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“What’s wrong?” Aleya asks when she stops James by taking hold of his arm.

Turning to look at her, he says, “Dmon-Li is the god whose warrior priest has been pursuing us,” he explains. Casting a quick glance to Jiron, he returns his gaze back to her as he adds, “For reasons we can’t go into right now, suffice it to say it would be extremely bad for us to be found by them.”

She studies him for a moment before nodding her head.

Jiron rushes past James as he once again takes the lead. “Just cursory looks from here on out,” James says from behind him. “We no longer have the luxury of satisfying our curiosity.”

“I hear you,” he replies.

The corridor ahead of them suddenly ends at another corridor cutting across the one they’re in. Jiron automatically turns to the right and continues moving. Shortly they come to a set of winding steps on their left going down. “I think this is the way we came up,” he announces, pausing for only a second.

“I think you’re right,” agrees James.

Leaving the steps behind, they continue down the corridor and come to a branching corridor to the right. Jiron pauses a moment and glances back to James.

Shaking his head, he says, “This just leads down the other side of the room with the dais in the middle. Remember the doors that were on the other side?”

Nodding, Jiron turns back and continues moving down the corridor. Another thirty feet and it opens up into what James is beginning to realize as ‘anchor’ rooms, rooms of similar design lying at the corners of a level. He always had them in his dungeons, but never really thought they would be used in actuality.

Another corridor exits the room to their right. Passing by two pedestals with statues of demonic creatures, they quickly cross the room to the other corridor. Once the room is behind them, they go down twenty feet before yet another corridor branches off, again to their right.

“Just keep going,” says James. “I think there will be another stairway leading off the room at the end.”

“Now how do you know that?” Aleya asks.

James shrugs and says, “Just sounds reasonable. It’s how I would have done it.”

She shakes her head and continues following Jiron.

Sure enough, they pass two more right hand branching corridors and come to the fourth ‘anchor’ room. This one is completely bare. Across the room from where they enter lies the stairway James foretold.

Aleya looks back at him and he gives her a grin. “Always trust his instincts,” Jiron says.

“I can see that,” she says.

Moving across the room, Jiron takes the stairs and they wind up to the next level. When they reach the top, James says, “Wait!”

The others stop as they turn their attention to him. “Do you feel that?” he asks. He holds his hand out in front of him as a smile comes to his face.

“A breeze!” Jiron exclaims. “That means a way out!”

“Exactly,” agrees James, nodding his head.

The light from the orb shows the room to be just like the ‘anchor’ rooms from down below, only this one has but a single corridor running off to the right. Several faded and tattered tapestries adorn the walls.

Not taking the time to closely inspect them, they cross the room and enter the corridor. Jiron leads them down fifty feet before it branches, with passages going either to the right or continuing straight ahead. He pauses a moment until he determines the breeze is originating from the corridor to the right. Pointing to that passage, he glances back at the others and says, “It’s coming from this direction.”

James nods and says, “Lead on.”

Turning down the right corridor, he continues fifty feet or so before coming across an area of the corridor which has been blackened by fire. Three skeletons lie in the middle of the floor, all are wearing what at one time could have been an exact match to the robes found in the room below.

Coming to a stop, James examines them a moment and then takes a good look at the corridor itself. “It looks like fire killed them, but there’s nothing here to burn,” he says.

“Magic?” suggests Jiron.

“Maybe,” he says. “A temple such as this had to have made its