Off to the Room of Envisionment

"Good," Nekarb said. "I'm glad ye've seen sense, lass. Come with me." He led her out of the room, where she found herself in a featureless corridor.

She had hoped that he would walk along the corridor in front of her. That would give her the chance to turn and run off in the opposite direction. With the dwarf's short legs, she doubted that he would be able to catch her. But perhaps he suspected that she might try something like that, for he gestured for her to lead the way.

Andrea stepped ahead of Nekarb, as she was bid. She could still run off, though she wouldn't have as much start as she would have done were she behind him as she had hoped.

But the dwarf had come prepared. The bag that he had brought with him had not only contained the scroll from his master. [94587] It also contained the cymbal with its attached hammer. Now he took it out of its bag, unseen by Andrea, and its chime rang out.

At once she felt calmer. She had nothing to worry about. She would just refuse to enter the room when they reached it.

In fact running off would have been futile. There would have been nowhere to run to, as after quite a short distance the corridor ended, with a plain wooden door facing them. There was a full-length mirror mounted on the wall to one side of the door.

Nekarb reached over her shoulder and pulled on the handle. The door opened towards them, revealing only darkness. "I'm not going in there," Andrea said.

"Oh yes you are, lass," Nekarb said. He shoved her with great force, and she went sprawling inside.

Before she could recover her balance, he had shut and bolted the door. Then he waited. He knew that his master would have already primed the room to carry out his wishes. He would wait five minutes and then unbolt the door. That would be allowing a wide safety margin, since the process should be all but instantaneous.

Inside, in utter blackness, Andrea cursed. She tugged on the door, then hammered on it, all the while shouting to Nekarb to open it. She knew in her heart that her efforts were futile, though. The door was clearly sturdy, and she doubted that he could even hear her through it.

And within a few seconds she began to feel a tingling on her skin, and knew that her tattoos were being applied. The tingling did not last long, and it seemed like an age after it had finished before the door was opened.

She stumbled out. "Very good, lass," Nekarb said. "D'ye want to see what you look like? We keep a full-length mirror just outside the Room of Envisionment for that purpose."

"In a moment," Andrea said. "I'm almost blinded by the sudden light."

When her eyes had adjusted, she looked at herself in the mirror, terrified by the thought of what she might see.

1. It wasn't too bad. In spite of what Nekarb had said, she only seemed to have one tattoo, on her left upper arm.
2. She gasped. "Coverings" was an apt description. Her body from the neck down was almost totally covered in tattoos. If they were intended to all remain visible, then the clothing that she had been promised wasn't going to cover very much.
3. She had one tattoo on the outside of her right thigh, and one on her left upper arm. That wasn't too bad. What was too bad, was her third tattoo, on her forehead.

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