As I expected, it was an illusion. When I reached the statue, I placed the talisman in the notch; the fire in the room started disappearing and the illusion faded. I looked back at my ally, and he jumped to me while shaking his head.

  "You could have died so foolishly when all you had to do is take part of the wall to walk on," he grumbled.

  "Well, I could have, but I would rather this place stay intact if I am to use it later. Also, I had a strong feeling about this."

  "Your feelings could take you to the grave. Better to just make sure nothing will be a problem."

  I couldn't argue with that logic. I just liked the place and didn't want to destroy it; it could be a great fortress, and I kind of knew that it wasn't a trap when I jumped. I will change my approach moving forward because, even though I didn't want to destroy it, power can slip away in a second through one dumb mistake. There is no place for holes in your defenses.

  We continued walking deeper into the structure. This place was much bigger than the previous rooms; it looked more like a main hall you would see in a palace, castle, or other massive structure. There were multiple double doors in here, so searching this place would be harder than just completing a challenge and moving forward—especially since we still had no light. We held small fireballs in our hands to illuminate the area, but we still couldn't see everything.

  "We should search for something to light this place up. I don't see any torches, so it’s probably some sort of magic that does it here..."

  "I don't care about searching for it," he snapped. "It will only slow us down. I came here for one thing and one thing only, and it is not here. So either you move along or go alone later."

  "Well, go then. I will try to find a light source here, as there are many rooms. If we don't get to the correct place within a few tries, we’re going to be coming back through here quite a few times. What is your name, anyway? Calling you 'robed figure' in my head is getting annoying."

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  He grumbled under his cape before deciding to answer. "You could call me God Lord Almighty for all I care, but if it will help you shut up, my name is Naruuk." He walked toward the nearest door and entered it while I tried to figure out where in the living hell the magical light switch was.

  As we separated and Naruuk went whoever knows where, I tried to illuminate the place more with my fire and find out what this hall was for, or if it was even important. There were glyphs and writings in a language unknown to me all over the walls. There were also tables and statues, but those interested me much less. I figured if I were building the place, I would want something to illuminate it either close to the entrance or in the middle—especially if I expected the place to be raided and had assassins with dark vision to protect it. With that in mind, I looked at the walls near the entrance, but there was nothing I considered interesting. There was writing there, but I couldn't read it anyway.

  Disappointed, I looked into the middle of the hall. As before, I saw a few tables and statues. I looked at them with more interest this time. One of the statues looked like a demon: horns, wings, and glyphs on its arms. I didn't think that looked like something I would use to light the place up. The statue facing the demon looked like a king... not that one either. There were also statues of a scholar, a knight, a mage, and a female kneeling in front of a glyphed sun.

  That’s probably it, I guessed. Not too close to the door, but not too far. It made sense and was decently obvious. I just hoped it would only require a touch to activate it and not some spell to feed it. I walked toward it and put my hand on the sun.

  My hand stuck to the glyph, and I felt it taking energy from me. I started to get scared and filled my other hand with power. Just as I was about to destroy the sun, it stopped taking energy and my hand was freed. The hall was now engulfed in light, and it was far easier to guess what the place was for. I even saw that a part of the wall had a chain and a lock. I disabled the lock and pushed the wall forward; it started opening to one side and turned out to be a double door that connected to the entrance of the structure, bypassing the trap rooms. There was clearly some sort of illusion at work, because when I walked out, I realized I had thought the gate was further to the left when I was walking away from it—but up close, it looked nothing like the place I saw earlier.

  That was a good way to keep intruders from finding it, and there was probably some trap on the left side of the wall if someone tried to break in there. It made a lot more sense, especially since not many people would want to jump across structures while a flaming inferno raged around them. Plus, they had to be able to bring cargo inside.