"This isn't just rock anymore," Irin said softly. "It's more like… skin."
Rhaen grimaced.
"To pass, we cut," she said. "But if we cut, it will notice."
"Then we numb it first," Irin said.
She shrugged off her pack and carefully unstrapped the sealed black cylinder from her back. Runes crawled across its surface like slow lightning.
"Carefully," Thane said.
Irin rolled her eyes slightly but positioned the core at the base of the "door." She whispered a short chant. The runes on the cylinder shifted, rearranging themselves into a different pattern.
The air grew heavier.
A faint, sickly purple light seeped out from under the cylinder and into the stone.
"Demon mana," Irin murmured. "Enough to confuse the local flow for a moment. Not enough to wake anything deeper."
Rhaen drew her short blade.
"On three," she said. "Cut and push."
They braced themselves.
"One. Two. Three."
