Mazerine missed a large portion of the rune work that Douken did as she illuminated the hallway before them, turning only as the green glow illuminated the area around them. She let out a bit of a giggle as Douken seemed to be talking to the rune, clearly unhappy with the color that it was emitting. "The color doesn't really matter anyway, does it?" she asked, smiling at him in a reassuring manner. "Besides, I really like green," she added as an afterthought.
It was impossible for the pair to not bump into each other a few times as they traversed the dark hallway, as both light sources seemed to be fixated on the left-hand side of the walkway, counting the doors as the passed them. Douken's joke pulled another bout of laughter from her, and she shrugged. "I couldn't really decipher what this place was, but it seemed to be so heavily guarded I assumed it was something of great import, like a state house or a mausoleum… but I suppose it could have been a hotel, too… one of those kinds of hotels," she said, waggling her eyebrows suggestively. It was clear she was indicating the hotels in which people paid an awful lot of money to keep an awful lot of awful things secret. She couldn't keep a straight face, though her smile dropped as soon as she spotted the massive golem in the middle of the path in front of them.
"Well. That's not good," she said, her voice stammering slightly as panic attempted to take over. She shoved the worry down, however, doing her best to keep her cool. "Pretty sure you're right," she said, her voice giving way to the slight fear that she was feeling. "I thought the map was supposed to protect us from that," she said and scrambled to pull the map from where she had stashed it.
Sure enough several of the strange inscriptions on the map were glowing in a strange manner - were they indicating that in order to be safe from the guardian, they needed to recite the inscriptions? It was worth a try as the gas that the golem emitted was getting closer and closer to them - Mazerine didn't want to wait until it reached the two of them to find out if it was poisonous or not. With a shaky voice, she recited back, as best she could, the inscription on the map: "Ab hoc loco, et non nocere nobis!" Her voice wavered but she said the words strongly and loudly. A blast of force seemingly pulled forth straight from Mazerine, shot down the hall towards the golem. It stumbled slightly, and just like that the golem's mouth snapped shut and the gas in front of them began to dissipate, the golem moving back into the shadows from whence it had come.
Mazerine looked down at the map, and the glowing had subsided - the map looked just like an ordinary map with notes and marking all over it again. She felt rather dizzy from the power that she had just emitted - whatever energy the incantation had used seemed to have drawn it right from her life force. Feeling a bit weakened, she leaned against the stone wall of the walkway, her breathing rather rapid. She shut her eyes tightly for a moment, willing the room to stop spinning - and when she opened them again, it had. "Well," she said, looking up at Douken. "At least I was right about the map being a source of protection… but wow… that was something I've never seen before," she said. "Or felt." After a moment, she straightened up. "Well. Onward and… inward, I guess," she said, peering down the hallway into the darkness.
"I don't know if I lost count after that, but I think the next door on the left is the one we're looking for," she said, taking one more look at the map before tucking it away. She made her way to the next door and turned in, sending a blast of light ahead of them much as she had when they had first entered - only this time, there was not a path in front of them, but rather a very large pit. She edged her way forward, her fireball hovering next to her until she stood at the edge of the pit. Inside, she could see nothing but pitch black, but the darkness rippled like water. There was a small stone near her foot, and she nudged it to fall into the pit. The following splash confirmed her suspicion that it was filled with water. She pulled out the map, making sure they had gone the right direction and studied it for a minute. After a moment of silence, she rolled it back up and tucked it away.
"Well, good news is, we went the right way," she said, sighing rather elaborately. "Bad news is, the only notes on the map next to this segment just say "swim."" She muttered something and a bit of light shimmered over all of their belongings. "Waterproofing," she explained. "The fireball won't go out in the water, at least," she said, and before she said anything else, she dove right into the water. Upon surfacing, she pushed her now soaking hair off of her face and took a deep breath. "Well, it's not as pleasant as the bathhouse… it's cold," she said. "But we have to keep on," she said, and remained treading water while she waited for Douken to dive in as well.