“Intruder Alert! intruder Alert! you do not match the recorded parameters of senior supervisory technician Bushard. The guard units of this facility have been activated and ordered to detain you. Please do not resist or you will face the consequences, this is your only warning.”, announced a strange otherworldly voice that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at the same time.
Expecting that whatever guards the voice was speaking of would be coming from the closed door in front of him so without drawing his sword he continued to face in that direction and thus he was completely surprised when it was the door behind him that opened. He turned around and came face to face with a creature the likes of which he could never have imagined. It had the body of a giant cat complete with a tail and seemingly sharp claws, yet its head was somewhat like that of an owl but with an extra eye whose red pupil seemed to stare into your soul. This extra eye was located about an inch up from the middle of the other two green eyes and was about half their size.
The creature was soon joined by another nearly identical one who’s normal eyes were brown and not green. Both then entered the room Amondo was in causing him to lean back against the other door which soon opened. He didn’t quite notice this in time and so he fell backwards slightly before managing to right himself. Even though he felt he might be able to handle the two creatures facing him he still didn’t draw his sword.
This was mainly because he was unused to fighting in such close quarters but also because he was unsure if he would be in any condition to deal with any future threats after dispatching the two currently in front of him. Besides, he was more interested in learning what was going on than acting hastily without a fuller picture of the situation he now found himself in and it was always possible that he would find them harder to deal with than expected.
With all this in mind, he decided to let things play out further before responding with deadly force if that turned out to be necessary. The two beasts facing him had stayed still as he fell backwards and for a few moments afterwards but now they slowly advanced upon him. This caused Amondo to turn around to catch a glimpse of what awaited him on the other side of the newly open door he had recently been leaning on. He was faced with yet another downward sloping ramp that seemed longer and steeper than the previous ones.
Finding himself caught between the beasts and the unknown he decided to chance the unknown. He started quickly advancing down the ramp, taking note of how many strides he took and how far behind him the creature where. After one hundred strides or so he noticed that the creatures who looked like they would be fleet of feet didn’t seem to be in any great hurry. Realising this he stopped running to see how they would react to this and he wasn’t surprised when after cutting the gap between them in half they slowed down ever so slightly.
They stopped advancing at all once they were a metre from him as if deciding what their next move would be. After an ever so short time period, they began advancing upon him again and he reacted to this by heading on down the ramp once more only this time he was walking and not running.
He had taken eight hundred more strides down the ramp before the first signs appeared that the ramp was coming to an end and it was another two hundred before he reached the end of it. The creatures had all this time kept a constant metre distance from him and once he exited the ramp they stopped advancing altogether. This time there was nothing to the right or left of the ramp but rather another door two metres or so straight ahead from it. This door wasn’t made from the same material as the others but rather something like the material Membe bridge was made of. The middle of the door had strange writing carved on it and he had no idea how to open it since from what his father had taught him it had always remained opened in the past.
Unsure as to how to proceed and bearing in mind the two beasts all he could do was approach the door and hope for the best. After waiting for a few minutes during which nothing at all happened he approached the creatures to see how they would respond. As long as he didn’t try to get passed them, they stood completely still and when he did, they started roaring and he immediately decided to return the way he had come.
After that he decided to approach the door again this time examining it thoroughly, looking for a hidden button or perhaps a clue as to how to open it but to no avail. He then thought that since the other doors opened to commands in old Tibous then perhaps this one would do so as well. He tried every single phrase from the family prayer book, every single magic word he had ever heard about and many other things besides but all to no avail. Nothing seemed to work so he took a few minutes to think things through and after much internal debate, he simply said ‘Silvu’ which was the word for hello in old Tibous.
This produced an immediate response that like the earlier one came as if from nowhere and everywhere, “Welcome stranger, why do you intrude upon my domain and how did you manage to gain possession of the personal identifier of senior supervisory Technician Anthony Bushard?”
“Hello again my name is sir Amondo Malla and after the death of my brother Baron Leonid Malla I have come here today to take over his duties as protector of this dungeon and as for this personal identifier you speak of I am unsure as to what you are referring to.”
“I speak of that pendant that you wear around your neck.”
“Oh, I borrowed it from my ward.”
“And pray tell me where she got it from?”
“She is the last of the Sabine family, lords of the Isle of Kver, were a dungeon once stood. Although once in better condition than here it wasn’t my much and so hundreds of years ago when it got in the way of the expansion of the rich mines also found in the island it was destroyed and the pendant was found later amongst the ruins.”
“Was nothing else found with it.”
“No, there was also a ring that I also borrowed from my ward and a strange blue crystal that was sold long ago to a rich merchant from the Western Isles.”
“It is a pity that you do not have the crystal but if the ring still carries its original gem it could prove useful. I would have thought my scanners would have picked it up, but they aren’t exactly in full working order. I will open the door for you shortly but in the meantime what has happened to your brother, he seemed healthy enough the last time he came here a year ago.”
After he told the mysterious voice what had happened to his brother it had one last question to ask before opening the door.
“How many operational dungeons as you call them still exist, I have over the years picked up signals from three others but have been unable to establish lines of communication with any of them?”
“Other than this one eleven others are known to exist within the Human realm but it is thought that there might be others yet to be uncovered or that may only be known to the other three races that reside in the interior.”
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