The group’s been walking for an hour since the Monastery of the Eagles fell behind them. Two keys secured, two weeks of open sky ahead. Alexis adjusts his hat against the late sun, boots finding steady ground. His Collegium ring catches the light as he gestures ahead.
“Watching Gus die and Raiden’s power couldn’t even bring him back. And before that, nearly losing all of us.” He turns to face the others, but still keeping his stride. “We need to do this differently when we go back.”
The sound of ring clinking on ring is heard as Alexis brings one hand down into the other.
“Every passage so far has had two threats. Both can be beaten with enough raw power, but the first one’s been a puzzle. Perception, thought. The second’s a fight. And each fight has had a touch of insanity.” Alexis thinks on this a moment and then continues. “There appear to be patterns.”
He shrugs. “But these are short runs. We don’t need endurance. Just the right approach.”
“Red and I have been holding back in case things get worse. I think we stop doing that. New plan: we use everything we’ve got to crack the puzzles: The trapped door and the mural room. And when we’re ready to test our theory, we fortify ourselves first. Assume we’re wrong and plan for the consequences.”
He looks around at them. Ethelred, Ca’armine, Rask, Gustav, and Sally perched on Gustav’s shoulder.
“Thoughts?”
Rask nods in agreement, still a bit confused.
Not having any memory other than Alexis’ neck tattoo being suddenly missing and Alexis’ insistence on how to approach the room with the strange beetle creature is one of the stranger experiences in a long list of strange experiences the warrior has had since joining the Crimson Calling. Rask can accept Alexis’ statements about his now-missing neck tattoo and reversing time. Rask recalls it being magically placed and something about reversing time being said. Still, it is confusing, like much of the strangeness of this ruined dwarf-hold. The warrior quietly prays to Raiden to protect him from madness.
“So, what I am hearing is we use our all of our powers first to try and reveal a solution to the puzzle? Hoping the we do not trigger the threat, but bypass/neutralize it?
If we fail to find a solution we then rest and return to use our powers to force our way through and find the key?”