The Lilliad chp 9

Lilli felt the air grow colder and more damp as she carefully climbed down the slick stone stairs. It was dark, and silent but for the occasional dripping of water.

Oddly, while there were occasional landings, there seemed to be no doorways. 

‘I guess I just keep going deeper.’

The cold was starting to seep through her clothes, causing her to shudder. She climbed down to the next landing anyway, ignoring the new stiffness in her muscles. 

When her toes began to numb, something finally pinged in her consciousness. ‘It was more magic. Of course. That was stupid.’

Suddenly, there was just a little light- and she looked down. Her dagger was in her right hand though she hadn’t noted pulling it out of its sheath. It was glowing- faint and white, but just enough for her to see that there were markings all over the stairs. 

There was a thin, ‘safe’ path that wound around the stairs. Lilli crept over to it and waited, feeling the cold in her limbs slowly begin to subside. 

‘Maybe it’s stronger the more times I step on one? They probably wouldn’t want to freeze themselves on accident.’

But she never would have seen the runes in all that dark- and she suspected regular firelight wouldn’t have helped much, either.

One of the runes she’d touched earlier twinkled and wavered, confirming her theory. They weren’t just painted, they were probably enchanted into the stone or something? 

‘That sounds like something magicians could do, I guess. Maybe I’ll ask Elathor, if we get out of here.’

After more minutes of carefully walking down the stairs, she reached the very bottom. The air was cool here, even without magic. 

‘Seems like a good place to keep a dungeon. I definitely went farther down than I came up from the ground.’

She looked around- noting a lot of very big runes on the last step, probably to freeze any particularly determined intruder. 

The light from her dagger also illuminated something else- a door shape, made of magic, on the wall. 

She walked up to it-

‘No handle, no joints. Of course it’s a magic door. Why wouldn’t these magicians make it easier?’

She didn’t know any spells. Or even if she was capable of them. So she jabbed her glowing dagger at it. 

It wavered, but it almost felt like she’d stabbed something other than hard stone. 

‘Maybe… I can pry the door open?’

She stuck the sharp end of her dagger into one side of the glowing arch. It resisted for a second, then gave way. She pushed dagger slid in about an inch before it refused to move any more. 

She wiggled it- the lines wavered, then began to change color from a benign blue to a green. The arch seemed to constrict-

Lilli stepped back, as the door disappeared from her vision and left a sizable doorway in its place. 

She still didn’t hear anyone. 

‘I hope I’m not breaking into a tomb or something and wasting my limited time.’ She griped, sneaking to a wall inside and waving her glowy dagger around for any more traps. It just looked like a hallway, but these magicians were real dicks. 

‘I bet they even trap the chamberpots in this dump.’

She tentatively started down the hallway- and startled when doors appeared on either side. The one on the left was made of silver metal, with an intricate pattern that included skull motifs. The door on the right was a dark wood, and it was tall enough for… for… 

She couldn’t think of a single thing that was big enough to need to use that doorway, and she didn’t want to learn about one.

‘Skull door it is.’

Lilli turned the lever and then used her foot to nudge the door open. It opened silently. The room was made of stone, and it went down even farther until it seemed to go up again- her head began to feel light and throb with some invisible energy.

Something pulsed through her body- and she flattened herself against the wall. 

‘I think I must be getting close. I feel distinctly… off. Like there’s something in the air.’

She breathed quietly, and felt her way down the wall, when her fingers touched a mechanism that had been hidden in the cracks between stones. She triggered it, shying away from the new entrance in case of whatever the hell had to be guarding this place. 

Nothing happened, still. 

‘The waiting is almost worse.’

She shut the door behind her, and hoped there was another way out. Something familiar was calling to her from farther down the hall. It was a feeling she couldn’t place, a scent? Maybe. 

Lilli took little steps into the room, and noted that there were more carvings into the stone. These ones made a set of murals, with runes forming individual magic doorways. 

‘No idea how to open one of them, though. I hope I don’t need to.’

There was an actual door at the other end, and Lilli put her ear on it. 

“Well?”

She startled backwards. 

“Are you going to come in?”

...Lilli looked from side to side, just to make absolutely certain that no one else was there. 

“Hurry up,” the stranger snapped.

“Sorry,” Lilli said. She opened the door and stepped into a dark room. 

“The lights are to the left, feel along the wall.” 

She followed instructions and felt a raised ridge under her fingers. When she brushed it, blue lights overhead lit up. 

The room was shaped like an amphitheater, steps in concentric circles leading to a pit. Standing in that pit was… was…

“What are you?” Lilli asked. She crossed her arms. “I’ve seen magicians before and that’s not what you look like.” 

“Well-spotted.” The creature held its arms out. “I’m not wearing a dress. I assume that’s how you knew.”

“And you’re made of rocks? Wearing rocks? Camouflaging?” Lilli tried a few suggestions. 

“I’m not interested in labels, but I think I’m igneous.” 

She frowned. That word didn’t sound very nice.

“Come down here. Meet me in the pit.”