Swamped Chapter 226 Page 9

“Let’s start by testing the illusions,” you muse. “I’ll stay still and you make me look like one of them.”

I don’t actually know what they look like. Can’t get a good look from this distance, none of the spells I have for that are working well with whatever’s going on there. Though, I suppose I can use the mental link to look through your eyes if you don’t mind me borrowing your senses – didn’t think about that until just now.

“Go ahead,” you reply. You then feel strange, and can’t see anything.

It’s even worse than I thought, the wizard sends as your vision slowly returns. This is going to be a bigger problem than the fire ether. I’ll go ahead with the test, but stay within the circle for now. I’ll just extend the visual illusion outside of it.

The creatures start glancing your way, but not for very long. They seem very unfocused right now. You aren’t sure if that demonstrated anything.

“I’m going to step outside the circle for a moment just to see if they react differently,” you say. “I can’t really make sense of anything they’re doing.”

The illusion will move with you. And be sure you don’t step on the circle itself.

You step out. The creatures look at you again, but soon break off. When you step back into the circle, they once again look your way. You report your observations to the wizard.

I think they’re reacting to the ether itself, something about the boundary of the circle is making it behave strangely. It’s probably drawing their attention, but they don’t regard it as a threat or something they want, so they don’t focus on it for long. She pauses briefly. I don’t know how long that would be true for if you started moving the box while covered by the illusion.

Well, that’s new information. Perhaps you can make use of it.