TAKE X (6-5-17: The End)

> Those eyes seem bad.



"Uh, Mack?" Gio says.

"Yeah?" you say. You turn to look at where his voice is coming from, not that it'll do any good with regards to actually seeing him, then freeze. Behind you is a very evident pair of eyes, glowing red. You hope deeply that the eyes are attached to a person. Then you remember that red eyes aren't usually a signifier of anything good and instead hope that there's some harmless, thus-far-undiscovered creature that manifests as a pair of glowing red points of light.

"Hey staff," de Soren says, "can you shed some light on this?"

You blink. "You're really getting into using that staff."

"If they're going to lock me up for using magic, I might as well actually use magic," de Soren says with a shrug. At least, the way he says it certainly sounds to you like there was a shrug involved. Implied shrugs, though useful in communication, are notoriously easy to get confused with other similar intonations. You once accidentally insulted Gio's mom because she took your implied shrug to instead be an implied obscene gesture. You're reasonably certain de Soren's not doing that, though you acknowledge that you could be wrong.



"Westley Mugg." Gio takes a step forward. "It was, in fact, the prosecutor himself. Who knows why he suddenly appeared in this corridor. The darkness behind his mask was no more dark than the shadows that surrounded us, but somehow it was more foreboding..."

Mugg turns his head slightly to look at you. "Is he always like this?"

"Yeah. What are you doing here, though, Mugg?"



"Deadman," he says.

That does little to reassure you.

"Palmer Deadman. Mugg was an alias. Apologies for the trial. I came down here to help you escape." He pauses for a moment to take a swig from the cup of coffee in his hand. You saw him do it, and you're still not quite sure how he managed it through his mask. "I was suprised to see you come right through the door when I opened it."

"Why'd you get us locked up to begin with?" you ask.

"Necessary. Trying to earn the trust of some of the higher-ups. I want to get to Amata."

de Soren looks to the entrance of the corridor, where you came in from. "Well, there's your chance. She came down here, and Makram threw her off of a ledge. She's probably still back there."

Palmer's eyes flare, and he disappears. Looks like that's that - you continue the other way through the corridor.



You exit the tunnel and find yourself in an alleyway off of the Piazza, the major thoroughfare near the church. Looks like it's time to get out of town. You can feel the warmth of that glowing rock from your inventory. Maybe you ought to do some research, too.