Discovering that Lord Fred's coffin is empty fills you with a sense
of dread.
Indeed, this macabre chamber with its quartet of tombstones is both
mysterious and
chilling. Beyond the chamber, the passage forks to the right and to the
left. What might
those two corridors lead to? The same fate that encompassed four of the
Great Kingdom's
mightiest knights, perhaps? And what was that fate? Each had entered the
Dragon's caves
and each had disappeared. And each now had a hard, stone grave marker
decorating this
silent and cold room. But were they really dead? Were any of them really
buried here?
Whatever the case, you don't feel like sticking around to find out. And anyway, it is simple to see that the best course of action is to return to the King and report your findings; the four graves, the fact that Fred's is empty and of course that the King's map is less than accurate. You decide that to do anything else would be foolhardy. And you convince yourself that it is common sense that guides you, and not the creeping fear that has settled upon your heart and threatens to send you screaming out of the room like a madman with his head on fire. And so you turn around and retreat the way you came, back up the right passageway. It lets you out onto a rocky bluff; on one side are the twin caves, yawning like mouths in a stone face that rises ever higher toward the clouds above; on the other side is the cliff's edge and a sheer drop to jagged rocks and boulders far below. You look out at the open sky and frown. The sun is lower in the sky than you had expected. The Shreken Mountains cast long, dark shadows across the land below. Your horse awaits you, still tethered to the wild hedges of mulberry that grow near the cave's mouth. You saddle up and begin the lengthy trek to the bottom of these evil stone mountains. You intend to reach more wholesome ground before the sun finally sets.
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10/23/1999 12:04:02 PM
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