Confident that you can outwit a bunch of gabbling cultists, you break to the right and head in. After all, it's possible they're not even here right now.
You give up on that idea once you've advanced far enough down the passage to hear the whispering.
"It's the whisperin' that does ye in, so they say," said the Cottenwilkian wit who'd been holding forth on the subject as you were filling your saddle bags. "Call themselves the Silk Sonant Magis, which sounds to me like a buncha chuckleheads puttin' on airs. But they got this reputation..."
As best you could piece together, the Magis' (you'd thought "magi" was the accepted plural, but had suffered furious correction on the point) typical behavior involved kidnapping young people each new moon from the weedy villages surrounding the former Dormduo and sacrificing them to some unspeakable Moloch deep under the blasted earth. Excepting, of course, that the young people always returned none the worse for wear and admitted no memory of their abduction. How the name and legend of the cult became widespread in light of the victims' amnesia was a mystery.
As you focus on the rhythmic susurrus ahead, eyes open for any passageways you might need to duck down, you sense motion behind you. Whirling, you see a pair of figures emerge from a secreted thurl you just walked past without noticing. Lost in nondescript blue cowls, the two float toward you and begin whispering.
You can feel the whispering beginning to do you in. You fumble, dropping your torch as you clutch your ribs reflexively. There's no reason for it, but you have an overwhelming sense your sides are about to be attacked by these two. It must be something in the nonsense they're whispering.
As the robed shapes approach, you see under their hoods. It's a couple of females about your age, eyes closed as though they're asleep. Before you can jump out of the way, they swivel in midair. You try to clap your hands to the sides of your head, but the levitating girls grasp your wrists and keep whispering directly into your ears.
You start giggling, unable to help yourself. It tickles like mad. Occasionally, their whispering lips brush against your ears, which is even worse. You'd like to snap your head about and skull-smack these two, but some magical effect holds you steady. You're also losing contact with the floor, beginning to float with your whispering captors. Balanced on precarious tiptoe with your arms firmly clutched, it looks as though you may be the Magis' next victim.
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