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As the masked mage moved the stone in place, he accidentally hit his head. The clang, soft as it was, announced his presence, and the dwarf opened his eyes.

"I have company, I see," Hoffman said with a weak grin.

"Good manners required that I return the neighborly visit," Rassendyll replied, approaching the infirm dwarf. He was shocked by how sickly the dwarf now appeared, when he had seemed so robust, not counting the coughing fit, when he had visited Rassendyll's cell earlier.

Hoffman instinctively read the look of surprise that existed beneath the mask on his fellow prisoner's face. "I hope you don't mind me not going to the effort of casting a keeping up appearances spell. It would take a bit too much out of me at the present moment."

"Not at all," Rassendyll replied, his grin obscured by the iron mask.

"You were going to tell me how you wound up with that coal bucket on your head," the dwarf reminded him.

"A blind wizard smith put it on me at the direction of a cruel but handsome looking man who resembled myself."

"Tell me a little more about this good looking fellow, the bad guy. You can fill me in about yourself a little later."

"He was dressed in silken robes with fur trim, and around his neck was a pendant of a blood-encrusted dagger. The blood was made up of red gemstones. Rubies, maybe," Rassendyll tried to recall.

"That pendant represents the office of the High Blade of Mulmaster. I believe that the tormentor who looks just like you is the tyrant Selfaril himself. Rumors pass occasionally through these dungeon walls, and I recall that he ascended to the throne after killing his own father," the dwarf explained. "Are you sure that you resemble him?"

"Indeed," Rassendyll replied. "If I could remove this mask, I would show you."

"Don't even try," Hoffman advised with a cough. "It is clearly ensorcelled. I'm afraid that not even during my younger years would I have been able to defeat a spell as strong as this one."

"It also seems to have removed all of my own spellcasting abilities."

"You were a spellcaster?" the enfeebled dwarf inquired.

"A mage-in-training," Rassendyll explained. "I had been in training for my entire life. Now, all those years have been wasted."

"Maybe not," Hoffman asserted. "Though the ability to do is desirable, the ability to wield and recognize is also of great benefit."

"I don't understand."

"The enchanted metal of the mask acts as both an insulator and a leeching conductor of your magical abilities and spells. It prevents any spells formed within from being cast out, while conducting the knowledge and innate powers from within, onto its metallic surface, and eventually causing them to dissipate in the air around you. What it doesn't do is prevent you from using the general knowledge you obtained in your studies, such things as recognizing spells that are cast by others or using magically powered artifacts and objects."

Rassendyll chuckled at the dwarf's optimistic observations. "Little good those vestiges of my training will do me here," he said, trying not to sound too despairing in the presence of the obviously dying dwarf.

"Don't be too sure," Hoffman replied, his voice weakening rapidly. "My years of tunneling around here are coming to an end. Originally I had an agreement with the former resident of your cell, that when my time had come I would aid him in his escape from this hateful place."

"What happened to the former resident?" Rassendyll asked.

"He died at the hands of an overly playful guard, whose solution to the boredom of his regular duties was torturing the prisoners. In Kupfer's case, he went a little too far."

"Oh."

"When a person dies in the keep, their body is placed in a sack with a weight and dropped down the same drain that the garbage goes. It leads to an underground canal that eventually empties out into the Moonsea. The dead are bagged and weighted before the dinner service, and then collected on the same trip they retrieve the plates. I've seen it happen many times over, and it runs