The Prodigies: The Return of Equinox

Chapter Sixty-Five: Housing

Nano, Noromac, and Ellondra went through their chamber door to find one endlessly long hallway. Noromac led the group through the hallway as their point. Nano followed right behind and searched for any sort of malicious magic. Ellondra followed right behind Nano with bow in hand and an arrow softly nocked in its place.

"Nano," whispered Noromac. "Do you see what I'm seeing?"

"What do you see?"

"The hallway is twisting. Counter clockwise. Near the point where I lose sight of it. It seems like it's-" That was when he couldn't feel Nano's hand on his shoulder anymore. He turned to look behind him and the hallway extended as much as it did when he had just entered it. The corridor extended far beyond what he would be able to walk in a single day. He knew. He felt it.

"Where did he go?!" Ellondra's voice shuddered as the words slipped out of her mouth. It was instant. There was no sound, no change in light, and no movement. He had simply popped out of existence it seemed.

"I have an idea, but whatever you do don't look too far ahead. I think the problem lies with what he saw. I don't know how it works yet, but it was clearly magic that made him disappear. I know that much.

"Explain." Ellondra didn't understand what was happening in the slightest. 

"In short, I think the hallway isn't a hallway. It's a room we entered that reacts to what we're thinking. Maybe because we didn't know what lied ahead, it showed us everything that it had."

Nano had kept moving forward shifting his eyes left and right to the doors that lied beside him. After walking for a bit he decided to open one of the doors. The contents of the room were mundane in every sense. It was a simple room that resembled a bedroom with some extra appliances that you would find in a home like a stove, and bathing area.

"What's inside?"

"Someone's residence it seems."

"People live here?"

"Why not. Maybe if we-" Nano popped out of view too.

"Nano?" called Ellondra. Her voice wavered and rose in pitch. She hadn't been alone in a long time. Truly alone. Her most recent companions were Celesta, Seilan, and Voleria, but they weren't here now.

"Noromac?" she raised her voice for no one. She was in desperate need for someone to be next to. She wanted Fox with her. "Hello?" She yelled. She started to fret. She looked behind her and saw the exit. As she shuffled in a hurry to it she couldn't help but think of failing to find information of the place. If only they could find a cartographer's room or something to help.

When she got within inches of the exiting the hallway she found herself bumping into a door that wasn't there before head first. She looked behind her and only a wall stood where an endless path used to reside.

"Someone?" She whispered. She took a deep breath and gathered herself. She slung her bow over her shoulder and returned her arrow to its quiver. She pulled a knife out as she slowly entered the room. The room was different from the one that her and Nano had just looked into.

The room was noticeably dimmer, stacks of papers were everywhere, and various leaflets of dizzying scribbles littered the room. On top of a dresser sat a book that contrasted the rest of the room and its contents. It was neatly leather bound, with perfectly cut pages each the same length and width, and the words written on them all seemed inhumanly neat.

She opened to find a map of her immediate area. The text on it was incomprehensible, but it labeled various parts of the room she entered. There was a label for the bed, the sink, and a few more that she couldn't quite figure out. Could be important, she thought. There was spare binding that she ended up fashioning as rope to then turn into a sling. The book hung off her hip.

When she opened the door to leave the room she found the infinite hallway again, but she found someone in the far distance to her left. She ran as fast as she could to them, but after only a few steps she found herself crashing into them full force. 

"Ellondra! What are you doing? Where did you come from?"

"Stop! I think I know how this hallway works. I also have a map!" She held up the book to show Noromac. "We can find where everyone else is at!"

"What?"

"Just look!" She opened the book and found herself and Noromac as dots right on top of each other with Nano at the end of the short hallway in the book. "Now think of that place and step forward." They both stepped in unison and found Nano. It just so happened that they found more on top of that.

"Finally!" Nano was stuck underneath a beast with his sword the only thing between him and the things jaws. "Help here!"

Ellondra quickly unslung her bow from her shoulders, nocked an arrow, and fired at the beast. Noromac decided he would forgo his other options and he jumped on the beast's back.

The arrow didn't find its mark, but rather the path curved and the arrow pierced into a crack of the cobblestone wall. Noromac, however, successfully hopped onto its back and started carving out as much flesh as he could. The beast let go Nano's sword and flailed wildly to get Noromac off. Nano took the opportunity to slice the beast's throat. Right as the steel made its cut blood shot out violently and pushed Nano back. 

The beast wailed and gurgled as it slowly bled out. It shivered and twitched as the blood slowly flooded its proximity.

"Where did that come from?" asked Noromac as he slowly clawed himself out from under the creature.

"The room up ahead. I was looking for someone who was in charge of this place. That thing came out as soon as I opened the door." Nano cleaned the blood as he spoke.

"Well. Looks like we're headed in the right direction then." Ellondra nodded in agreement with Noromac's statement. "What does the book say is ahead of us?"

Ellondra looked down at the book, and stared at it for a minute before passing it to Nano. "I don't understand the writing."

"Let me see." He said as he looked. "Oh, it's written in shape-script. No wonder you can't read it. It reacts to the person reading it, but since magic doesn't really work on you it doesn't really have an effect on you."

"What does it say already?" Whined Noromac.

"It only says 'Do Not Enter. Masters Only'."

"Too bad. Let's go in anyways."