He chuckles. "I am glad you were the person the Mists spat out at me."

"That's not nearly as flattering as my declaration," she points out, amused.

"Is it not?" he asks mildly. "Heads up." And another updraft.

She makes a little happy squeak at the updraft, then snorts.

"Mmmm, no. Most other people you would have gotten would have been... less okay than I am."

"I suppose that's true," he concedes. "I am glad I met you regardless of circumstances. How's this?"

"Much better," she hums. "I'm so glad to be here."

He laughs. "Last one..." And after that updraft they reach the enormous floating rock where the coliseum is.

He looks for a spot to land at the lowest outcropping of the rock and finds the ruins of what was a plaza or a room of sorts.

After he puts her down, she notes that this is reasonably secluded, then gives him a speculative look. "James? Take off your helmet for, mm, thirty seconds?"

He obliges. "Miss my face?"

"Terribly." She leans up and very gently presses a kiss to his cheek. "Thank you. Carry on, clothes may go back on now."

"Wouldn't want to overwhelm the princess," he agrees, and puts his helmet and the gauntlets back on. "Let's find Canach and perhaps a traitorous minister, shall we?"

"Let's!"

He goes through the doorway on the wall that's still standing and there's another wall with another doorway on the other side of that space, but he stops a couple of feet before it and peers at the spot on the floor directly in front of the doorway.

There are several circular holes on it.

"... Huh," she comments. "Good eye. Trap?"

"I think so. Hmm. Give me a minute." He closes his eyes then grunts, which causes his hands to glow green and two small creepy corpse-y things emerge from a green glow on the ground. "I'm gonna use them as bait, see if there's a timer or something."

"Huh. You don't need corpses? I am going to want to hear you explain how you do that later. Well, go on little guys, die for your master."

He laughs, and one of the bone minions runs on ahead. Several spikes emerge from the holes and pierce the minion, making it melt into slimy shadow that eventually dissipates. The second bone minion runs ahead as soon as the spikes are gone, and they don't emerge this time. "Couple of seconds..." Then that second minion runs back and the spikes kill it. "Yeah, timer or something."

"Good to know. So, minion blood sacrifices so we can pass, then?"

"Yep. Just gimme a couple more sec—there we go." He summons minions. "Whenever you're ready."

"Ready," she agrees, with a nod.

First minion runs, is gutted, spikes go down—

- and then running! She gets safely across without any new piercings.

"You know," she observes, "these don't seem like very good traps to me. No points, failing grade."

Second minion, and he also escapes grisly death by spikes. "I'm sure it must have made more sense before this was a floating rock and everything had been exploded."

"I mean, not really! These are not very subtle, but they're in the way of everyone that would want to come through! So people that live here can't go around them and have to do the whole song and dance every single time, and the people that explore the place can easily see them and avoid them with casual minion sacrifice! ... Or possibly poking it with a stick, it might have been smart to try that, too."

"Minions are cheap enough, but you have a point. Maybe there was more to it before it was blown up? This could have been a decoy trap and the real one was on a wall or came from the ceiling."