((What? Actually the lower-floor databases are supposed to give information on the artifacts without any problem... although it would take a pretty good hacker to change the data. I suppose it would also take a hacker to make the computer respond without using the keyboard.
All computers in the palace should also respond to the human-computer interface language, which Iban knows a good bit of, being originally designed to obey it.
Now, hacking a talking wall would be a real challenge, but a rewarding one. The talking walls are wired into nearly everything, and can be very unwilling to help. They also look no different form normal walls... and Iban doesn't know they exist. They also wouldn't show up on maps, since they're so common that one will nearly always respond if you talk to the wall, floor, ceiling or whatever.))
"OK, the horseshoe hallway..." Iban shot straight upwards, cutting holes through ceiling after ceiling. As he rose, the walls gradually sloped inward, and soon Iban punched right through the angular wall and slowed to a stop near the top of the palace. He hovered on a level with the horseshoe floor for a quarter second before blasting forward, slicing cleanly through the wall and breaking through into the hallway. A thin wall of enchanted steel slowed him down, but his right fist shot forward like a rocket and punched a hole in the wall. In a tenth of a second he had punched six more times, and the room at the other side was clearly visible, although the hole was not big enough for Iban or Ethian to fit through.
Janem Letan stood slightly forward of the center of the room, a blue bubble wobbling around him like a partially deflated balloon. His skin shone with a black aura, as though an opaque gas surrounded his body without blocking their view of him. In his right hand he held an orb artifact, and in his left he held a small glass rod - a rod artifact. Behind him, Gresholm's far less imposing figure reached down for an artifact, the first two clutched in his other hand. Computers lined several walls, but where Iban had punched through, no computer stood. There were two other breaks in the lines of computer terminals: one where the actual door to the room stood shut, and the other against another blank wall like the one Iban had broken through.
The holes in the many floors of the palace began to seal up.
((The enchanted wall is immune to energy and most magic, but ordinary physical attacks have the same effect as they would have on steel.))
