As the light faded behind her, Calista hefted the scabbard onto her back and mounted her Voorlock. The feathered bird let out an excited shriek before it launched itself down the darkened hallway. Tapestries, stony windows, and long cold torches raced past them as the Voorlock’s talons scrabbled across the stones. Behind them, a rumbling signaled that their exit had not gone unnoticed. Whoever had locked the sword in that chest atop the dais had not spent top dollar on their locks or their traps. It was just bad stewardship. Calista had done everyone a favor and relieved the box of the blade.

It was not stealing, it was acquisition.

It was a curious thing, Calista mused, stealing an Emberblade from a troll nest. How had something so valuable ended up somewhere so mundane? This was not the high level area. They were two zones west of Hilltop, the beginner area. Trolls, mostly low and mid level, were everywhere. In her opinion, this latest patch had over used them as she had found the horrid little beasts infesting practically every bridge, sewer drain, and culvert from here to Yandmouth. They were good grinding, she supposed and she practically never played martial classes and so perhaps that had colored her opinion.

She had been given a tip on this nest and though she had not wanted to investigate it, she had been persuaded with the promise of treasure. “He’s hiding something in there,” her quest giver had said.

Her Voorlock had made the journey in about an hour. It had been nice riding, traveling over the rolling hills of the Judson valley. When she found the troll nest, she had found it in the ruins of a small village overlooking an unnamed river. The entry point had been inside the shattered remains of a gazebo. “Some ancient battle happened here and he now hides beneath it, hoarding things he has no right to keep,” her quest giver had said.

Well, she found the trap door behind the gazebo bench and then led her Voorlock down the stairs until they had landed in this darkened corridor. When she lit her torch, she had spotted a pair of pygmy trolls in the corner. Females who looked at her, squeaked a warning, and then fled down a hand sized hole in the wall.

Her first stop had been a door, locked and barred. However, the security here was cheap as she had unlocked the thing in seconds and opened it up to find a chest. Inside was the Emberblade. What is this doing here? She had thought. She had heard about these. They were new to the game, introduced in last patch. No one knew what they did yet, only that they had been a part of the patch notes. “Emberblades are powerful end game items that will be introduced in Patch 20.01.” That had been it.

Then the first twist. Emberblade in hand, she had intended to simply walk out. However, as she had walked back out into the hallway, the stairs had retracted and the trap door disappeared.

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Now she was here, looking for a way out.

Behind her, the rumbling had stopped only to be replaced by another sound that made Calista realize that this abandoned underground castle was, perhaps, not just a troll nest. The Voorlock let out a worried, “WwvrroOock?” and craned its neck to look back at her. The bird’s eyes were worried. Whatever it was, the sound was coming closer.

The Voorlock rounded a corner and Calista leaned into the turn as her mount’s wings brushed a tapestry. Then her steed accelerated and Calista leaned forward as she held the reigns in one hand and clutched the sword’s scabbard in the other. This is going to be more complicated than I thought, she worried, that sounds like scales slithering over gold.

She should have seen it. The pile of gold, the odor of smelt, the deer carcass. She had wondered what beast the trolls were keeping to guard their lair. However, the trolls were now turning out to be the minions of something much, much more dangerous.

The Voorlock rounded another corner and then another, veering right and then left. Whatever was behind her was getting closer. Are those claws and scales? By the gods, if I’ve stumbled on a cave wurm or a dragon, I’m going to be so pissed. Whatever it was, it was close enough for her to detect that it had a Move of 22. That’s something very high level. Can’t move much faster than that.

Suddenly, something felt off and Calista took a look around. Making a perception check, she saw it. The hallway looked more cavernous, more empty somehow. Was the corridor getting bigger or was she getting smaller?

This cannot be good.

If she were being completely honest with herself, she should have known this whole thing had the potential to be a set up from the beginning. Hooded figures sitting in a back room in a tavern on the bad side of Port Hollow were rarely sources of reliable information. Usually, she knew better than to trust such men. Farmers, crofters, fishwives, these were the people who told you the unvarnished truth when it came to dungeons. The problem was, they rarely knew what was inside the dungeon; they just knew it was there, usually because some unfortunate soul had unwittingly wandered into it and disappeared. So sometimes you just wanted to roll the dice on someone who looked like they had survived something a little more dangerous than your nephew’s fifth birthday party.

She heard an unholy shriek from behind her as something took wing. Something big. Something very big.Oh sweet mercy of the Red Goddess. Does it always have to get worse?

She looked up at the tapestries which, seconds earlier, had hung all the way to the floor but now looked like little more than flags hanging from the ceiling. Well, that answers that question. The hallway was, indeed, getting bigger. Someone or something was enlarging the castle around her in order to fit the monster that was coming after her.

It was going to be a long night.