Meanwhile, Griff was, for the first time since he started traveling with Atreana, bored. (You remember Griff, he's that guy who has been in a total of two scenes so far, one of which he doesn't even speak in.)
"Where's Atreana?" he mumbled, lying on his bed and staring at the ceiling. "We were supposed to leave an hour ago!"
He glanced up at a knock on the door. Anna opened the door slowly and glanced inside.
"Oh!" she cried when she saw him. "I'm sorry, were you trying to sleep? I was looking for Catsai, and I thought maybe Atreana had - "
"No, that's okay," he said. "I wasn't asleep. Speaking of Atreana; have you seen her? We were supposed to leave an hour ago, and she hasn't even started packing."
Atreana shook her head. "I haven't seen her since this morning. We were - oh!"
"What?"
Atreana's eyes widened. "She said something about wanting to see what Catsai was doing. And I think Catsai was going to fight Jason again!"
"What?!" Griff jumped out of bed, reaching for his longbow. "Who's Jason?"
"He's this jerk that used to Transform people. He's completely insane, and he's trying to kill all the people he Transformed."
"Than we've got to help them!"
Anna shook her head, smiling. "No, he's harmless. He can barely cast a fireball." She paused, remembering the Dragon Slave. "Well, actually ... maybe we should go find them."
Griff nodded, grabbed his quiver of arrows, and raced out the door.
"Where's Catsai?" Anna asked as she ran into the main room of the inn. Griff darted past her and through the door.
"She went to go see Jason," Amelia explained. Lina and Gourry were too busy eating.
"And you let her go? Alone?" Anna asked, aghast.
"Zel's with her."
"She's going after Jason! The guy who cast the Dragon Slave that killed most of the Black Cloaks!"
Gourry and Amelia were still confused, but Lina finally got it. "Um ... maybe it wasn't such a good idea to let them go off on their own. But he said he only wanted Catsai and Zel to come. He might have killed Marcia - "
"Marcia? He's got Marcia?" Anna's eyes widened. She's still alive? "We've got to help them!"
"Don't worry, Anna, we'll go after them," Lina comforted her. "As soon as I finish this - "
Anna sighed and sat down next to Lina. "But, Lina," she said slowly, "Jason comes from a really rich family. And he's really ruined the family honor. There might even be a reward for getting rid of him." I feel really awful about lying to them, but it's the only way to get them moving.
"A reward?" That got Lina's attention. "What are we waiting for? Let's go!"
Griff sighed and sat down in the middle of the street. "Where's Atreana?" he moaned, looking around. He shook his head. "Stupid! Griff, you are so stupid! You know you always get lost in cities; why didn't you just wait for Anna and the others?" He sighed and got up. "Well, just sitting here won't help you find her. Better go ask for directions. Excuse me!" He talked for a minute with a man driving a cart, who pointed the way back to the inn. Griff nodded, thanked the man, and started off again - in the wrong direction.
"Disappeared?" Anna repeated. They had just run into Zelgadis, who was returning to the inn.
"It looked a little like a teleportation spell that Rezo used to use," Zelgadis told her.
"Oh, poor Catsai!" Anna cried. "He must have taken her to his tower."
Lina and Zel glanced at each other. This sounded familiar.
"Anna?" Lina asked. "Have you ever heard of something called the Philosopher's Stone?"
Anna glanced at her, surprised. "Yes, of course," she told her. "Hasn't everyone? It's a magic amplifier - or, at least, it was, before it broke during Kain's Transformation. That's probably why he can't - couldn't - talk; the stone split in half, right in the middle of the spell. Now Catsai and Jason each have a piece of it."
Lina and Zelgadis glanced at each other again, while Gourry was trying to figure out where he had heard this before. "Where's his tower?"
Griff looked around, trying to figure out where he was. He had somehow managed to get out of the town and into the woods. His sense of direction was a little better out of stone walls, but not much. After a while, he caught sight of a tower. Maybe someone there will be able to help me, he thought, and headed towards it.
Catsai raised an eyebrow. "Oh, come on, Jason," she muttered. "Can't you do better than this?"
"What?" Atreana asked from behind her, glancing around the room.
"This," Catsai said, gesturing at the elaborately carved stone tiles on the floor.
"Oh. Another trap?"
Catsai nodded. "Not a very good one, though. Look."
Atreana frowned at the tiles. Each one had a different design. In the first row, there was a rose, a vase, a mirror, and a tree. There were four more rows past that one. "I don't get it. What's the trap?"
"If you step on the wrong tile, it will triger the trap. Maybe you fall into a pit, maybe it fires darts at you, who knows."
Atreana shrugged. "Much as I hate to admit it, you're right. Too easy. Levita - "
"No, don't!" Catsai shouted, then threw herself onto the floor.
" - tion!"
As Atreana recited the spell, two statues started glowing. When she floated into the air, two fireballs shot out of the statues.
"Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow!"
Catsai got up and dusted herself off. "I tried to warn you."
Atreana glared at her. "All right. How do we get across?"
"Easy enough. You just step on the right tiles."
"Right. Simple. And just how do we know which ones to step on?"
"Easy. Look around." Catsai pointed at the statues, and the light spell hanging above their heads.
Atreana shrugged. "I still don't get it."
Catsai sighed. "The statues are of the goddess of magic. They cast fireballs. The light is created by magic. So ... " She stepped onto the mirror tile. " ... we step on the magic tiles."
"How do you know which tiles are magic?" Atreana asked. She cast a spell and frowned. "The tiles aren't magic. Nothing in this room is, except the light spell."
Catsai shook her head. "Not magical tiles. The tiles spell magic. See? Mirror ... " She stepped onto another tile. " ... arrow .... " She stepped to the next row. " ... gate .... ice ... cat." She shrugged. "Not very hard to figure out. He should have gotten rid of those statues, and put a maple leaf instead of a mirror, and - never mind. Come on, let's get going. It's a long way to the top."
After a few minutes of walking, Atreana thought of something. "Hey, Catsai?"
"Yeah?"
"If this guy Jason is such a jerk, how come you used to be his girlfriend?"
Catsai's face went red. "He was different then!" she shouted. "He went insane, remember?"
"Yeah, but according to Anna, he went insane after he Transformed you."
Catsai glared at her. "Look, he changed, right before he went completely crazy. Maybe he was already losing it, and I just didn't realize it." I was a stupid, spoiled little brat back then, too, she added mentally, but there was no way she would admit it out loud, especially not to Atreana.
Griff frowned at the tower. He had circled around it twice, and even tried to climb it, but he still hadn't found away inside. By now it was nearly nightfall, making it impossible to try to climb the walls again. "Why build a tower without an entrance?" he wondered out loud.
"Griff?"
He turned around to see Anna, Gourry, Lina, Zelgadis, and Amelia coming towards him. "You got lost too?" he asked.
Anna smiled. "No, we're not lost. We think Catsai and Atreana are in there."
"They are?" Griff looked at the tower again. "But there's no way in.
"I can fix that," Lina volunteered. "Fire .... ball!"
Anna ducked the fireball as it bounced off the walls. Lina stared for a minute, then quickly dodged aside as it flew past her. "What happened?"
"Magic-proof walls," Anna explained. "The only entrance is about twenty feet up."
"The walls are almost impossible to climb," Griff told her.
Lina shrugged. "So who says we have to climb? Levitation!"
The six found themselves floating in midair. Anna, Gourry, and Griff quickly grabbed at the floating magic-users, closed their eyes, and waited.
Well, Anna and Griff closed their eyes and waited; Gourry grabbed Lina's chest and screamed "I'm falling! Save me!" when she yelled at him.