Hoofbeats approached behind Cairn, beating a rapid tattoo on the smooth surface of the obsidian-lined corridor. Knowing it was just Polaris, he didn't even glance backwards. Freja would have let out a warning if it'd been any other Courser or creature.

"No! Cairn, stop! STOP!"

Too late, Cairn paused. The front edge of his hoof landed on the next tile, and it moved under his weight. The hallway erupted in orange light that quickly disappated, and Cairn's gaze shot forward to see the last of several columns of flame disappear into the ground. Light glinted and flickered over the glossy black walls, each facet of the obsidian reflecting a different shade of orange back at them. Freja screeched in alarm, wings flapping, but she stayed on her perch; even she seemed to know not to move further.

Polaris skidded to a stop behind him, sides heaving with exertion. The two Coursers had parted ways in the last hallway, aiming to reconvene within a day once they'd checked out the area. While they knew it could be fairly stupid to split their little party, time was of the essence; their supplies were beginning to run low, and it was a four-day trek back to the Overgrown Caverns from this part of the Furnace.

"I see," Cairn said mildly.

Polaris' ears twiched with mirth, but he was panting too hard to speak. Freja fluttered to the ground- a rare thing- and flapped her wings in Polaris' face. Whether that was out of concern for the other Courser or whether she was trying to cool him down, Cairn wasn't sure.

Down the corridor, the blasts of fire came and went; they could see now that nozzles were set into the ground, each sending up a plume of deadly flames. "How did you know this hallway would be trapped?" Cairn asked.

"Tome," Polaris said, finally regaining his breath somewhat. "There was a massive open tome in that other hallway, talking about the 'snares and blazes' set in the corridors leading to the Great Hall. It took me a while to translate- and that hallway was a dead end, so I knew there had to be something awful waiting here."

"Blast," Polaris replied. "If only I hadn't stepped forward."

"No, it would have been worse to discover when you were halfway down the corridor," Polaris said. "There are multiple trigger points. You'd have been a little toasty. I was just screaming because I didn't know how far along you'd gotten."

"Well, thanks," Cairn replied. "Now what?"

"I've seen this before, in the northern Halls. I came down here before meeting you, just once. But that was on a bridge, and I managed to walk over the parapets instead of going through the flames themselves." Polaris stared down the corridor ahead. "We have to count when and where those flames will come up. There's a pattern to it."

"Ok," Cairn said. "Let's do it."