They emerged from the maze and walked down a long hallway. Up ahead, the hallway opened out into a large room. They walked out of the hallway, into the room. A long white wall was in front of them. A door was set in the wall, and next to the door was a combination lock, consisting of six wheels with different numbers set into each wheel, with each wheel large enough for the numbers to be clearly seen but small enough to be turned with one hand. Six small arrows were carved into the wall directly above the wheels; each arrow pointed to the top of a wheel. Unexpectedly, the room also opened out into a second hallway to their left. That hallway extended out to their left for such a long distance that they could not see the second hall’s end point.

  “Going through that maze was scary but also kind of fun!” Kylus said. He walked up to Sylis and smiled at him; Sylis smiled back. “So what’s your plan for this next obstacle, Sylis? This is where you get to use your Blue magic, right?” Oh, great! Sylis thought. I get to explain it to Kylus! This way my boyfriend will think I’m really cool because of the neat magic I’m about to do! I am the mean, bad Blue wizard of Tamm, and I am about to do magic!

  “That door ahead of us is locked, but it’s a combination lock, so when those wheels are spun so that one precise set of numbers lines up with the arrows, the right combination of numbers will open the door,” Sylis said. “Instead of guessing what those numbers are, which would take forever, I will use the imp-spirit Nathan summoned. I’ll use Blue magic to make the imp move incredibly fast, so that it can try a million different combinations of numbers in just a few moments. The hope is that one of those combinations will open the door, because every possible combination will have been tried. It’s a solution to the gnomes’ puzzle that uses math and logic and magic to break open the door without relying on a spy to steal the secret combination of numbers. I really hope it works, I mean, it should work, and if it doesn’t work, I’ll be really sad because the team brought me in just to do this for the heist and if we can’t get past this door, we’re stuck.”

  “I remember when you taught me about how Blue magic works, while we were riding to the Dark Wizard’s castle,” Kylus said. “If you make the imp move a lot faster, don’t you have to make someone else move a lot slower, to balance things out? For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction, right?”

  “I’m glad you were paying attention, Kylus!” Sylis said, smiling. “But no, that’s not exactly how it works. I will create a bubble of time around the imp. The time within the bubble will go much faster in relation to the time outside the bubble, while time outside the bubble will move much more slowly in relation to the time inside the bubble. The time within the bubble, where the imp is, will balance out with the time outside the bubble, where we are. Those are the two sides of the equation that will go in equal but opposite directions.”

  “Oh. Sorry I was wrong.”

  “No, don’t be! Hey, you were smart enough to ask the question! Most people wouldn’t have.”

  Kylus looked into Sylis’s eyes. He saw Sylis gazing fondly at him, with an obviously smitten, loving look. Kylus took a step to his right, and saw Sylis’s eyes move right, tracking Kylus’s every motion.

  “I don’t want to distract you while you do your magic,” Kylus said. “I’m going to stand over there while you do your thing.”

  Kylus walked away from Sylis and leaned against the back wall of the room, near where the hall went out to the left, with one of his legs crossed over the other and his arms folded at his chest. The other members of the team were huddled around the locked door, waiting for Sylis. Sylis walked over to them.

  “This is definitely the combo lock the Dark Wizard told us about,” Sylis said. “Once we solve the lock, that door will open, and that’s the door into the East Tower. This is where I get to be useful to the team.” Stay calm, Sylis told himself. Breathe. Relax. You can do this. You can do this! You’ve got this! This is going to work!

  “Watching Blue magic is always fun,” Nathan said. “Show us what you can do, boy. We are, to phrase it as something of an understatement, counting on you. To phrase it a bit more accurately, do this and succeed, or we all fail and die very soon.”

  “Thanks. That doesn’t put any pressure on me,” Sylis said sarcastically.

  “One man’s fear of imminent death is another man’s highly effective motivation,” Nathan said. “I’m only trying to help you by motivating you!”

  “Thanks, Nathan,” Sylis said. “Now stay quiet. I really do need to concentrate and be able to think to work Blue magic.”

  “You will need the imp-spirit I summoned earlier, or your Blue magic is for nothing,” Nathan said. “The plan is for you to give the imp many years of time within a few moments of time, and trust that the imp can try every possible combination of numbers, that one such combination opens this door, if the imp is given many years of time within which to make the attempts. Rose, hand me the magic ring I gave you. I will get the imp to come out. Then, Sylis, this is all up to you.”

  Rose reached her hand to the belt of her armor and pulled out a small red leather pouch. She reached her hand in and extracted a small silver ring set with a single glittering red ruby. She handed the ring to Nathan. Nathan grabbed the ring and held it up for all to see with a flourish.

  “Imp-spirit, creature of darkness, arise! Nathan, your master, summons you!”

  A flicker of liquid shadows poured forth from the ruby in the ring. The shadows materialized into a creature who had the appearance of a goblin except with bat-like wings, horns, a barbed tail, and smooth dark blue-black skin instead of the crusty mottled gray-green skin of real goblins. The creature bowed its horned head to Nathan. The imp smiled, revealing a row of sharp white fangs.

  “I am yours to dominate, Master,” the imp said. “I long only for you to free me after I have performed my service to you, as per the bargain we made when you summoned me.”

  “Tell it what to do!” Nathan said to Sylis. “This part of the heist is entirely your show, Sylis!”

  “Stand there,” Sylis said to the imp, while pointing at the combination lock. “I will cast a spell on you. After I cast the spell, start spinning the wheels with the numbers and continue to spin them into different combinations of numbers until the door opens.”

  The imp moved to obey.

  “I am sure you can do this, Sylis,” Sylis’s Mom said, and Sylis jumped in shock as his mother’s ghost floated down and descended to the ground in front of him.

  “Mom, not now!” Sylis mumbled, trying to keep his words too soft and garbled for the others to parse.

  “Sylis, are you all right?” Nathan asked. “You look as though you have seen a ghost!” Then Nathan started to laugh.

  “What is funny?” Rose asked Nathan.

  “Nothing,” Nathan said.

  Sylis stared at the imp-spirit standing next to the door and gnomish lock. I need to concentrate! Ignore your mother and focus on casting this Blue magic spell! Sylis went through the mathematical equations in his head, going through the math that described shifts in time and calculating the precise quantities of time that he would need to move around with his mind to work his magic. He smiled. I can do this! he thought. He raised his arms up, hands outstretched, and pointed at the imp with all ten of his fingers.

  Sylis cast his Blue spell and its effect was instant. The imp-spirit’s movements became so fast that it was nothing more than a blue-black blur; the shape and details of its body moved so fast that it could no longer be clearly seen. While the imp’s movements became sped up within the bubble of time Sylis created, the time in the room outside the bubble became slowed down by an equal amount in relation to time going faster for the imp; but, to the people in the room watching the imp, outside the time bubble, their only experience of the difference was seeing the imp-spirit’s movements become impossibly fast as it fiddled with the combination lock, its clawed hands a blur as it moved the numbered dials. A few moments later, Sylis heard a loud click, and the door swung open, unlocked. He ended the spell, and the imp returned to normal, its body solid and defined, going at the same speed as the room around it.

  “Great!” Sylis said, his face lit up by a wide smile. “Thank you, Mr. Imp! You’ve been a big help!”

  “Good job, Sylis!” Rose said. “Let’s go, team.”

  “Um, Sir, Master, I must speak to you,” the imp said.

  The group was about to enter through the door, but they paused.

  “What is it, Mr. Imp?” Sylis asked.

  “You cast the spell, and I began to spin the numbered dials, and after a few years of spinning, I heard a click, and the door unlocked,” the imp said.

  “I can tell,” Sylis said. “Why tell us that? It just happened one minute ago. Well, for you, it took several years of time, but for us it was just a few seconds.”

  “Because, Master,” the imp said, “I tried about a million different numbers, and then there was a click, and the door opened. But the very first time I spun the wheels to try a set of numbers, there was also a click. The lock knew it the first time I put in a set of numbers that were not the right ones. And that very first time, when I spun the numbers and they were the wrong numbers, a small hole opened above the dials, and this popped out.” The imp held up its claw. It was holding a small, dark, shiny black crystal.

  “That thing contains a Black magic curse!” Nathan said, screaming at the top of his lungs. “I do not have time to defuse it! Run through the door! Run!”

  The party began to run away, but it was already too late: the Black magic trap in the dark crystal activated. Many different things happened at once, and Sylis saw them all, his eyes wide with horror. First, a bolt of darkness shot from the crystal and hit the imp, and the imp vanished in a puff of smoke, at which point the dark crystal fell to the ground. Second, three ghosts emerged from the crystal, like a cloud of gray mist that hissed out from the crystal and formed into three humanoid figures, their bodies looking like human skeletons robed in tattered, ragged robes; each ghost was holding two long, barbed, jagged swords, with one sword in each hand. Third, rays of darkness zapped out from the crystal and hit the ceiling, and cracks began to form in the white blocks of stone above them wherever the dark rays hit; the cracks began to spread and deepen, so that the ceiling above them was laced with a spider’s web of cracks and fissures.

  While the dark crystal continued to shoot bolts of darkness in all directions, the three ghosts drew their swords and charged—at Kylus.

  “Kylus! No! Run away!” Sylis said.

  “Too late,” Kylus said. The three ghosts fell upon him, with one ghost in the lead and the two others flanking it to its left and right. The ghost at the front floated down and alighted directly in front of Kylus, whose back was against the wall and could not retreat. Kylus drew his sword; the ghost swung the blade in its right hand at him, he parried—and, to Sylis’s amazement, Kylus’s blade batted away the ghost-sword. I guess ghost-swords have physical substance? Or is Kylus using a magic sword? Sylis thought.

  While Kylus’s sword was outstretched to turn away one blade, his body was wide open and exposed. The ghost thrust out at Kylus with its second sword, the sword in its left hand. Kylus tried to draw his sword back and deflect the thrust, but he was not nearly in time. The ghost’s gray-mist sword stabbed into Kylus’s leg, and Kylus howled in pain. The ghost pulled its sword out as Kylus fell to the floor, clutching his bleeding leg.

  “Oh no!” Sylis said. He stared at Kylus, his eyes wide with horror, and he looked like he was in almost as much pain as his boyfriend. “Don’t worry, Kylus! I’ll rescue you!”

  Sylis started to run to Kylus—and then he heard his mother’s ghost. “No! Sylis! Don’t! Come back!” Sylis looked from Kylus to his mom, and then he looked from his mom to Kylus. Sylis made his decision. He broke into a run, headed for Kylus.

  Sylis ran around the three ghosts and reached Kylus; the ghosts seemed surprised to see him, and they turned their attention from Kylus to the Blue wizard. The three ghosts held their swords out, blades extended, the barbed points aimed directly at Sylis, and advanced on him. I am not afraid of you! Sylis thought.

  Sylis’s mom, seeing her son in danger, began to float over to him, her eyes fierce with a look of determination to protect her son from the ghosts attacking him. Right at that moment, with her back to it, the crystal shot out a jet of black light, which hit the ghost of Sylis’s mother in the back. Her eyes went wide, and she screamed. Sylis looked up in horror, and he and his mother made eye contact. She had one split second in which she smiled at Sylis with tears in her eyes and waved her hand goodbye to her son. Then his mom’s ghost vanished.

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  The three warrior-ghosts advanced on Sylis and Kylus, while the other members of the team were cowering on the other side of the door the imp had opened, fearful of the beams of darkness that were still shooting from the dark crystal. “Can’t you do something?” Rose asked Nathan. “Kill that crystal or banish those ghosts or do something useful? You are our resident wizard of Black!” Nathan snarled back at her in reply, and she jumped in shock at his anger. “That is a powerful curse!” Nathan said. “Trust me when I say I would like to break that curse, but I would need hours to cast the right spell! And the ghosts are part of the curse!”

  “What if I go shatter that dark crystal?” Glorissa asked.

  “If you touch it, you’ll die,” Nathan said. “If you get hit by one of those rays of darkness coming from it, you will also die.”

  The three ghosts circled Sylis and Kylus, with one coming from in front of them, one from their left and one from their right, their ghost-blades held in front of them, ready to thrust their six words at him. Sylis snapped his fingers, and, with the sound of his fingers snapping, he cast a Blue magic time-stop spell. A wide, long bubble of time floated out from his hand, wrapped around the three ghosts, and caught them. The three ghosts stopped moving, their gray-mist bodies held perfectly motionless and frozen in time. Sylis smiled—but then he saw Kylus on the floor, and his smile changed to a frown instantly. Kylus was clutching his bleeding leg and whimpering; Sylis knelt at his side, and Sylis felt tears start to well at his eyes at the sight of his boyfriend in pain.

  “Get over here!” Sylis called to his companions, whom he knew were crouching at the other side of the door, sheltering from the dark crystal’s bolts of shadow. “Help me get Kylus to the door! He’s injured! We need to get him out of here now, before the ceiling collapses onto us!”

  Rose and Nathan looked at each other.

  “If a ray of darkness zaps us, we die,” Nathan said.

  “In any heist, there is always danger,” Rose said. “That’s what makes it fun!” She darted out from the door, heading for Sylis and Kylus. Glorissa and Yarid followed her, running as fast as possible, and then Nathan sighed and also broke for the place where Kylus lay bleeding on the floor. The dark crystal continued to shoot rays of darkness, but the shadow-bolts seemed to be fired at random, and it did not hit any of them. The others reached Sylis and Kylus.

  “Can you heal him? Can someone heal him?” Sylis asked, directing his question at the entire group.

  “Get him through the door,” Rose said. “Glorissa or Nathan can try to use their magic to heal him, but we can’t let him slow us down. The ceiling is going to fall on us at any moment! But we will not leave Kylus behind—and we won’t leave you behind either, Sylis. Go!”

  “I’ll bring up the rear,” Sylis said. “It makes sense for me to go last. Once I’m through that door and I can’t see the ghosts anymore, my Blue time spell holding the ghosts will end. But I can hold them stopped in time for as long as I can before we flee.”

  Yarid and Glorissa grabbed Kylus, taking hold of him on both sides, and they helped Kylus up. Kylus tried to walk, stumbling forward on his one good leg as he went, his upper torso partly slumped over in Glorissa’s and Yarid’s arms, a line of red fluid trickling down his leg and leaving behind red smears on the white floor. Kylus continued to whimper and moan from pain, and Sylis winced each time he heard it. Yarid and Glorissa dragged Kylus into the open door and they went through together, and Rose and Nathan followed quickly behind them. Sylis was the last one in the room. He walked towards the door, thinking about how to bring his spell to an end at the precise moment when he went through the exit, so that he could slam the door shut behind him on the three ghosts just as they broke free from his time magic.

  And that was when the ceiling completely collapsed.

  A giant block of white stone fell directly in front of Sylis’s path, blocking the door. Sylis looked up and saw the entire ceiling falling onto him. He frantically threw his arms up and hurled time-stop spell after time-stop spell at the crumbling blocks of stone raining down on him from above. The stones’ descent was slowed, but they continued to fall, and Sylis was rapidly running out of magical energy. He turned and looked this way and that, but saw no escape. A gigantic block of stone fell directly from above; he looked up, and at the last moment was able to fire off a Blue magic time-freeze that hit it before it crushed him. But he began to shake and tremble. I am going to run out of magical energy in under one minute! The others are gone, I can’t reach the door, I’m alone, and I have nowhere to run. What do I do?

  Sylis ran out from under the shadow of the gigantic falling stone. Tears poured from his eyes as he ran out of magical energy. His Blue spells ended, the ceiling-stones fell, and the three ghosts moved again. Sylis, moments from death, looked around and noticed the hallway leading to the left. He began to run down the hall. Moments later, the entire ceiling of the room collapsed, destroying any chance of his making it back through the door the others had entered. I do not know where this leads, but it cannot be worse than what is behind me.

  Sylis turned his head as he ran and risked a quick glance behind him. The three ghost-warriors were chasing him, their ghostly tattered robes sweeping about as they floated after him. Sylis ran, and ran, and ran, with no sense of how long he had been running, going as fast as his robed-and-armored body could chug along, his armored boots clanging clang-clang-clang as he picked his feet up and shoved them down, going forward. Sylis was a wizard, but he was a young man and not in bad shape. He ran quickly. Sweat poured down his brow and into his eyes, but he could not stop. The ghosts chased him, and he kept running. The hall turned out to be very long, and Sylis knew that he would run until he reached its end, and then, probably, he would die.

  Sylis reached the end of the hall, after running for what felt to him like hours, although he was too tired to really think about or notice how long he had been running for his life for. The hall opened out into a large, spacious room, floored with thick red carpets and draped by thick red banners; both the carpets and the banners had gold and silver stripes that sparkled and glittered as if made from real gold and silver. The room had a high, domed ceiling, held up by rows of white stone columns that rose up from the floor all the way to the dome high above. The room was brightly lit up despite having no windows and having no visible illumination magic spells anywhere, or at least none that Sylis could see. The room had one wall, a circular wall which curved around to seal off the entire space within a perfect circle. The room had only two ways out: the hall from which Sylis had come, and one section where the wall curled up from the floor to form a small arch; Sylis could not see what, if anything, was through on the other side of that arch. The floor, wall, and ceiling, and the pillars that rose up to the ceiling, were all made from the same white stone blocks as the Temple of Light.

  The room was full of empty suits of armor, their metal surfaces polished to a fine shiny gleam that almost seemed to glow as it reflected the bright light. The suits of armor stood in rows, and there was row after row after row; what seemed like hundreds of suits of armor filled the chamber. The armor was all the same model, a type of knight’s plate armor which looked ancient and old-fashioned but still very military and capable of being used in active battle. In the center of the room was a circle of empty suits of armor arranged in a ring, and at the center of the ring a golden throne was raised upon a dais. The throne appeared to be made from plates of solid gold that had been hammered together, and its seat, which was large enough for one person, was cushioned with plump, comfy-looking purple cushions. The gold of the throne glittered in the light, its gold a sharp contrast to the sparkling silver-light glow of the many suits of armor near it.

  At the left hand of the throne was a large silver scepter-like rod topped with a giant round blue sapphire gemstone. The scepter was stuck into the floor, fitted into a hole-shaped groove cut in the floor next to the throne. Blue lights sparkled within the sapphire gemstone like tiny fireworks going off inside it, indicating that some form of magic lived within the sapphire. The sapphire crystal was as big and round as a large chicken egg and was held to the silver scepter by fine silver wires wrapped around it. At the right hand of the throne was a small pedestal of white marble, and, upon the pedestal, a large book lay, its surface bound in faded brown leather. The book’s cover was closed, and its spine was thick with many, many pages. No words were written on the book’s cover, but the book’s brown leather appeared worn and faded, and it had many of its pages half-falling out of it, indicating that it had been read many times.

  “What is this place?” Sylis asked. “Where am I?” His voice echoes off the walls of the cavernous room. No answer came back. Sylis had been staring at the throne, his eyes wide with wonder, until he remembered that he was being chased by three murderous ghosts. He gulped and turned around.

  The three ghosts were floating in the precise spot where the white hallway transitioned into the red-carpeted and red-draped chamber. They glared at Sylis with menacing, baleful eyes, but they stayed suspended in midair and did not advance into the room.

  Why are those ghosts not attacking me anymore? Sylis thought. Oh well. First figure out where the heck I am, and then I can deal with the undead spirits. Sylis looked around the room again, but he saw nothing else that he had not already noticed. His eyes settled upon the tome on the pedestal. If you want to learn something, you can’t go wrong reading a book. I will read it and see what it says.

  Sylis approached the pedestal. He reached out a gauntleted hand and lifted open the book’s cover. Dust spewed up in a cloud from the book. When the dust cleared, Sylis saw that the book’s first page was ancient, yellowed parchment, written with black ink in a fancy font with very artistic calligraphy. The page had these words:

  Know, Son of the Now-Dead King

  That the Ancient Sacred Laws

  Demand this Act.

  Place Your Father’s Body

  Upon the Throne

  And His Hand

  Upon the Scepter

  That He May Know the Power

  Of the Heroes of the Hall

  One Final Time.

  You Alone Can Do This

  For Only Those of Royal Blood

  May Enter the Hall of Kings.

  Then Remove Your Father

  From The Hall of Kings

  Write His Name

  Into the Pages of This Book

  And Lead the Procession

  Down Below

  Into the Tomb of Kings

  For His Final Resting Place

  And Entry into Heaven,

  The Just Reward

  For Each Graceful Steward

  Who Led the Imperium.

  Sylis gasped. This is the Hall of Kings! Somehow, I must have run all the way from the East Tower into the West Tower! Then his mouth opened in shock, his lips forming a perfectly round O of surprise and confusion. Wait a minute! I remember when the Dark Wizard told us his plans, he mentioned that only those born to the family of the kings of the Imperium can enter the Hall of Kings in the West Tower and live; some sort of magical curse will kill anyone else who walks in. I bet that spell is what’s keeping those ghosts away! But then… how is it that I’m standing here and I’m still alive?

  Sylis stood there, thinking. But, as he was standing there, he felt his legs begin to wobble with weakness. He was a wizard, not a soldier, and the long run from the East Tower to the West Tower while wearing armor and being chased by ghosts had physically exhausted him. Now the exhaustion hit him, all at once, with the force of a hammer, and it made his legs begin to shake. He looked around, looking for a place to sit. He saw the throne. Well, I might as well, no one else is using it right now, why not? He made his way over, ascended the dais, and sat on the soft purple cushions of the throne’s seat. His legs felt better the moment he took his weight off them.

  He gazed across the room, sweeping his vision left to right. The three ghosts were still floating beyond the room in the hallway outside. The ghosts glared an evil stare at him and held their twin swords up threateningly, one sword in each hand. But the ghosts did not enter the Hall of Kings. Now how am I going to get past the ghosts to get back to the team? Sylis thought. I need some way to fight them, but my magic is not nearly strong enough.

  He leaned an elbow on the left arm of the throne, leaned forward to his left, and rested his chin on his left hand, whose elbow was supported by the throne. He took a deep breath and tried to think. With his hand facing slightly to the left, the sapphire-tipped scepter was directly in front of him. So, based on what the book said, if someone touches this scepter, they know the power of the “heroes of the hall”? I wonder what that means? Should I touch it?

  Sylis stared at the light dancing in the blue crystal, but he made no move to reach for it. My mother would probably tell me not to. She would tell me to go find gold coins to solve my problems, not to figure a way to solve my problems using magic. She would tell me it’s too dangerous and I don’t know what would happen.

  Sylis frowned. But my mom’s ghost is gone. She’s gone. I am alone. It’s just me on my own. I do not know whether I will ever see my mom again. I will live or die… on my own. And if I don’t find a way to use some magic to get myself out of this, I don’t know how I’ll ever get past those ghosts and escape from here. Sylis stretched out his right arm, reached out with his right hand, and touched his fingers to the sapphire atop the magical scepter.

  Every one of the hundreds of empty suits of armor in the hall gave Sylis a salute.

  The suits of armor then drew their swords and raised them, blade up, into the air, causing the air to glow with the light reflected off the sea of swords. The three ghosts at the hall took one look at the army of suit-of-armor soldiers and then swiftly floated away, going back the way they had come. The undead spirits fled so fast that their ghostly tattered robes trailed out behind them like the tails of snakes slithering away to avoid a larger predator. Sylis watched them until the ghosts vanished into the unseen depths of the far end of the hall.

  Well, that solves one problem, Sylis thought. I guess these suits of armor are enchanted and they are controlled by the king who holds the scepter and… I guess I’m descended from the line of kings? And that’s why I can enter the Hall of Kings and use the magic scepter? I don’t know who my father is, and my mother never told me who he was, so I guess it’s possible, although unlikely, that, well, maybe, that I… that I’m a prince of some sort? Really?

  Sylis laughed. And Mom never told me a tiny little detail that is so monumentally incredibly important about my life?! That’s absurd! It’s a joke, it cannot be serious! Somehow, I can’t believe that. I am a farmer! I’m not royalty! Then he saw the armor soldiers begin to walk towards him. The empty suits of knight armor bowed their helmet-heads to him and dropped to one knee, kneeling before Sylis. Sylis removed his hand from the scepter. The suits of armor instantly fell still, frozen in that position.

  Sylis reached out with both hands from his seat on the throne and pulled the scepter out of its notch in the floor. The scepter lifted out easily, and it was light enough for him to hold in one hand. He clutched it firmly with his right hand. The scepter's sapphire sparkled with blue lights as if alive while he held the rod. I think these suits of armor are the Heroes of the Hall. Can I really control them?

  Sylis waved the scepter, and the suits of armor began to dance a lively jig, exactly as Sylis had willed them to. He giggled. I can control them! So, um, yeah, I am a member of the royal family somehow. I would scream at Mom for not telling me—if her undead ghost were still alive. Maybe Nathan can bring her back somehow, after we steal the Crystal and escape from this Temple, so that I can scream at her about not telling me. I will want to carefully research this issue of who my father was and learn more about what the heck is going on with me once I get out of here, but I have another more pressing problem to deal with first: how do I get back into the East Tower and find where the team has gone while I’ve been in here?