Laser Hallway: Difference between revisions

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{{trope}}
[[File:cit_Goshuushou_sama_Ninomiya_kun_laser_hallway_with_meido.jpg|link=Goshuushou-sama Sama Ninomiya-kun Kun|frame|It isn't easy being a [[Meido]].]]
 
 
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== Anime & Manga ==
* Natsuki and Mai prepare to infiltrate a [[Laser Hallway]] in ''[[Mai-HiME (Anime)|Mai-HiME]]'', only to discover that Mikoto has already walked into the lasers and triggered the alarms.
* ''[[Mnemosyne]]'':
** In episode one, Rin uses cigarette smoke to reveal the lasers in an [[Air Vent Passageway|air vent]]. She then tries to sneak through, but unfortunately {{spoiler|her butt trips the alarm}}. [[Hilarity Ensues]]...immediately followed by Squick.
** In episode five, {{spoiler|Mimi}} now hides out in a Buddhist temple that comes with a "laser cage" consisting of vertical [[Frickin' Laser Beams|laser beams]] to trap intruders and leave them open to [[Five Rounds Rapid|fire]] by her army of [[Church Militant|nuns with guns]]. Since it's designed to contain rather than detect, the beams are spaced at a small distance from each other.
* Averted in ''[[New Getter Robo]]'': in the second episode some people pass through laser sensors that weren't visible to them ([[Rule of Perception|only to the audience from an angle where they were practically pointed at the camera]]) and were aimed in five different angles, making it so it'd be all but impossible to get past them even if you could see them.
* In ''[[Goshuushou-sama Sama Ninomiya-kun Kun]]'' this trope is combined with {{spoiler|[[Gag Boobs|gag boobs]]}} to comical effect. After much careful sidestepping the lasers eventually {{spoiler|Tsukimura Mayu's breast obscures one of the (sensory-only) beams and sets off the security response.}}
* One features in the second episode of ''[[Angel Beats (Anime)|Angel Beats]]'', likely as a [[Homage]] to ''[[Resident Evil]]''. The group is trapped in a locked corridor and have to dodge the increasingly complicated laser patterns. {{spoiler|Matsushita}} ends up sliced into pieces, but of course, [[Death Is Cheap]] here and he revives soon after, although his clothes are shredded.
* Occurred in a ''[[Kochikame]]'' TV special when one of the circus villains acrobat through the laser room which holds the gold head statue.
* [[Double Subversion]] in ''[[Zero Zero Nine One (Anime)009-1|Zero Zero Nine One]]''. The lead character does the usual tricky laser dodging maneuvers (somewhat [[Justified Trope|justified]] in that she's a cyborg) and gets all the way through to the end. She pulls out a device to plug into the machine at the end of the hallway, uses it, then unplugs it - and the cable falls into the laser beam, setting off the alarm. This triggers ''another'' laser grid, this one deadly, as demonstrated by cutting the wire which had tripped the alarm. The heroine tells her partner to leave her, but naturally, they escape.
 
 
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* In ''[[Executive Decision]]'', the concept of the laser hallway is shrunk and applied to a bomb. There are two metal contacts that, if they touch, close the circuit and detonate the bomb. All around the contacts there are (unmoving) laser beams which, if interrupted, would detonate the bomb as well. One of the good guys dons what look like ordinary night vision goggles that give him the ability to see the beams, so he can hold a plastic straw in between the contacts without interrupting any of them.
* The entire plot of ''[[Entrapment]]'' (1999) appears to have been constructed to provide an excuse for Catherine Zeta-Jones to twist and bend her way through laser beams in a [[Spy Catsuit]].
* The most improbable laser hallway ever, as well as the most improbable method of moving through a laser hallway ever, appeared in ''[[OceansOcean's Eleven|Ocean's Twelve]]'', in the lobby of a museum. Not only were there about two dozen beams, they were moving, and moreover, their movement was ''randomized'', which means there's no way to predict how and where to move through them. {{spoiler|Nonetheless, the French jewel thief extraordinaire makes it through.}}
* In ''[[View Askewniverse|Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back]]'' the jewel thieves make their way through a laser hallway using various different acrobatics (each trying to upstage the last). They're foiled however when the last girl through ([[Heroes (TV series)|Ali Larter by the way]]) lets one rip through her [[Spy Catsuit]] as a result of eating fast food. This sets off the audio detection alarm.
* Anne Hathaway's Agent 99 navigated a laser web in the 2008 ''[[Get Smart (Filmfilm)|Get Smart]]'' movie. The lack of a [[Spy Catsuit]] in this case was more than made up for by the presence of a slinky silver dress with a nice high split up the side. Then Agent Smart navigates it as well, though with a bit less dignity because the lasers also burn.
* I remember seeing one British war movie (forget the name) which had an agent breaking the German naval codes out of a safe guarded by invisible beams (he put on infra-red goggles). Rather ironic when you realise the codes were actually obtained by the less glamorous but methodical method of Ultra cryptography (still classified at the time the movie was made).
* Appears in the 2008 ''[[St Trinian's]]'' movie, which gives us just about every heist movie trope in the space of thirty minutes.
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* Done rather well and "realistic" in a two-part episode of ''[[The Saint]]'', "The Fiction Makers", which first aired in December 1968 and was later released as a theatrical film. Instead of a hallway, it was a corridor between two fences.
* In the third season ''[[CSI: NY|CSI: New York]]'' episode "Snow Day", the lab is infiltrated by drug dealers. After capturing one of them, Mac rigs up a makeshift claymore mine to keep him in place, using a web of laser beams to bar the hallway. {{spoiler|At the end of the episode, the leader of the drug leaders dives for the machine gun that slid under the web. Mac takes cover, but the criminals ([[Trash the Set|and a sizable portion of the lab]]) go up in a massive fireball.}}
* Appears in an episode of ''[[Angel (TV)|Angel]]''. Electrical-powered thief Gwen Raiden somehow bends the lasers and goes around them.
* A laser hallway was used as a security measure in one episode of the new ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]''. {{spoiler|The Doctor got through it by sonic screwdriver hacking; his force-grown cloned daughter, arriving late, had to resort to [[She Fu]] gymnastics.}}
* In ''[[The Big Bang Theory]]'', the characters build such a system just for fun: they play a game, where the players have to avoid the lasers, to make a move in a chess match. Or ''[[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?|eat a slice of pizza]]''.
* In ''[[The Crystal Maze]]'', there was one game in the Future Zone (inspired from the original in ''[[Fort Boyard]]'') which operated on a similar principle -- using strings. Ringing a bell attached to one of the strings set off a warning. Three and it was an automatic lock-in.
* An ITV kids' game show, ''[http://www.ukgameshows.com/page/index.php?title=Swap_Team Swap Team]'', featured a similar game.
* Done in the third series ''[[Robin Hood (TV series)|Robin Hood]]''. {{spoiler|Protecting a fake crown. With ''strings'' tripping arrows}}.
* Lex's secret lab in the ''[[Smallville]]'' episode "Mortal" is guarded by the deadly version. Since Clark has been [[Brought Down to Normal]], this is more of a problem than usual. A laser-guarded room full of priceless artifacts also makes an appearance in the season 6 episode "Arrow" - Green Arrow circumvents the (green) lasers with a crystal-tipped arrow.
* [[Psych|Shawn and Gus]] encountered one of these. The more limber Gus wove his way through the [[Laser Hallway]] and Shawn {{spoiler|just walked through, because he had already turned off the alarms}}.
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** Parker has also overcome a roomful of lasers before using tinfoil, ice and chewing gum.
* In the ''[[It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie]]'', Fozzie Bear, while trying to deliver a bag of money to the bank, is nearly prevented by doing so by the evil owner of the bank by one of these. Instead of actually triggering an alarm, these lasers are military-esque grade weaponry, which '''burn''' anything they come into contact with. In one of the most [[Crowning Moments Of Awesome]] in any Muppet film, Fozzie Bear ''runs through the burning lasers'', just to realize he forgot the bag. [[Dead Baby Comedy|Painful]] [[Hilarity Ensues]], as he manages to run through them again and back.
* Phoebe and Piper of ''[[Charmed (TV)|Charmed]]'' had to steal a chalice from a museum. The chalice was in a room with moving lasers. So, Piper froze the lasers and Phoebe maneuvered through the openings.
* ''[[Fight Science]]'' employed a non-moving visible [[Laser Hallway]] to demonstrate a female ninja's flexibility and kinesthetic sense. [http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/fight-science#tab-Videos/07741_00 She clears the room in 56 seconds and does a back walkover out of the room just to show off].
* The ''[[Bionic Woman]]'' remake had them visible despite the fact that Jaime's bionic eye [[Justified Trope|could have given her a plausible way]] of seeing infra-red beams. Subverted when instead of trying to slip through the beams, her partner deliberately steps into them so they can get captured as a [[Trojan Prisoner]].
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== Video Games ==
* ''[[Beyond Good and& Evil (Videovideo Gamegame)|Beyond Good and Evil]]'' loves these. In fact, when you're not avoiding being seen by guards, you're dodging laser beams. Or both, at the same time.
* In the ''[[Crusader: (VideoNo Game)Remorse|Crusader]]'' games, invisible lasers appear every once in a while that trigger all sorts of nasty business if the player walks through them. The emitters, however, are visible, albeit very tiny, and can be blown up.
* Appears in ''[[Deus Ex (Video Game)|Deus Ex]]'' and the sequel ''[[Deus Ex: Invisible War (Video Game)|Invisible War]]''. Often appears without holes, but it does tell the player to find a solution.
** In the original, red beams trigger alarms (which in turn activate any turrets in the area) while blue beams trigger something else...sometimes trivial sometimes instantly lethal. EMP devices are temporarily effective.
** In the sequel, blue is replaced with white (and only shows up once) while green shows up to trigger gas traps and gold beams are weapons themselves.<br />The NPC that tells you these useful tips also mentions that the light is holographic to scare away intruders, while the beams are invisible. While some uses of this warning are justified, more than a few times the bad guys would have done better to turn off the holographs. Still, the writers did their homework enough to handwave.<br />A better use of holographic beams springs easily to mind - put them somewhere ''other'' ''than'' (though perhaps near) where the invisible operational beams are.
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* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 2'' has laser hallways rigged to explosives. They actually are invisible unless you use the IR goggles or plain old cigarette smoke. Only one can be crawled through. The rest require you to find and shoot their control systems.
* Lasers also appear in the original ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' and the gameboy version as well. They trigger an alert when broken (or in one case in MGS, flood the area with poison gas).
* ''[[Psychonauts (Video Game)|Psychonauts]]'' has a laser tunnel in the Lungfishopolis level.
* ''[[Quake II (Video Game)|Quake II]]'' has ''many'' such traps, and in one instance as the Marine attempts the jumping puzzle, guards hidden in alcoves in the walls appear to take shots at him. One in E3-M1 could be circumvented via an alternate route.
* In ''[[Quake IV (Video Game)4|Quake IV]]'' there is a level in which the player comes across a few space marines nearby a [[Laser Hallway]]. The marines point out that the lasers are deadly, as discovered by one of them who foolishly thought he could dance his way through. The player, however, having been mostly stroggified, can pass through without triggering the trap.
* In ''[[Resident Evil 4]]'', Leon has to dodge through a [[Laser Hallway]] about halfway through the game -- which is actually a nod to the movie. This happens again in ''[[Resident Evil]]:[[The Umbrella Chronicles]]'' when Chris and Jill infiltrate an Umbrella base at the end of the game.
** Another one in ''[[Resident Evil 5]]'' incorporates a [[Light and Mirrors Puzzle]].
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* ''[[Oni]]'' is chock full of moving laser bars. Two end bosses are massive cybernetic brains who use a rotating pattern of laser beams against the player. The bosses are inert until the beams are crossed, then they unleash some impressive firepower at the player (who they don't seem to otherwise even ''see''). At several places, there are large obstacles behind which the player can hide to avoid being intercepted by the lasers... and which also hold the terminals to disable the boss. They are situated ''inside the boss chamber''.
* In the adventure game ''Koala Lumpur: Journey to the Edge'', one puzzle involves navigating three laser-beamed hallways. Each one has a distinct pattern (a clue at the entrance of each reveals it). The [[Fridge Logic]] nature of this setup is somewhat mitigated by the fact that it's on board a space station in an alternate universe, and that the station is owned by a child genius who might have just been going with the [[Rule of Cool]] rather than the best possible security system.
* ''[[Unreal II: theThe Awakening (Video Game)|Unreal II the Awakening]]'' has a hallway with blue killer laser complete with audio cues.
* ''[[Robotrek]]'' has lasers in an enemy base which activate/deactivate in a pattern. They're invisible unless you're wearing a pair of special goggles. Tripping a beam activates an alarm that brings enemy troops running into the room.
* ''[[Mega Man 2 (Video Game)|Mega Man 2]]'' has Quickman's...pretty much the entire level. Here, though, the laser beams are huge and kill you if you so much as touch them.
* ''[[I Wanna Be the Guy]]'' has a room that pays homage to the ''Mega Man'' level.
* Ring Man's level in ''[[RockmanRock Man 4 Minus Infinity]]'' has 2 sections filled with laser beams. Fortunately, they are not [[One-Hit Kill|one hit kills]].
* [[Sonic The Hegehog]]:
** ''[[Sonic Adventure 2 (Video Game)|Sonic Adventure 2]]'' had a bunch of these, mostly in vertical passages of shooting levels, but also notably in Security Hall.
** ''[[Shadow the Hedgehog]]'' had some also, though these were usually just beams and could be defeated by pulling a block out of the wall with the vacuum gun to block the laser. In one case, you have to pull two blocks out, one on each side of the passage you're trying to get through.
** Also appears in a number of levels in ''[[Sonic Heroes (Video Game)|Sonic Heroes]]''. The most notable level is [[Big Boo's Haunt|Mystic Mansion]], where Team Chaotix have to destroy a ring-stealing robot and then hit a switch ([[Nintendo Hard|which has several lasers touching it, and it's very small]]) in order to reach the rest of the level. Oddly, the other teams don't have to deal with this room and the one before it, and one of the characters on that team (Espio the Chameleon) can turn invisible...and when he does, most lasers don't hurt him. The only ones that do are in Final Fortress, and they're huge and very different from the small red ones you usually see (they're even different colors, and they fire at you instead of being the classic grid!).
* Amusingly subverted in ''[[Fallout]] 3''. The Enclave fortress doesn't have the traditional laser beam corridors, but it does have anti-vermin laser traps under the various passageways. If the player crosses them, a weak flamethrower is ignited. They are utterly ineffective against the player at that point, and not only can they be avoided by simply going fast -- the player needn't even bother with them to exit the level.
* ''[[Winback]]'' for the N64 has all sorts of horrible death lasers set up everywhere...including among the a.c. vents on the top of the main building. Not really explained how or why they were put there...but funny when the enemy freaks out and runs straight into one. Thankfully they move slowly enough Jean-Luc (yes, really) can somersault past. The blue variants don't kill immediately, but alert enemies or activate other traps.
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** Floor Turrets: Traps that you're forced to trigger so you can roll grenades inside.
* Also several places in ''[[Half Life]] 1'', both as red lasers that activate turrets on the floor, and as blue-green trip mines. Sometimes in the same hallway.
* There is actually a [[Laser Hallway]] in ''[[Zork (Video Game)|Zork]] III,'' yet another of the series' numerous anachronisms.
* ''[[Space Quest]] IV'' has one of these; you have to use cigarette smoke to see the lasers so you can adjust them to let you pass safely.
* Lampshaded in ''[[The Sims]] 2'', if the Sim works in the criminal career and steals a diamond protected by a laser field with convenient gaps. The Sim in question is even said to wonder aloud why no one simply uses a solid laser wall.
* The inexplicably [[Made of Explodium|explosive]] lasers in ''[[Conkers Bad Fur Day (Video Game)|Conkers Bad Fur Day]]''.
* ''[[The Art of Theft]]'' makes a gameplay mechanic of these lasers.
* Permutations of this pop up in the ''[[Ratchet and Clank]]'' series.
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** In ''Secret Agent Clank'', the first [[Unexpected Gameplay Change]] to [[Rhythm Game]] is in a particularly mean [[Laser Hallway]].
* The alarm type appears in ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines]]'' at the end of one level. The visibility can be justified by the player being a vampire with super senses, the fact that they are arranged so that they can be crouched under or jumped over can't.
* ''[[Duke Nukem 3D (Video Game)|Duke Nukem 3D]]'' has the Laser Trip Mine.
* Some hallways in ''[[Second Sight]]'' are blocked by a laser grid. In order to get past it, you have to use the astral projection power, as your "ghost" can move through these barriers but not through physical objects.
* ''[[Perfect Dark]]'' had a laser hallway in an early level that could only be circumvented by waiting for a maintenance robot to pass though and temporarily deactivate it. A later level has a huge laser grid surrounding Air Force One that required you to find a way around it.
* In [[Telltale Games]]' "Hector: Badge of Carnage" you break into the backroom of a sex shop only to find one of those in your path. You get through it by {{spoiler|flipping the switch located right by the entrance to turn off the lasers}}. Hector is way too fat to squeeze through the gaps in the laser grid.
* ''[[Mission Impossible]] 64'' has you descend through a laser grid to reach a computer terminal, just like in the first movie.
* ''[[PN P.N.03]]'' has a number of standard laser hallways, as well as [[Wave Motion Gun]]-caliber [[One-Hit Kill|death beams]].
 
 
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== Web Original ==
* The [[Homestar Runner|Strong Bad Email]] ''[http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail178.html Bike Thief]'' features a [[Laser Hallway]] that's more of a Laser Couch.
* Appeared in a ''[[Lonely Girl 15Lonelygirl15]]'' video, of all places; in "Mission Possible", Danielbeast has to navigate one of these.<br />It was pretty offensive they would invoke at ''least'' 4 of the worst tropes in fiction in what is supposed to be a convention-smashing ground-breaking series, including [[Everything Is Online]] and [[Pac-Man Fever]], which you would assume would be eradicated in early drafts when your target audience -- to the point that people far enough outside it are ''unable to even gain access to view your show'' -- is Internet-savvy computer geniuses.
 
 
== Western Animation ==
* In the ''[[Duck Tales (Animation)|Duck TalesDuckTales]]'' episode "Dime Enough for Luck", Magica De Spell tricks Gladstone Gander into stealing Scrooge's Number One Dime. The dime is guarded by an impressive set of moving lasers that he bypasses because he has unusually good luck.
* In the first episode of the '90s ''[[X-Men (Animationanimation)|X-Men]]'' series, the beams are detected by smelling ozone, revealed by super-summoned fog, and shut down by scaling overhanging pipes to reach the control panel.
* In ''[[X-Men: Evolution (Animation)|X-Men Evolution]],'' Iceman uses an ice bridge to pass the beams along the floor, and when bragging to Shadowcat, he's spinning the keys (to disable the security system) on his finger. They fly off, fall through a beam, and trigger the alarm. The look on Iceman's face is priceless.
* These show up all the time in ''[[Kim Possible (Animation)|Kim Possible]]''.
** Drakken even has a laser snow field around one of his lairs.
** The best one is from "A Sitch In Time", where the entire room is filled with deadly laser beams, and Kim gets her first job: using her cheerleading and gymnastics moves to dive through all the beams and turn it off. She was looking for jobs like babysitting.
* The early Kids' WB toon ''[[Road Rovers (Animation)|Road Rovers]]'' did a variant on this in an ep titled [http://members.tripod.com/~RRStuff/epguild.htm#EP7 Hunter's Heroes], replete with mirror deflection. (The website linked from this entry also acknowledges the difficulty on [http://members.tripod.com/~RRStuff/gallery.htm this page] [see "Deflector"].)
* ''[[Batman: The Animated Series (Animation)|Batman the Animated Series]]''
** In her first appearance, Catwoman uses a clever way of getting past such a hallway (actually, a room) to steal a diamond necklace; she uses her housecat Isis - who can ''see'' the infrared beams and, thus, can steer around them with her sleek body - to get the jewelry for her.
** Harley Quinn simply jumps around the beams when she goes to steal a diamond. Works fine, but then Ivy activates the alarm during her own robbery from another wing of the facility.
* In ''[[The Spectacular Spider -Man (Animation)|The Spectacular Spider Man]]'' one of these appears, somewhat [[Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?|peculiarly]], in the genetics labs at Empire State University, to deter theft of the "ooze." This doesn't stop the [[Classy Cat Burglar|Black Cat]] from trying, however.
* In the ''[[Wallace and Gromit]]'' short ''The Wrong Trousers'', Feather McGraw's plan for bypassing the lasers protecting a diamond is by having a sleeping Wallace, strapped to remote-controlled Techno-Trousers, walk on the ''ceiling'', then using a retractable arm on Wallace's helmet to snatch the gem. It almost works, until the arm swings over and the diamond hits one of the lasers, activating the alarm.
* ''[[Duck TalesDuckTales the Movie: Treasure of Thethe Lost Lamp (Animation)|Duck Tales the Movie Treasure of The Lost Lamp]]'' featured Huey, Dewey, Louie and Webby having to go through one of these in Scrooge's office building. One difference from other example: those lasers are ''lethal''.
* In ''[[Code Lyoko (Animation)|Code Lyoko]]'', Yumi encounters once a Laser Hallway of the deadly variety in Sector 5. Good thing she's the most acrobatic of the team.
* In ''[[Transformers Animated (Animation)|Transformers Animated]]'', it isn't so much a hallway, but the Autobot's base is filled with motion sensors. In "Home Is Where The Spark Is", they sense movements and grab the Autobots.
* Parodied in a ''[[DextersDexter's Laboratory (Animation)|Dexters Laboratory]]'' episode where Dexter just walks under the lasers ([[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?|in a library, close to the devolution box!]]) since he's really short.
* Used and mocked in ''[[The Venture Brothers (Animation)|The Venture Brothers]]'' when Doctor Girlfriend and Henchmen 21 try to go to the Monarch after Dr. Killenger becomes his new right hand man. A hallway has laser tripwires, and Doctor Girlfriend nimbly flips and weaves through them all. Henchmen 21 tries, and just trips into a lot of them from the start setting off an alarm (nothing deadly, just sirens). Doctor Girlfriend then just opens a secret hallway to where the Monarch is and leaves 21 behind.
* Used in the second ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003 (Animation)|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' toon, where April, Casey and Splinter are forced to traverse one of these in order to rescue the turtles in an early season 3 episode. While it proves easy enough for Splinter and April (who in this episode reveals that she has [[Took a Level In Badass|taken a level in badass]]) it proves quite difficult to the graceless Casey.
* This has been seen at least twice on ''[[The Backyardigans (Animation)|The Backyardigans]]''.
* Doctor Doofenschmirtz installs an "anti-platypus security" system in one episode of ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' that includes a [[Laser Hallway]], among other traps. Naturally, Perry manages to avoid every trap easily.
* Trevor Goodchild uses one on ''[[Aeon Flux (Animation)|Aeon Flux]]'' in the first episode of the TV series. It's suggested he knows the problems with this setup, he just likes to watch the gymnastics she does to get out of it.
* Robin and Red X both overcome a tangle of lasers that are protecting a Xenothium vault when Robin goes after whoever was in the Red X suit in ''[[Teen Titans (Animationanimation)|Teen Titans]]''.
* The episode "Double Date" from [[Justice League Unlimited]] sees Huntress use an aerosol spray to reveal lasers in Mandragora's home. She simply vaults and flips through them.