Dav won, but his victory was slim enough that Xin'ri was able to collect her bet from Ci'an while the men confirmed that all of the black splodges in the room were indeed just leftover goo and not more wall lizards. There were black splodges and specks everywhere, even beyond the new ones created by Jax and Dav's competition, so the check took a while.

While they checked the room, everyone also checked how many Wisps they'd received. Sweetfire didn't receive any, but he said that was normal; he only got them when he made things. He wasn't even going to get Wisps from having his creations used; while there were Professional Spheres that did, similar to Xin'ri's, he didn't.

Sophia had the next lowest number of Wisps, but she was still shocked. Thirty-seven seemed like far too many for being glooped on once and accomplishing nothing during the fight.

Ci'an did better than Sophia, at eighty-two. She'd tried to use some of her different gaze attacks. They were mostly ineffective and not necessary even when they did work, but at least she'd tried something. She was just as confused by the award as Sophia was.

Xin'ri received over a hundred Wisps when she expected to gain nothing, since she hadn't done anything and that meant she hadn't used any of her equipment. The only explanation anyone could come up with was that she'd gained wisps because Jax was using her equipment. Sophia suggested that perhaps Xin'ri didn't have to be the one using the equipment as long as she made it and was present. It was the best idea anyone had, but it didn't satisfy Xin'ri. She knew she'd had others use her equipment and not gained anything; there had to be something more to it.

Jax and Dav gained the most, of course. They each ended up with roughly two hundred and fifty Wisps, with Jax slightly under and Dav slightly over. It was much, much too big an award.

Just like the mazestorm they spent in Sweetfire's shop.

"It's because the Guide sees you as protecting Professionals," Sweetfire interrupted after they'd gone around in circles a few times. "If you're in the Registry's quad, you get less, but anyone who defends against anything in the League and Cooperatives' quads gets more. The Arena …" Sweetfire shook his head. "Hard to say with the Arena. I think it's usually like being in the Registry; there are too many Called nearby."

Sophia guessed that made some sense, if the Guide wanted to encourage people to defend others. The fact that it was hidden and not obvious made it less likely to work in her opinion, but it probably would work if it was well known. For all she knew, it might be hidden to avoid having people bring Professionals into danger just to save them and get better rewards; she knew people well enough to know that some would try that.

"Down here, it's a bit different," Sweetfire added. "We don't often bring Called down here, but when we do, they always gain more Wisps than expected from monsters as weak as these. The past few years, though, it's been my task to handle the monsters that come from the Windows, and I don't get Wisps from them at all."

Sweetfire paused and looked like he was remembering something sad for a moment before he shook his head and continued. "Now, we need to head into the Window rooms and close any open Windows. With this many … I assumed there would be two broken Windows, but they were all lizards which should mean there was only one. Keep an eye out for more Window-monsters, but they usually all come out if you give them time and there's been plenty of time for that."

Sweetfire led them to the single door that led out of the room, on the wall to the left of where they entered. It was very obviously a retrofit; Sophia could see where the new door frame was actually set inside part of the old one. The wall was simple, made of old, slightly damaged concrete, while the door was anything but simple.

The door was both heavily carved and colorfully decorated with obvious enchantments. They glowed to Sophia's sight, but she suspected they'd glow to anyone's sight. There was no obvious doorknob, though there was an odd sliding mechanism on the left that Sophia would have investigated if this was a puzzle door in a dungeon.

Under the door, it looked like the floor once rose in a ramp that was later covered in a pale red tile. It was stained dark in a number of places, but the most obvious was a trail that led under the door into the room.

"They come in under the door," Sweetwater explained unnecessarily. "We've tried completely barricading the place, the way the ancients did, but the mirror-monsters get through anyway and then we had to set guards to kill them as they came through. A door with a small gap underneath to slow them down long enough for someone to get here, put up a temporary wall like I did, and then clean them out is best. It took long enough to get you that they should all be out here; if they weren't, we'd see one coming under the door."

Sophia paused. She'd just been about to ask Sweetfire how he knew there weren't any more inside when he answered without the question. "Why do they all come out? Why don't they just spread out?"

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Sweetfire shrugged. "I don't know. My guess is that they want to get away from the Windows, but Orvayne thinks they're looking for something. What we know is that with a door here, they'll spread out in this room before they go farther; it gives us time, and time's what we need. We've tried leaving the door open, and if we do they don't stop."

"They don't seem to want to be on that wall either," Dav noted.

Sophia nodded. He was right; not only was it the only wall without any of the black wall-lizards when Jax and Dav were killing them, there weren't any of the dark goop-spots that seemed to indicate previous deaths. It was hard to tell if there were any trails; those marks were usually faint. Sophia was pretty sure that the only reason it was obvious under the door was that there had been so many of the "mirror-creatures" pass under it.

"Is there anything we should be prepared for on the other side?" Sophia made certain to ask this time when she noticed Sweetfire stepping up to the door. She wanted to avoid the surprise they'd had when they arrived here.

Sweetfire shook his head. "Watch out for lizards, but we're not going to find any unless they got lost." With that, he stepped forward and set his hand against the door. The central symbol changed color to a magenta, then the bit that it looked like it could slide down did. A moment later, the door slid smoothly to the right.

Sweetfire glanced around the next room, then stepped in "Nothing here, at least nothing I can see. There are some side rooms we'll need to check, but I can already see which one broke. Over there, do you see the path?"

Sophia followed Sweetfire into the room. There were archways to the left and right, but it was the far wall that captured her attention. A line of thin rectangular objects, almost like really thin TV screens, were lined up against the rear wall. They wrapped around both sides of the room, as well, but stopped at the doorways on either side. Those had to be the Windows Sweetfire was talking about.

Most of the Windows showed different scenes, though all of them looked like the colors were distorted; pink or yellow trees didn't make any sense, and neither did all of them being night scenes. The vast majority were outside somewhere, and the few that obviously showed interior scenes all looked like they were showing ruins.

About a fifth of the screens were completely dark. Sophia had to assume that those were the "broken" ones. The fact that every single one of them had a dark residue under it only added to that conclusion, though it varied from a black to something that was little more than a dirty spot.

None of the ones that were active looked like they overlooked either the Maze or Mazehold, as far as Sophia could tell, but there was one that could have been the Skylands. It had an aurora behind trees on a mountain, with another closer mountain face below. Weirdly, though, the mountain almost looked like stars, which only reinforced the idea that these images weren't quite right. Maybe the stars weren't really there at all?

There was one image that did seem like it showed a sky for certain. It had tiny ice-covered trees at the bottom and a starry field above. Sophia wondered if it was actually showing what she thought it was; the position it was in wouldn't make sense unless it was a sky-watcher or had been shifted from its original orientation. The third option was that it didn't show trees at all. It had something that looked like ice accumulation all along the edges of the image, and unless that meant it was looking out through a window or cave opening exactly wide enough for the view, it probably meant there was a problem with the Window.

That Window wasn't the only one with some sort of edge accumulation, either, which made the idea that they were slowly failing make a lot of sense. In fact, it might well explain the weird colors and starry look as well; it might be distorted by how old and damaged the Windows were.

It could also be from the connection itself. Sophia was certain that making a continuous connection of any sort through the Origin would do bad things to the signal. At the same time, you'd think they'd correct for that, so maybe it was a combination of the two? Distortion that was no longer correctly handled would explain a lot.

There were a few Windows that had dark marks under them and still showed a scene of some sort. Sophia's guess about that was that they'd "broken" at some point and been repaired, but the floor wasn't completely cleaned. It was possible that it couldn't be. Beyond those, however, there was one Window in particular that had black marks under it, showed something other than a solid black view, and still didn't look like it looked out on something real. There were no "stars" in the view, for one thing; it looked more like there was something coming from the sides while the middle and bottom were blank.

"That's the broken one, isn't it?" Sophia pointed at the unique Window.

Sweetfire nodded. "Yeah. We're lucky it's in this room; Window-monsters are more likely to get lost in the back rooms. We'll still have to check them once we get this closed, but they probably all came out. Even better, it's not one of the leakers. Those are awful to close."

"Leakers?" That made Sophia think of a leaky pipe or something. That couldn't be right, though, not if Sweetfire thought they'd be able to stop the creatures from coming through.

"When this place was first found, Aventin thought he could stop the monsters by breaking the places they came from." Sweetfire shook his head. "He was wrong. I'll show you; it's in one of the side rooms. It's closed by killing the monsters that come out of it and coating the opening in the ooze. It lasts for a while, before we have to do it again, but there's no way to completely close it off now. There are a few that were closed like that before we found the real way to close them. That's why any of them are active; there's no way to actually stop them from coming through entirely. If we let them all leak, the problem would be worse than today."

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