Arya was a puddle of tears. She was on the floor next to the corpse of Soria, and Intevar was with her. The weight of the damage done to them was crashing down around Arya's ears. She was overcome with grief. Leland had moved over where Brienne lay prone and unconscious. He removed her leg armor and studied the progressing wound on her leg. He cast heal after heal on the shriveling area and even poured a potion over it, but he looked up at Tormund and shook his head. "All I can do is slow the progression; we need to remove the leg before she loses her life." Tormund shook his head sadly and kissed Brienne's head. "I am sorry, my love, but that leg must come off at the knee..." He looked down at Leland, and Leland nodded and marked a spot on her leg above the darkened skin. "Quick, before she wakes," Tormund said and swung his axe clean through her leg and bone, at the mark. Tears were in his eyes, and he fell beside her, cradling her head as Leland stopped the blood flow and healed her stump. Tormund was crying and mumbling about carrying her anywhere she needed to go forever.
Arya stood and began searching the room; they still needed to get out of here somehow. All she found was 4 mithril plates where the statue had sat. She brushed the crumbled pieces of the statue off them, and they were covered with tiny runes. Those runes meant nothing to her and didn't help them escape in any way. Tormund had risen and stood behind her as she looked at the plates. He took them from her and stuck them in his pack. "The maesters can work them out when we get out of here," he said. She nodded and smiled bravely at him. Searching the pool room as they might, they found nothing, so they began working their way back towards the portal room, searching everything. Arya suddenly stopped and, with a quizzical look on her face, asked Tormund, "How did that wraith bounce off of you?" Tormund snickered and moved his outerwear, exposing the lion skin he had won in Thrain. "Nothing can pierce it except obsidian, remember?" Arya blinked at his response, adding, "Twas a brave act saving Brienne from certain death, Tormund." He nodded solemnly. He moaned a little, looking at Brienne, and stated, "Not sure she will ever forgive me for the loss of her leg, though." "Shut up, you big lumox," Brienne said from the floor. She was leaning up on one elbow. "You saved my life, and it's just a leg....not like you aren't going to carry me everywhere for the rest of my life...right?" She snorted and lay back down. Tormund dropped down beside her and mumbled his undying love to her. She laughed and said, "Let me sleep."
Three days later, they were all camped out in the portal room, still having not found a way out. Hassan had recovered enough that he was beginning to search on his own. He had difficulty with just one eye, but he was making it work. Tormund and Arya had dragged all the Deep One corpses out of the room so they didn't have to smell them. The closed doors did wonders for the smell in the room. Hassan searched the room and said, "Look at this!" "Intevar, bring the brightest light you can make without blinding me." Intevar stood over him, shining a globe of light on the floor where he was pointing. "I see nothing," he said, "But a tiny piece of fishman flesh." "But look at this," Hassan pointed to a tiny line of ants moving toward and away from the piece of flesh. He followed the line of ants until it disappeared into a tiny slice in the floor. When the light was shining over it, you could see that the line went around making a square. "Make the light brighter," Hassan said. The light flared up into brilliance, and Hassan winced and spotted a small indentation in the floor. "Got you," he said and reached into the indentation. He pulled, and it clicked, and moving the piece of floor revealed a small stairway going down. Having Intevar move so that the light was over his shoulders, he went down the steps. Tormund and Arya both said, "What's down there?" at the same time.
As Hassan got to the bottom of the steps, a small storage room spread out in front of him. It had shelves on both sides covered with mithril plates, and bags of precious metals and stones. On the far wall, there was a complex-looking lever. He shouted over his shoulder, "There's a lever; should I pull it?" Three voices said, "Yes!" He pulled the lever. All at once the darkened portal vanished at the end of the room. And standing there before them were the entry doors. "Yes, Hassan, you've done it!" shouted Arya, and she ran to the doors and pushed them open.
The telepath in the outer room sent the message, "Something's happening; the doors are opening!" Across Brandon's Rest, people sprang into action; it was the middle of the night, but it didn't matter; they had all been waiting for word. Thomas and Jon Snow rushed into the outer room; they saw Soria's corpse wrapped in a blanket, they saw Brienne being helped to walk on one leg by Tormund, and they saw Hassan with a bandage over one side of his face. They ran to greet Arya and hugged her, and she cried.