Leliana glanced up the tunnel, to the dull red glow. "Let's see what lies ahead," she decided. "I'll lead. You watch my back. Keep close, in case I need to sing us out of here."

They made their way down the tunnel. Here and there, Leliana could see a momentary flicker of the Faerzress that had spread far and wide when the Crones worked their fell magic with the voidstone. Its light was drowned out, however, by the red glow from up ahead.

The farther they went, the brighter the glow became. The air grew hotter and drier. Leliana breathed warily, alert for the first signs of lightheadedness. If there was lava ahead, as she suspected, the air in the tunnel could prove poisonous. She glanced back at Naxil and saw sweat beading his brow and trickling down his temples. His hair and clothes were damp, as were hers.

They came to a place where the passage bent sharply. Leliana motioned for Naxil to halt and peered around the corner. The tunnel beyond it was bisected by a deep crevice in the floor that glowed with an eye-searing red light. Heat made the air above the crevice shimmer. Leliana sniffed, and caught the whiff of sulfur she'd been expecting. Somewhere deep in that crack, lava flowed.

The gap was too wide to jump. She decided they'd risked enough for one day. Time to get out of here and report what they'd discovered.

"Touch my back," she whispered to Naxil. "We're leaving."

He did so, and she sang a hymn of return, but the sudden lurch of slipping sideways through the dimensions didn't come. The prayer should have conveyed them both to the Misty Forest shrine: her designated sanctuary. It didn't.

Naxil waited. His eyes held a silent question.

Leliana shook her head. "Trobriand must have warded his sanctum against teleportation. I'll try something else. Keep watch."