The Tree With Two Hanging Times

The red portal did not lead out. It led deeper. The party carried or guided Maine through while he was still compromised by the maze's punishments, bringing the group into a new chamber built around choices that did not explain themselves. Two locked portals waited there, one yellow and one green. Two pedestals stood with six tile slots each, more slots than the party had tiles to fill. A tree shook in the room like something alive, or like something pretending to be. Two figures hung from its branches. At first glance, the chamber wanted urgency before understanding. Hanging bodies. Locked exits. A puzzle with too many empty spaces. A timer beginning to count down. Gertie's realm had already proven that emotional pressure was part of the mechanism. Jonah looked closer. His Medicine check revealed that the figures were not real beings in the simple physical sense. They were temporal manifestations, unreal versions or echoes caught in the room's design. That did not make them meaningless. It made the question harder. The party was not only deciding who to save or which door to open. They were trying to understand what kind of time the room was showing them. Five tiles. Twelve slots. Two portals. Two hanging manifestations. One timer. The banquet had been a fight. This room was a lock with grief in its teeth.