Topaz lags behind the rest of his party, the echo of their collective hoofsteps against ancient cobblestone only serving to unsettle him. His golden gaze sweeps nervously across the corridor, which he can only assume must have been a prison long ago; or at the very least, something adjacent to it. But this fact alone isn't what has him so worked up. Every single cell contains an equine skeleton, neatly curled up as if the horse it had once belonged to had simply been taking a nap prior to their death. And yet… The cells simply shouldn't have been able to contain them. Their doors barely come up to Beryl's chest, let alone a larger Courser's…

“I don't like this…” The pale Courser mutters to nobody in particular. “I mean, those doors, you could almost step over them. How did all of these horses, well… Rot here? Couldn't they have just… left…?”

Harrier's white-streaked tail flicks with a mix of anxiety and irritation as Topaz muses out loud about how this prison turned tomb might have worked. The whole party had certainly been thinking about the concerning implications of the frankly insignificant cell doors, but why did the Heraldic have to bring it up? Now, none of them will be able to think of anything else.

“Something else must have been keeping them in, if not the doors,” The tall stallion surmises in an effort to put everyone's mind at ease, his own included. Dusk still sits calmly atop his head, making a small clicking noise every now and then; his nocturnal companion clearly doesn't sense that anything's wrong, and Harrier trusts the bat's instincts more than his own when it comes to unseen danger. “At the very least, I don't think we'll have to worry about whatever it was.”

Beryl nods slowly as they mull over the more experienced dungeoneer's assessment of the situation. It makes sense, after all. If whatever had kept these prisoners contained was still around, still something to worry about… Well, chances are it would have revealed itself by now, right?

“That's a relief…” She murmurs in response, staring almost blankly at the end of the corridor; perhaps there's nothing left in here for the party of Coursers to worry about, but the small mare would still rather not spend too much time looking at long deceased horses.

“But how can we know it's safe here?” Topaz insists, sounding more and more anxious with each word. “I mean- What could possibly have contained them?”

“Guards, monsters, magic,” Beryl rattles off, mostly just wanting to shut her cousin up. “Really, even manipulation or pure fear could have done the trick, if the wardens were smart…”

“Manipulation?” Falcon asks, skepticism lining his voice. “What, you think someone just… Convinced all these horses to stay here ‘til they died?”

“Hm… Let's put it this way,” The green-eyed Courser pries their gaze from the not-so-distant exit to stare intently at him as she explains herself. “If you fully believed, with every fiber of your being, that the consequences of leaving your cell would be far greater than the consequences of staying inside it no matter what… Would you consider leaving, even for a moment?”

Falcon sharply exhales. Tough question. “I mean… I guess if I could prove-”

“But as far as you'd be concerned, there's nothing to prove,” Beryl reminds him before he can finish his sentence. “Remember, you completely believe what you've been told about leaving.”

“Man…” The flaxen stallion whines for a moment, before figuring it would be best to concede; even he can't really argue with that. “Yeah, alright, you've got a point, I guess…”