We find it in a broken door that leads into a dark, gargantuan hall. There are no wards on the door, nor curses, as we duck inside through the massive tumble of stones, to find ourselves in an ancient Blood Dragon ruin.
But it’s the strangest Blood Dragon ruin I’ve ever seen, as lofty vaultsand incredible pillars of beautiful white alabaster stone and pure sky-blue granite gleam in the towering gloom all around us.
The hall is broken to shit, cratered and crashed from some battle long ago. Still, its majesty is beyond magnificent, as we marvel at the almost Winter Fae or Elvish construction of the sweeping gables and vaulted buttresses high above.
This outer hall is drafty as fuck, however, as the wind howls in and snow skirls inside from broken vaults in the ceiling far above. We don’t have enough dragon-energy left to survive that cold without better shelter; stumbling in, we head towards a massive, scroll- and rune-worked arch that dominates the rear of the entry hall.
It leads to a small antechamber, then to a set of grand stairs that spiral down below ground. We head down into another small chamber—and find ourselves before the most beautiful whitesilberskraedoors.
Carved with glorious ancient Blood Dragons, the doors tower ten man-heights tall and could pass ten people, as we stare up at their majesty. They depict Blood Dragons living in a beautiful time of peace and prosperity; we stare up at their detailed reaches and see our ancient people living a blessed life, eons ago.
Those dragons dance and frolic, they rut and they fuck; they celebrate with garlands of flowers woven around their entire bodies as they cavort through the skies. After everything we’ve just been through, it’s so beautiful that I want to just fall down and weep. But I wipe my tears away now with the heel of my hand.
Because we have to survive now—that comes first.
“Ström?” Mikkel says quietly as we all take in that door. “What have you got left?”
“Just enough, I think.” Ström waves his hands over what I feel now are the last remnants of ancient locks and wards still upon that door.
It’s sigil-warded the fuck up, but there are no curses on them, as I add my own lock-breaking might to Ström’s, through our bond. Feeling our way through the wards and locks as we wave our hands in shaky, spontaneouspatterns over the door from our magic, I finally see a few crystalline threads of ancient magic shiver as we make progress at unlocking it.
But then we hit something inside the door that will not budge. Some ancient lock, a series of sigils so complex and so massively detailed, it flares to life now on the door, barring us passage.
No matter how Ström and I work our exhausted magic, nor how much extra power Mikkel and even Lærke try to give us, it won’t budge. I think perhaps it’s a lost cause, trying to get into whatever’s been locked away here for generations, when Aesa’s Truthstone suddenly flares upon my chest. It’s so hot, it nearly burns me.
As another flare from my hand joins it.
I look down to see Maryse’s ring on my finger searing as it resonates with Aesa’s stone. As a scalding gold-white light seethes from the silver ring now, making it blaze with power, all six of its stones light up.
As an incredible magic surges off the ring, resonating with Aesa’s Truthstone upon my breast, I see crimson sigils from both spiral up into the air. They’re ancient and unrecognizable as they surge towards the towering stone door, making that last lock upon it flare white-gold and crimson.
Then give up, blowing away into the darkness.
Some massive locking mechanism gives a series of chunks deep inside the door, and then the entire door parts in the middle with a sigh. As an incredible scent of ancient stone and deep caverns of time hits me, from whatever is beyond that door, I inhale in surprise.
Ström and Mikkel reach out, hauling those doors wide.
Admitting us to an unknown mystery.
Hidden away for eons.
28
HOPE
My drakes and I stumble through the towering white door into a subterranean wonder. The scent of ancient stone and strange growing things floods my nostrils as we move forward, into a forgotten hall deep underground.
I’ve seen nothing like it. As towering columns and vaulted archways spread before us, I realize we’re in some kind of natural cavern, carved and built up to create an underground chamber that soars above us, its ceiling lost.
Massive, that hall spreads like some kind of strange, luminous paradise underground, as glowing phosphorescent vines, moss, and tiny white and blue flowers devour everything as far as the eye can see.
Luminous green and white butterflies flit about, with strange spiky orange dragonflies that exist nowhere else in the Twilight Realm. Geckoes that glow blue with acid green spots skitter up ancient, luminoussilberskraetrees, which grow right up through the hall’s stone floor.
Those trees tower to the cavern’s ceiling. The only reason we can see the ceiling at all, their strangely luminous silver-white bark is dotted by purple phosphorescent mushrooms, which grow right to the very top.
The glow of the ancient trees, mosses, and vines creates a strange light which whispers through the space. It’s not like natural daylight, more like a mesmerizing moonlit euphoria, but it’s enough to have grown this magnificent paradise in the underground hall.
Everything here wild and strange.
