“Anyone see what she was doing?” I ask, moving toward where Meg was standing last I saw her. I don’t see anything except the angel statue, arms stretched out: one toward the sky and the other reaching low, toward the ground.
“No,” Flynt says, “she was just over there looking around.”
I kick at the dirt where Meg’s footprints are, making sure there’s not some sort of hidden mechanism. Stepping there, I take a 360-degree look around me. The Gael Dawnguard statue looks up at me from its kneel but doesn’t seem to have changed at all from the last time I looked at it, and the expression isn’t exactly menacing or suspicious. Sydra Stormbringer is similarly docile and static. We don’t seem to be dealing with a Weeping Angels situation. The wall behind the statues is smooth and, reaching out, I can’t come close to touching it—there’s at least four or five feet between my outstretched hand and the rough stone. There are similarly no sconces or anything to pull nearby.
Except for the angel’s downward facing hand. It reminds me of a mother reaching down for a child to cross the street. It’s really the only option.
“I’m going to take the statue’s hand and see what happens,” I narrate and, before anyone can object, I reach forward and slip my hand into the marble grip. The stone is smooth and cool to the touch. Nothing seems to happen except there’s a rushing sound and, when I look up, Meg is staring at me. We’re in a different room, one that's cold and damp.
“Glad I moved,” she says. “You’d have appeared right on top of me.”
I take that as a cue and step away, looking around.
It’s a cave behind a waterfall, which accounts for the continuing rushing sound. A dim light streams in through the water. There’s an identical version of the angel statue in front of me. It must be some kind of teleportation device. The angel is in the center of a round chamber of natural stone, and reaching out from it are a few different pathways: right and left represent different directions into the cave while straight ahead there’s a path leading from behind the waterfall leading to who knows where.
“Any idea where we are?” I ask.
“None. We could be miles outside the city, we could be just a few hundred meters from where we were. It’s hard to tell.”
There’s a snapping sound and all of a sudden Flynt is there looking as confused as I felt. I have a vision of Tyrus or Jonas suddenly appearing in the same space, which seems like a recipe for disaster, so I pull him back, away from the statue.
He glances at me and then looks around, noting the waterfall with a raised eyebrow and glancing down each of the paths the same way I did.
“This must be the true entrance,” he says. “It makes me wonder what the trap door was.”
Meg nods. “Some things in this world make no sense. Who would put in all those traps? What are they guarding?”
“I was working under the assumption that the Kartesians did in order to guard something that I’m sure I don’t want to know about,” Flynt says. “The trap door and slide were unique though. Like the sort of thing that guards artifacts and quest items.”
“They looked old,” Meg agrees and shrugs. “As I said. Some things just don’t make any sense. Especially when adventuring. That’s what Grandpa always tells me, to be ready for the nonsensical.”
As they talk, I motion to Flynt so he sees where I’m going before I follow the left pathway, glimpsing down the narrow corridor that goes deeper into the cave. I trace it a little way until it opens up into a massive natural cavern. Again, light comes in from above, the source hidden by the stalactites adorning the ceiling. The remnants of a bridge reach across a wide chasm below which is a three- to four-hundred-foot drop onto a stalagmite forest just barely illuminated by the ambient light and what seems to be bioluminescence. Glow worms? Some kind of mold or algae? The stone itself glitters like quartz.
The cavern is beautiful, reminding me of the cathedral rooms in some of the great caves I’ve visited in the real world. Across the bridge remnants, though, I see an entry deeper in, one that is packed by thick white spider webs. I shudder, then take the moment to pull up [Quest Tracker], which I probably should have thought about earlier.
[New Quest: Stone of Ylaura. Uncover information about a lost item. Accept quest? Yes/No]
New quest, that’s interesting. I accept it and an achievement pops up.
[ACHIEVEMENT: SURPRISE!]
[SURPRISE! You have uncovered and accepted a hidden quest. Where it goes next is up to you.]
That's a little... ominous isn't quite the right word but it's something close. I call up [Quest Tracker] and the [Stone of Ylaura] banner appears under the [Without A Trace] label. Neither of them says anything about any spiders, though, so with another shudder, I head back toward the others.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
When I return, Flynt looks at me. “Anything interesting?”
“Signs of more spiders,” I reply. “I don’t think we want to go that way.”
Meg makes a face just as there’s another snapping sound and Jonas and Tyrus appear, holding hands and cringing as if they’re prepared to meet a horrible death. When that doesn’t happen, they drop their mutual grasp and look around.
“Whoa,” Jonas says, eyes landing on the waterfall, which he steps toward, then gestures at. “Where are we…”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Meg says.
“Where does the other path lead?” Flynt asks, looking down the right pathway, which curves around a bend some forty feet away.
“I haven’t looked yet. That way, though,” and she points toward the waterfall, “seems to lead out and, if the left goes back to spiders, this must be at least part of where our original exit strategy was heading.”
“Our little detour may have done us some favors,” Jonas observes.
“Seems likely,” Flynt agrees. “I have to admit that I don’t have a lot of desire to go explore it, either.”
“It’ll be hard to get across anyway,” I say. “There was a bridge, but it looks like it fell in a while ago.”
“Okay. So. Right or straight?” Meg asks.
“We have to at least take a look down the right, don’t we?” Jonas asks, making eye contact with Tyrus and grinning. “If there’s more to explore, who knows what we might be missing?”
“My concern is that this would be a great place for a crime family to store ill-gotten gains." Flynt frowns. "Tyrus, what do you think?”
“You’re definitely right, though they didn’t seem to know about this. And if they are using it to store anything, the spiders likely would have been cleared out ages ago. Even if not, it’s unlikely they’d have let us in here to begin with.”
“They may know about this cavern though,” Meg points out, “and just never connected it to the other system.”
“Would they have just left the statue alone?” Jonas asks. “That statue could probably fetch a lot of money to the right collector. Or, that teleport wasn’t that difficult to find in the end. The shrine would make a better place to hide things than anywhere else we’ve seen.”
Flynt nods. “That’s a good point.” He wanders a little bit toward the other pathway. “Though… weapons out… it looks like this may have been visited recently.” He points toward some refuse against the wall. “That doesn’t look like an animal.”
Tyrus cringes. “That’s just disgusting.”
“When you have to go, you have to go,” Jonas points out. “You pissed in the spider cave.”
“It feels different,” Tyrus grumbles, pulling out his daggers and preparing for whatever we might find. “Flynt, it fresh?”
“I have to tell you, mate, I’m not going to get that close to it.”
“That seems fair,” Meg says, slowly unsheathing her sword. It sings quietly as it comes clear of its scabbard and glimmers in the low lighting. It is absolutely beautiful, and I can’t help but wonder if it has a name or something. It’s the sort of weapon that seems like it would have a history to it. But I don’t ask. Now isn’t the time.
The pathway leads into a narrow passage that we have to take single file—Tyrus in front with a torch, then Meg, Jonas, Flynt, and me. I’m not loving this Keira takes the rear habit we’re developing, but I suppose it’s better than Jonas in the back—though I’m not going to have much more in the way of defense if something were to jump me. He’d at least have his withering touch.
The passage leads to an antechamber that’s very much a built room, not a cavern. It’s probably the size of my parent’s living room in Arizona, and it’s adorned with dusty tapestries on the walls and unlit sconces framing a massive set of double doors carved with dragons arranged in an almost yin-and-yang pattern: one gleaming with something like mother of pearl, the other inlaid with shining silver. The doors are slightly ajar, but we can’t see whatever is on the other side.
“This isn’t ominous at all,” Tyrus murmurs, shining the torch around.
The dim ambient light again filters in from somewhere above us, making the inlays shine. Tyrus inspects the floor closely, which I don’t blame him for, given his journeys over the course of this excursion, and then he makes his way up to the walls, shining light up on the tapestries. They’re old, faded, and covered in a layer of dust, but were once obviously quite beautiful. They remind me of the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries in their style and overall vibe, but, from what I can tell, they depict a relationship between people and dragons, and a silver dragon that I assume is the one called Zendriel features prominently across the six different pieces. A round green object also makes appearances in four of the six pieces— in one, the dragon seems to be giving it to a human man with a bow.
“What is that object?” I ask Flynt, softly.
He shakes his head. “I’m not sure. Something important. Meg?” He glances back toward where she stands at one of the tapestries near the door, depicting what looks to be the death of the dragon. She’s touching it gently, her expression sad, which I guess answers any question I had about where she fell in her interpretation of the story.
There’s the hint of words along the bottom of my tapestry, and I move up to brush at it as gently as I can, trying to get the dust off enough to read it. It’s an elaborate script I don’t recognize but that I can read.
“Kellnor receives the Stone of Ylaura,” I murmur. According to [Quest Tracker], that’s exactly what I seem to be looking for.
“You can read that?” Flynt asks.
“You can’t?”
He shakes his head. “But my High Elvish has never been great.”
“Why would this be in High Elvish? Isn’t Kellnor human?”
“He was,” Flynt says, “but the elves have always had more admiration for the dragons than the less long-lived cultures of Qeth. I wouldn’t be surprised if—”
“We can admire the art later,” Tyrus hisses. He’s up by the door, glancing back at us. “We’re not alone.”
Once again, I pull up [Quest Tracker] with a thought.
[Stone of Ylaura. Defeat Dragon Cult Initiates to discover additional information on a lost item. 0/4.]
Flynt nods, turning to face the door. “Do we want to interrupt?”
Meg frowns a moment, but then nods. Flynt rubs his hands briefly together, then raises them out toward the doors, his thumb and first two fingers raised on each hand. He makes a rotating motion with one hand and a pulling motion with the other, muttering softly under his breath. The doors shudder before beginning to pull open. I nock an arrow and raise my bow.