Maze of Illusions
Almost impossible to navigate with the naked eye, the Maze of Illusions is a test of students' skills at identifying, piercing and manipulating illusions. Filled with magic that bends space back on itself and fools the mind into turning around, without its magic the Maze is simple a large, empty room.
Purpose / Function
The MAZE OF ILLUSIONS is a testing ground for students of the academy. It's useful for those practicing Abjuration (dispelling the illusions), Divination (seeing through the illusions), and Illusion (manipulating the illusions) magic.
Permanently enchanted with a complex lattice of shifting illusions, the Maze can adjust its configuration with the input of a master illusionist (typically, Arumawann Humplebumple, the undergraduate Illusions teacher). That said, the maze is infamous for having a whimsical will of its own. When unprompted, it can meddle with its inhabitants, adjusting itself to best befoul and befuddle anyone seeking passage. The maze has only two doors, so challenges and tests usually adjusting the configuration and challenging students to pass from one door to the other. Alternative trials involve locating a hidden object, discerning which person in the maze is real
The Maze of Illusions is also an excellent place to hide things, or people. Or Boggles.
Design
The room is quite large, over 60ft at its widest point, and roughly L-shaped as the stairs up to the ground floor are immediately to the north-east.
Entries
The room is underground and has no windows. There are two doors, each opening into the staircase landing that leads up to the dining room of Tarslemoor House
Sensory & Appearance
The "default" image of the room is a shimmering maze of translucent purple light. It can be configured via magic to take on almost any, illusory form, including all five senses.
Denizens
While normally unoccupied, of late the Maze of Illusions has become the hideout of a pair of boggles named Slip and Slide. They answer to Athalor An'Andarud and sneak out to wreak havoc on the students of Tarslemoor House
Architecture
Without the illusions present, the room is an empty stone chamber spanning the entire width of Tarslemoor's basement. The room is inlaid with mother-of-pearl, tiger's eye, pyrite and opalescent gemstones conducive to illusion magic, as well as prisms, runes inlaid in copper and fool's gold, and focusing arrays. All of these are embedded in the floor, walls and ceiling, leaving the chamber otherwise empty.
Most of the architecture of the maze is, in fact, illusory, allowing the chamber to become whatever is required.
Defenses
Powerful illusions make this room nearly impossible to navigate without magic. When turned up to full, the illusions can become harmful, though there are safeguards in place to prevent this from happening, and they'd never need to be activated unless something had gone truly wrong.
Comments