Working With Phantoms

Suspicious Underlings

Madran scanned the area with Dharma and looked at the pair of stairs from where Surt had stood earlier.

"Alrighty, we're due up there."

"Do you know what's up next?"

"Uh... no, something's blocking my attempts to scan things. How about, as soon as we enter a new room, I do a scan?"

"Sure. I mean, I've only known you for about an hour, but I trust you."

"Thank goodness. Anyways, onwards, everyone!"

The trio then ascended the stairs to find what appeared to be a floor full of one-way windows that looked out towards the outside and further into the building, where Madran saw many doors that changed locations every few seconds.

"Oh boy... so, weird window room, plus those doors?"

"Yep, Puck. Hey, why don't one of us go ahead into the door hall and see if they see anything different."

"Good call, Naoki. Hey, Chic, you're up."

Chicory and Puck then went into the hallway of doors, with Madran establishing contact with them as they looked around.

"Ok, well, we can see you, but what do you see?"

"Uh... the room's layout seems to be fluid. I keep on seeing either the doors or this big room with several halls."

"Maybe, try attacking it?"

Madran then watched as Puck activated a Mafreidyne, with her not seeing anything on her end.

"Uh, hey, I didn't see anything."

"Really? Everything's fixed now. The door hallway is now on the left, and all of the halls are on the right."

Madran then went into the next room with Naoki and saw that what Puck had said was correct.

"Huh, nice."

"Yeah. Let's hurry along."

Madran then scanned all of the halls and sighed.

"Ok, well, the path forwards changes every 30 seconds, from what I can see."

"So, we need to be quick in finding the right one?"

"Couldn't we just wait for the right one to appear in front of us?"

Madran looked back at Puck and Naoki.

"Ok. Naoki, Puck, you're both right. How about, we try your method, Naoki, for a bit, and then, if that fails, then we'll do Puck's?"

"Sure. Puck, what do you think?"

"Sounds perfectly reasonable to me."

The group then hurried down the hall, chasing after what Madran had identified to be the correct exit. However, that soon changed, with the trio beginning a wild goose chase of what they hoped would be the correct way out. Eventually, Madran noticed that the exit had swapped to being right next to her, and she felt incredibly relieved.

"Hey, everyone, we're done, finally. Let's head on in."

The group then went into the exit and went down a hallway with a variety of odd-looking paintings that all resembled places in Tokyo.

"God, too many hallways. Madran, do you know what's up?"

"Well..."

Madran placed her hand on one of the paintings, half-expecting her hand to go in. However, all that happened was that she touched the canvas.