Flynt burns the webs as we push through, the magical flame causing them to shrivel back like wet cotton candy. We're prepared for the eggs to erupt with tiny spider babies, but fortunately we're spared that fight as they simply burst in the heat.

The spider tunnels lead to a passageway of laid stone, much like the cavern we fell into. We move carefully, Tyrus continuing to take the lead, on the lookout for any kind of traps or unexpected happenings. He finds a trip wire, then a pressure sensor the likes of which would make the creators of an Indiana Jones temple lodge a copyright suit. Our rogue easily disarms one and alerts us to the other, which we're able to carefully avoid.

“Who do you think built this place?” I ask, keeping my voice low as we continue on. “It looks ancient.”

“I don't know about ancient, but many hundred years at least,” Meg agrees. “Probably the Dragon Wars, or soon after. Oosal was a different place, then. A lot of the old city was razed after the fighting ended. What wasn’t destroyed mostly ended up sinking during the Great Quakes.”

“We don't talk about it much,” Flynt says.

“Which part?” she asks.

“The razing. The Quakes, of course. When I was young, my mother once took me down into some of the better traveled remnants in the northern ward and she told me some of the history. She never mentioned razing, I didn't learn about it until the Academy.”

Meg nods, but then sees my uncertainty and smiles slightly. “Oosal was sympathetic to dragons throughout the wars. The city founders believed that, like people, most dragons were fundamentally good and, even more than that, they were important if Qeth was going to thrive. As a result, many of the more sympathetic dragons fled to the city toward the end of the wars, taking on humanoid form. This, of course, got the city branded as sympathizers when everything was said and done.”

“Dragons could live as people?” I ask.

Meg nods. “Dragons were skilled shapeshifters, especially the oldest among them. Zendriel lived many centuries in the guise of an elven woman. It kept her safe. She probably would still be alive if she hadn’t felt the need to intervene with Zel’Rosh.”

“I want to hear more of that story,” I say, once again regretting I never actually played the game. It would certainly help matters. At the very least, I need to find some history books. Soon. “I’ve only heard snippets.”

“Happy to tell it. Grandpa is obsessed. So much so that sometimes I feel like I’ve lived it.”

“My grandfather was like that with some periods of our history,” I say, remembering some of his stories of D-Day and the Bulge. Of course, he had lived a lot of that—or knew people who did. What Meg describes sounds a little more like how people sometimes talk about the American Civil War: lots of myth, legend, and revisionism coming into play.

“Not again!” comes from up front, and we look forward just in time to watch Jonas trying to grab Tyrus before they both fall down an opening in the floor.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” I mutter as the three of us cautiously approach and look down.

Nothing. I can see for a few yards but then there’s a sudden turn and it drops off into darkness. I can’t see or hear our compatriots.

“Well. Do we write them off, or go after them?” Meg asks, dryly, before heaving a sigh and jumping in, disappearing into the dark.

“That feels like a not-great plan,” I say, glancing at Flynt.

“I agree, though I’m not sure what our options are.”

“We jump over the hole and hope we find a way out so we can go get help?”

“Who knows how long that will take.”

“And who knows if there’s a way out down there.” I point down the hole. “There could be more spiders.”

“There probably are more spiders.”

I sigh. “Who would build something like this? It can’t go anywhere good.”

“I’m not going to disagree,” he says. “But will we be able to live with ourselves if we don’t go down to try to help?”

“Maybe? We’ve only known them for two days. Right?”

“Nearly three,” he points out, thankfully seeming to read my sarcasm.

“Oh, well, if it’s nearly three…” I let my voice trail off. “Of course we have to go down there. I’m just trying to shut off the self-preservation part of my brain first.”

“Go together?” he asks, holding out his hand.

“Yeah. Okay.”

We sit on the lip of the hole like we’re at a water park staring into the dark tunnel slide, except the damp smell that comes up to greet us doesn’t have that summer hallmark of chlorine. I’m practically in his lap, and he holds onto my shoulders. We sit there for a moment adjusting to the idea, and then I nod.

“Okay, Kronk. Let's do this.”

He doesn’t question me and pushes off. Our butts make contact with the smooth stone of the slide—I don’t know what else to call it—and we go hurtling down into the dark, picking up speed as we go. If it were a theme park ride it would be incredible, a fantastic rush of adrenaline; if it weren’t for the cobwebs that hit my face every now and then, and the damp of I’m not sure what rushing up to meet us, it would be flat out be fun.

We don’t slide for long, just enough for my butt to start getting sore.

“I think we’re coming up on the exit,” I say, just before we’re spit out into a room.

Our momentum carries us several yards in, all the way to the base of what looks to be a statue. We lay there together, a tangle of dusty limbs, covered in remnants of cobwebs, staring up at the visage of an angel pointing up toward a beam of natural light streaming in from somewhere in the ceiling above us.

“Well. That could have been worse.”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“It is worse,” Meg says, appearing above us. “There doesn’t appear to be any way out.”

“What do you mean?” Flynt asks as we untangle ourselves and stand, dusting ourselves off. I can’t help but laugh at his wind-swept hair, and I pick away some (normal sized) spider web when he fails to get it all out. Meg gives me a flat, unimpressed look.

“I mean, while you two were debating whether to jump in after us, we’ve had a pretty thorough look and there’s no way out.” She gestures around at the relatively small room.

It’s perfectly round, also built out of stone, just like the passageways. There’s that ambient natural light coming from above us. The ceiling is domed like a cupola and held up by five columns that could have stepped out of ancient Rome. In the middle of the room is the angel statue: a beautiful feminine form carved out of something like marble, her wings outstretched similar to the way of the dragon statue in the square with one hand reaching toward the sky and the other reaching down toward us. Around her are five other humanoid figures, all kneeling, spaced equidistant and perfectly between the pillars.

“I’m going to take another look,” Tyrus says. “There has to be something. This place had a use and people didn’t just take the slide down.”

“They may have teleported in and out,” Flynt says.

“In which case we’re a little bit fucked, aren’t we?” Tyrus asks. “Unless you have some surprising skills you haven’t shared.”

“Unfortunately, not.”

“Then I’m going to operate under the belief that there’s another way out of here that doesn’t involve spelunking up that slide. Elf Girl may be able to manage, I know I can’t,” Tyrus says. “Jonas, help me out.”

As they search, I walk around the kneeling statues. They’re all pretty worn with a lot of water damage, but the remaining features are life-like. Two are human, one is elven, one is dwarven, and the fifth is… lizardish? It’s larger than the others and definitely has scales and some lizard-like features on an otherwise humanoid frame. I stop in front of it and point.

“I haven’t seen this type of person yet.”

Meg comes up behind me and crouches down to get a better look. She nods. “You wouldn’t. They’re dragon-kind. Their people have died out, as far as any of us would know.”

“How?”

She shrugs. “No one seems sure. Elves are right about one thing at least: after the death of the last dragon, magic changed. The dragon-kind began to get sick, lose their color, their magic. It’s referred to as The Fading. They all died out within a generation.”

“There aren’t any anywhere?”

“Not that I know of. I haven’t traveled much of the world, to be honest, but from what travelers here say, the same thing happened elsewhere— not that there were ever a lot of dragon-kind around. They were native to Qeth. We’re considered by much of the world to be the magical center. If there aren’t dragons here, it’s unlikely that they’re elsewhere. There’s simply not the magic to sustain them. Have you ever seen any, where you’re from?”

“Can’t say I have.”

She nods at that. “They say that the Qeth Valley is special, that there’s a reason it’s difficult to get to. Why the seas are stormy, and the mountains are high and treacherous. It’s to protect it. Unfortunately, those things can’t protect it from its own people. If there’s one thing I’ve discovered, it’s that people will be people. For better and for worse. Things they don’t understand are scary, and if there’s anything hard to understand, it’s magic.”

“You think killing the dragons was a bad idea, don’t you?”

She smiles sardonically and shakes her head. “What gave you that idea?”

“I wasn’t sure at first. It’s hard to tell when you’re repeating something sarcastically or when you actually mean it.”

“I get that a lot,” she acknowledges. “I don’t know that it’s my place to say whether it was a good idea or a bad one. But I think what was done was probably done the wrong way without much thought to the bigger consequences.”

“Most wars are.”

“Indeed.” She glances around again. “Flynt? Don’t you think they bear a striking resemblance to the Ring of Five?”

He’s going around the opposite way, investigating each of them in turn, carefully inspecting the forms all over. He stands up from the male human directly on the other side and peers around the angel statue toward us, then looks around at the different figures.

“It would certainly make sense,” he agrees. “Gael Dawnguard.” He points to the male human he stands in front of. “Sydra Stormbringer.” To the female human to his right.

“Jarlrin Wyr.” Meg points at the dragon-kind. “Cecira Terravin.” The female elf. “And Dantus Hearthstone.” The dwarven statue with the long, waist-length beard. She glances at me and sees my curiosity. “The leaders of the Dragon Wars representing the five most powerful tribes of Qeth at the time. Dragon-kind, elves, dwarves, then the northern and eastern tribes of humanity.”

“What’s the difference between the human tribes?” I ask.

“Nothing. They just didn’t get along. You know how humans are. Each thought their leader should lead them all.”

“Is it still like that?”

Meg shrugs. “Depends who you ask. I wouldn’t say the Stormbringers and Dawnguard are best friends, but they seem to work together okay on the council. What do you think, Flynt?”

“I wouldn’t know,” he says, approaching us around the other side after inspecting the Hearthstone and Terravin statues closely. “Cecira looks a bit like you, Keira. You have the same nose. Your names even sound the same. You don’t think you’re a Terravin, do you?”

I touch my nose at that and then shake my head. “A nose is just a nose. And my ears are bigger.”

He chuckles, then looks at Meg as the other two come up behind us. “Why do you think there are effigies of the Ring of Five down here around a statue of an angel?”

“Isn’t Zendriel sometimes depicted as an angel?” Jonas asks. “Especially back in the day?”

“Why’s that?” I ask.

“It used to be forbidden to even reference her,” Jonas says. “Once the dragon-kind died out, the remaining Four Families made any type of dragon worship or reverence taboo. Especially a dragon whose presence threatened the idea that the dragons had to go.”

“Shit,” Meg says. “You’re absolutely right.”

“I’m not just here for my looks.” Jonas grins. “Though, that too. We didn’t find any way out, but we did find some offerings.” He nudges Tyrus who carries a large bowl containing a handful of dusty jewels, a few coins, and a couple of dusty burned candle remnants. “Nothing else but dust and cobwebs, though.”

“And you inspected everything?” Flynt asks.

“Close as I could,” Tyrus says, nodding. “It’s a bit hard to see in some of the corners, and I didn’t squeeze too far behind the statues. Don’t want to risk breaking one.”

“No,” Flynt agrees. “Who knows what kind of magic might be in that.”

“Exactly,” Tyrus replies. “Still, there has to be some way out, otherwise we’d see bodies or, at the very least, the remains of teleportation circles.”

Meg has moved toward the angel statue, looking up and frowning as she inspects the figure. The shimmering effect under the beam of natural light continues to glimmer, giving the statue that slightly silver aura about it.

Silver aura. Like that high level mage my first day here.

“There’s no way that any of these are constructs of some kind, is there?” I ask.

Jonas gives me a hesitant look, his body language pulling back from me. “What do you mean?”

“They’re not going to come alive and try to kill us for disturbing them, are they? That’s not something we need to be afraid of?”

“I can’t see why,” Flynt says. “That’s pretty powerful magic to waste on a secret shrine.”

“Do you have any kind of see magic types of spells?” Jonas asks him. “I don’t, I’m afraid. And even if I did, I’d rather save my Essence for healing.”

“I have a ritual I can cast that gives me an arcane sight, but it takes a while,” Flynt replies.

“How long is a while?” Meg asks.

“I can usually do it in six? That’s with ideal conditions, though. We’d need to clear off part of the floor enough that I can chalk in the circle.”

“Might be worth the Essence cost,” she says, walking slowly around the angel. “There has to be something about the statue. Something that can tell us where to go.”

“She is pointing upward,” Jonas says. “Classic Zendriel imagery though, may not mean anything.” He moves and crouches down so he can look up at where the angel is pointing. “I can’t really see it clearly. It’s all shadowed behind the light beam.”

“I could try to send a flame arrow or something up there,” I murmur, peering up with him. “But if it’s solid stone I don’t know how I’d get it to stick.”

“Not worth it. We don’t know what else is down here, you should save your arrows,” he says. “Your eyes can’t see any better?”

I squint but shake my head. “No, that light is throwing off my vision too.”

“Don’t want to interrupt,” Flynt says, “but did either of you see where Meg went?”

I look toward where Meg was standing, then survey the room before ending up back where Tyrus and Flynt are: Flynt crouched at the base of the dragon-kind statue, and Tyrus clearly focused on the gems in the bowl. Meg is nowhere to be seen.

“Well shit,” I mutter.