"The fricken thing was just a wooden cut out!!" Melinda's roar echoed through the hallway as she battered the hand that so previously terrorized them; her hammer splintered wood.

The trip through the ice cactus patch was not a pleasant one. Barbs jabbed at coating, hair, skin, and scale. Had it not been for their fear of being devoured, and then being tied up as they were, the group may have proceeded with more caution and grace. However, intense fear drives out many of those niceties so that pure survival triumphs over comfort.

By the time they reached the end of the patch, the group was a bedraggled mess of bruises and scrapes. But much to their fear the hand had beat them to the other side. Thankfully the patch had undone many of their delicious bindings, so there was more hope for fighting back.

That hope was quickly dashed by rage when they all realized what exactly they had been swimming from.

"I don't -Oof- understand," Muttered Roland, picking an ice pick from his coat. "It seemed -Eeep- so lifelike. How could it have been a fake. -ow-."

Melinda gave a furious roar as she tramped over the remains of her wooden foe. 

"WHEN I GET MY FINS ON THAT WITCH, I'LL SLAP HER SORRY ASS!" 

"Guys. Look." Esther pointed forwards. 

Melinda and Roland turned their gazes towards their companion, and then followed the direction of her hands. What beheld them was a dead end, a barrier to forward progression, and occupying the dead end was...

Melinda and Roland felt like weeping.

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