Jinnaari picked up the bead, letting it bounce off the palm of his hand. Two slaads rested inside, trapped. The other two were now mush.

He glanced at Thia, making sure she was okay. She’d fought harder than normal this time, and took a lot of damage for it. “What are you going to do with that?” she asked.

“I have an idea.”

He walked down to the far end of the room. “The room was down here, right Helix?”

“Yes,” the Tabaxi answered. “Why?”

Reaching the archway, he looked inside without crossing the threshold. A bare room, with a petrified…something…in the corner. Adorning the far wall was a face carved into the stone. The spitting image of the lich that’d framed him for murder. “Let’s see what sort of trap is in here,” he said, throwing the bead at the face.

He hit it between the eyes; the bead began to bounce around the room as a tile in the floor moved. Rising from the ground, a stone hand was outstretched. A disembodied voice boomed through the room: Yield magic for safe passage!

The bead continued to ricochet off the walls. As it shot past the hand, it hit one of the fingers and fell into the palm. The hand closed around the item, descending into the floor again, as the carved face faded into a shimmering portal.

“Jinnaari, did you just…,” Thia stood next to him, staring at the room.

“Pull off a trick better than Helix? Yeah. I think I did.”