Chapter #5Pathways Into Darkness by: Unknown You stumble around in a pitch black cavern, able to see only by aid of your flashlight. Your head bangs against the stone ceiling several times, which varies from being hundreds of feet above you to only about five feet from the floor. As you become progressively more lost, you begin to panic. It's like a maze, you double back and try to retrace your steps but the path is unfamiliar. You hyperventilate and start to run, no longer paying attention to where you're going, just certain that if you go far enough in one direction you will be out.
Deeper in the cave, you can hear water. The cavern to your left is open space with a massive and steep drop. You come closer to the edge and peer over, there is a carved stone arch with light flickering from inside. Does someone live here? The ledge crumbles slightly under your weight and you lose your footing. Whilst trying to spin around and grab the ledge you manage only to break your flashlight. You fall countless feet into an underground river, the water fortunately moving enough so that you don't smash into a hardened surface.
Sputtering and gasping for air, you drag yourself into the stone archway. You look around, there is no other light. To go into the light you risk being harmed by the cavern's occupant, but to go elsewhere you are completely blind and in danger of death by fall or drowning. You turn and face the inside of the passageway. Gilded sconces line the walls, burning with an unnatural, otherworldly blue light. The passage is masterfully carved into the rock itself, the floor adorned with a red rug that stretches nearly to the archway on the opposite end. The area is eerily warm, despite the coldness of the water you aren't shivering.
You make your way to the other arch and pause when you hear some faint noises. Something wet, like slurping, and soft moans. You look down and see symbols on the floor. You recognize them as barrier runes, from a friend of yours who's into fantasy stuff. In the tales, they're meant to keep something out of a place...or in as the case may be. You step over them and they flash briefly but allow you passage. Clearly, whatever they were scribed to stop is not human.
The archway leads into a high-ceilinged structure, the floors and ceilings carved flat. Tall archways lead into other rooms, the entire structure apparently lit by the strange sconces. You follow the wet noises, ascending a wide stone ramp to the second floor, then the third. The sounds echo off of the stone walls, making them somewhat hard to track, but you manage to follow the sound.
Eventually, you come to a particularly large chamber and freeze in your tracks. There's some sort of mattress on the floor, an enormous mattress of uncertain composition and adorned with silk sheets. Atop the bed is a massive beast right out of fairy tails. A dragon, a real live dragon! Its body is slightly smaller than that of an elephant, but it also has a long thick tail and a long neck. It is entirely covered in silvery-blue scales, large and rigid on its back but small and smooth on its underside.
Almost as alarming as the creature's existence is what it's doing when you find it. The dragon is curled slightly, making use of its long neck to attentively lick its own genitals, you're guessing the dragon isn't just cleaning itself. The dragon appears to be a...   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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