### 223

The blast sends you tumbling backwards into the chamber. The instant you come to rest, you roll over onto your hands and knees and try to scramble back onto your feet. But before you can do so, something heavy strikes your side and knocks you down, pinning your legs to the ground. You reach out to pull yourself free and discover that the heavy object is Black Hawk. Dazed and trembling but otherwise uninjured, you drunkenly help each other to stand.

Once you are upright, you look around and see that the others have all been knocked flat by the blast. They, too, are now struggling to pull themselves to their feet. Fortunately their innate Kai skills appear to have spared them from serious injury. However, you sense that your inability to detect that the wall was an explosive illusion has shaken their confidence.

‘Our prey is far more cunning than I feared,’ you say, ruefully, ‘but we are Kai and we shall rise to the challenge. Our enemy possesses strong magic and he is capable of masking it well. Yet he chooses to use it to wound and weaken our party, not to kill us. Why this should be I do not know. But from now on we cannot entirely trust our senses to protect us. We must proceed with the utmost caution.’

Turn to 345.