Mary: "Tristan? Am I dead for good now?"
Tristan: "I think we… may… be ok…"

Tristan's voice drifted off as the darkness was pierced by a dozen shards of light that spread out quickly but quietly a few feet in front of him. Almost instantly the light had diffused, bathing the area in a soft glow. The maze had been replaced by a long narrow corridor, the stone walls lined with fragments of tattered curtains. The light extended out for only a few feet in either direction, beyond which was pitch black.

Mary: "Oh come on, this is just bullshit! How the hell many of these damned things do we have to do? I swear they're just making this shit up as we go."
Tristan: "I think we're really close to the end now. This just feels different."
Mary: "I lost the ability to feel much of anything back at the bar."
Tristan: "I envy you. I think I'll be feeling this for months."

Tristan gestured to the gash on this lower left arm, wincing as a bolt of pain shot up from the still-bleeding wound.

Mary: "That looks pretty nasty."
Tristan: "Eh… all my tendons still seem to be intact, so my violin-playing days aren't over just yet. I'll worry about it later."
Mary: "Well then, onward we go I suppose. I can't wait to see what they've come up for us this time. I wonder what happened to my gun."

Tristan quickly scanned the immediate area of the corridor.

Tristan: "My sword is gone, too. I'm not looking forward to the six-headed fire-breathing winged dog we have to face next."

Mary blanched.

Tristan: "Relax, I'm joking."
Mary: "Just for that you get to go down the hallway first."
Tristan: "Oh thank you."

Tristan turned and faced the archway and the inky darkness beyond. He shook off a feeling of unease and began to walk forward, Mary following close behind. He heard her sigh a breath of relief as the light moved with them, illuminating a small distance in front of them as they walked.

Within a few minutes they found themselves standing at the end of the hallway. The wall in front of them had started to fall away, leaving a large gaping hole. Mary peered through it cautiously, leaning slightly forward yet still staying far enough back to stay out of the grabbing-range of whatever strange and horrible creature may have been hiding inside.

Mary: "I can't see anything, the light doesn't go through there. Maybe the challenge is to see if we're stupid enough to climb blindly through a hole in the wall."
Tristan: "It could be representative of a leap of faith."
Mary: "Does any of this seem familiar to you at all? Maybe a late Mesopotamian wall-hole myth?"
Tristan: "Not so much. Did you and Emily not have a… 'thing' …with decaying walls?"

Mary: "I can safely say no. Maybe it's not even really a test at all. Maybe it's just a hole in the wall."
Tristan: "I suppose it could be. Would you like me to crawl through first, or would you rather lead?"

Tristan tried to keep from fidgeting as Mary paused, briefly looking back the way they'd come. She squinted into the shadows in front of them, as though willing herself the ability to see in total darkness.

Mary: "I'll go through first. I think I've pretty much gotten the hang of this no physical body thing."
Tristan: "I'll be directly behind you."
Mary: "Right. Here goes nothing."

Tristan watched as Mary cautiously stepped forward, her face a mask of concentration. He readied himself for a surprise attack, bearing in mind that it could come just as easily from behind them as from in front of them. Instead, there was nothing but a small snap of electricity and a faint glittering of bluish light before the world dissolved around them, the stone walls shifting and changing into decaying plaster and torn wallpaper.