, are you there?!"
There is no answer to the call as Hannah is jerked and pulled through the darkness. How long this lasts is anyone's guess, though. But thankfully Hannah is eventually released and she hits the floor hard. The darkness melts away and Hannah finds herself in ... a maze? The walls are all made of mirrors, making it hard to make out exactly which way to go. At least she finds she has Rosy lying next to her on the floor. As for Tristan and Sam, well ... impossible to tell where they are.
Hannah gasps as the breath is knocked out of her by the fall. She lies there, trying to fill her lungs with air. When she can finally breathe easily again, she rolls onto her side and puts a hand on the doglin's shoulder. "Rosy, are you all right?"
"I promise never to chew on your slippers again, Master," the doglin whimpers from where she's curled up on the floor nearby.
Hannah shakes Rosy now, just hard enough to rouse her. "Rosy? Please wake up."
"I'm awake!" Rosy yelps and nearly jumps to her feet. She spins around three times, and then.. starts posing in front of one of the mirrors. "Ooooo.. Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the cutest doglin of all?" she coos.
"Bernard," answers a disembodied voice.
"That butt-sniffer! I bet it's because Master clipped off his berries too!" Rosy says, shaking her fist at the mirror.
Once the doglin is back to what approximates normal for her, Hannah prods at a few of the nearest mirrors, to see if anything changes.
The image of Hannah ripples and shakes as she prods at it. In a few seconds Hannah finds herself staring at a younger version. If she had to guess ... about as old when she first ran away.
"I can see my own tail," Rosy says in awe as she stands between two of the mirrors, not noticing whatever Hannah is seeing.
Hannah takes a quick step backward, not trusting this mirror-image of herself. She now takes out the two monocles and stacks them as Tristan did, looking at the mirror that way. "I'm seeing a few other things," she replies absently, watching the reflected images.
As Hannah brings up the two monocles .. she notices her own hand look suddenly younger. In fact ... the doglin seems taller now, too.
Hannah continues to stare through the monocles, watching Rosy now with some fascination. What's going on here?
"You shrunk, Hannah!" Rosy barks, and starts running around the girl. The doglin is looking a bit more.. canine.
Everything feels funny and the room around her looks like noodles now. Its a bit dizzying, really ... and when it stabilizes, a young fey girl is standing in the middle of a dark forest with eyes that blink at her from the shadows. Her only companion is a small terrier at her side.
"I guess we returned to our true selves, Rosy," Hannah whispers, taking in the forest around them. "The ones we used to be."
The dog barks and sniffs around the forest floor.
An unseen bird cries out somewhere far above the pair. Hannah feels like she's being watched. She hasn't fell like this since, well ... she ran away.
Hannah takes a moment to look at herself again - what she's wearing and carrying - although she has a feeling she knows what she's going to find.
She's wearing what she wore the night she ran away. Her courtly dress her father insisted that she wear instead of pants and a simple shirt. No weapons, just a small pack of what belongings she could carry.
Hannah sighs and stoops to pat the terrier. "Okay, Rosy," the girl tells her, "it looks like I have to find our way to Hawksmoor all over again. Stay close and I'll do what I can to protect you." Then she tries to get her bearings and steps into the woods in the direction she thinks she went the last time.
And just like last time, the fear and shifting landscape whirls around the young fey. Only ... something is different. Something is wrong. Something is hunting her. She can hear the crack of branches and the rustle of leaves behind her.
The little dog growls at the sounds.
All I can hope for is to reach the 'middle' of this maze before whatever it is catches me, Hannah thinks, plunging on. I've got nothing to fight back with now.
That may prove to be a little difficult. Just like she remembers, the woods around her changes and shifts, making each step uncertain. She could have sworn she just passed the same tree again.
Hannah thinks for a minute and starts marking her way with bent twigs on nearby branches and her own heels dug into the soil. At the very least, she should know if she passes that same tree for the third time.
Fifteen minutes pass and gah ... yes, she just passes the same tree for the third time. To make matters worse, the hunting creature is getting closer.
Hannah hms and sets her pack on the ground by the offending tree. "Well, if there isn't a way to get through this forest, I just have to face what comes for me," she murmurs, only mildly surprised at the detachment she feels. She picks up the little terrier and sits down with the dog in her lap. Then she waits. What is she going to do when the monster comes? She doesn't have a clue, but she will wait and see.
Rosy barks into the forest. It's a rather yappy sort of bark.
Minutes pass and then Hannah gets to face what pursuing her. "There you are, Lady Hannah," comes a disturbingly familiar voice. Not long after follows the very familiar face as someone exists the shadows. It couldn't be ... but .. it's Tristan. "Your father will be displeased with your actions, milady. Now it is time to come home."
Hannah blinks at Tristan for a few moments...or at least, the image she sees that represents Tristan in this maze. "You might as well go back to where you came," she tells him, in an even yet not unpleasant tone. "The Tristan I know would certainly not turn me over to my father. I believe he likes me as I am - not as how my father would have me be."
Rosy doesn't bark at the tall figure. She wags her tail instead.