“Not now. I am having the most lovely dream...”

The smell of blood infiltrated the elf’s consciousness, and she raised her head quickly, a single page sticking to it and fluttering to the ground.

“By the gods,” she breathed, “into what have I awakened?” Erissa looked around herself, oblivious to the dried blood that flaked from her cheek. “Someone is injured,” she breathed softly, peering at the maroon-streaked desktop. “Someone needs help.” Her determined eyes followed the splattered trail to the clock, and the elf rose slowly to investigate. She knelt by the foot of the grandfather clock, where the droplets upon the glossy, white tile appeared to end. The elf glanced back quickly at the austere room, the desk obscuring her from a full view of it.

“There is nothing in here,” she mumbled, and turned her attention back to the fine purple wood. “Where...” she breathed, and her eyebrows furrowed. A smear of blood was drying upon the small brass knob, and Erissa pulled open the door of the clock's pendulum housing. A smirk pulled at the corner of her mouth. “Enchanted liviol. It figures,” she said. Behind the pendulum, Erissa could see a light at the end of a dark passageway. “Hang in there, whoever you are,” she whispered.

The Ixian wrestled with the pendulum, cutting her hand on the sharp edges, but finally freeing it from the clockwork mechanism. She crawled through the tight space, sideways and wriggling her body to inch forward. The darkness of the passage overtook her vision, leaving her only the vague light in the distance.