Room18c

Conrad reaches for the white mirror and it engulfs the small group. Laughter, screams, and howls fill the swirling darkness around them until the cold of the transition passes. The mirrors have disappeared and the group stands in the center of the room.

On every wall, the paintings now move. Howls and screams assail them from every side. The smells of body odor and the less than human smells of the creatures permeate the room. The paintings are no longer flat images but windows into actual cells whose occupants reach through the bars attempting to reach the cowering youngsters.

“How the heck am I going to slash paintings which aren’t paintings anymore?” Conrad draws his sword, nervously.

“I don’t know,” Jora says. “But if the mirror showed it, it must work. Try slashing one.”

Conrad walks up to a cell containing a man. The man’s eyes roll in his head and thick spittle drips from his scraggly beard. As Conrad draws near the man reaches through the bars of the cell attempting to grab the boy.

Conrad raises his sword and places it at the corner of the frame. As the sword touches the bars of the cell, the window to another world becomes a two-dimensional painting again. The sword digs into the canvas and tears a gash from corner to corner.

“That was easy,” Conrad crows and turns to the next cell.

One after another the boy slashes at paintings with his sword, turning living creatures back into paintings and then into tattered canvases.

In a matter of minutes, the room is silent and the walls are adorned with hanging shreds of art.

“That was fun,” Conrad says, huffing from the exertion.

“I’m glad you had fun, can we go now?” Jora says, moving toward a door.

What choice should the adventurers make?