He snickered at her comment and subsequent playful punch, not full realizing how much shorter she was than him until she brought it to light. She was probably not a hair over five foot two. Then again, it was hard for the Knight to gauge others height. Being six foot three had its downsides. 

"I've been thinking the same thing." He pointed at the door to their left.
"That HAS to be some kind of passageway back down or maybe it leads to a steep fall into the main area we just left, so that's a definite no." A thoughtful sigh came and went as the Knight examined both staircases, looking up each ascending corridor to find nothing but continuing stairs and lighting from above. 
"I don't like the idea of splitting up, if you were thinking that. We can't risk one of us ending up in some molten lava pit while the other dies by the hands of those ice creatures." Yerbols jaw jutted out in curiosity.
"Well, well..." His eyes were cast downward at the bottom of the left staircase, kneeling to confirm what he had found.
"There are notches in the stairs..." He extended a hand forward to barely touch the grooves on the lowest step when the entire set blazed with a fierce crimson light that illuminated the path up. He walked to the other and did the same, his stomach tightening into a knot as the staircase crumbled to the ground in a heap of rubble. 
"Well, I suppose they wanted their acolytes to be very observant?" Returning to the intact stairwell, he took an initial step forward. Seemed fine.
"Let's keep moving. Don't need those monsters down below to get any ideas."

The staircase wound around the first chamber in a circular pattern, the duo climbing ever upwards away from their initial pursuers that seemed to not be interesting in watching their former prey escape. In fact, after several minutes minutes of stair climbing, Yerbol looked out one of the carved openings to find that they had disappeared. 
"Something tells me that they'll be back...or maybe I can't just accept a gift when it comes to us." Another few minutes had them arrive at another landing with one door ahead. After opening the door, they found themselves at the platform Yerbol had seen from the ground. 
"That can't be it." He looked at Aria incredulously when he spotted across the way a door with a slit below.
"Might be the platform to get across. Mind helping me get it out?" He held his arms out, palms up as he focused his energies. He didn't feel the momentary rumbling above, the slight hissing of something being unsealed and the very, very soft cackle that gently wafted through the air...