Struggling to keep her breaths steady, the sound of Walter hyperventilating doing little to help stave off her own fear of drowning, a couple tendrils of shadows rose from beneath her feet and wrapped around her legs, as if trying to escape the quickly rising water. She leaned against the side of the bookcase as Conna’Cel rose with his wings, and looked to him when he neared, glancing almost enviously at his ability to currently stay above the rising liquid.
	“I-I think there might be a passage behind here,” she explained, not taking his offered hand. She nodded toward one of the feathers still stuck and twitching slightly against where the shelf met the wall. “Help me move it? [i]Please?[/i]”
	When they managed to move it, the water eagerly flowed through the new opening, trying to force her and Conna’Cel inside with it. She gasped when the tug of the mysterious air current swept from the now gaping mouth in the wall and worked together with the water at her feet to pull her and the robot inside. She gripped onto the edge of the bookcase, using it to help pull herself out of the way of the opening.

[hr]
	Nikolai gave a frustrated snort when his efforts at prying it off seemed to do little. He glanced down as, with the water still rising, Soren stepped onto the bottom rung of the ladder.
	“I told you that you shouldn’t be skipping weight lifting,” Soren said. “Bad form.”
	[i]And if [u]you[/u] had listened to [u]me[/u] back in town, we wouldn’t even be in this mess![/i] Though bitter, anxiety of their situation saturated his mental voice.
	“As great as pointing fingers, how about--” Soren’s attention snapped to Scarlet, and Nikolai pulled back in surprise when the woman threw a dagger into the portrait.
	The silent fae cast her a glare, but still said nothing. Noticing the slowed flow cascading from the picture, he held the crowbar in front of him. The prongs thinned and shortened slightly, Hemmingway’s face distorting beyond recognition as it pulled into a trident shape. Looking back to the portrait, Nikolai stepped to the top rung, and thrust the three sharp points into the picture near Scarlet’s knife. He released the trident and drew back quickly in case the portrait did not much like being stabbed.