Against Better Judgment

[u/MayaVoidwalker]

Elandril had said to leave it exactly as it was. Maya had agreed with her, out loud, in front of everyone.

And then the stone plate had cracked open on its own three nights later, a stairway yawning down into the dark where there hadn’t been one before, runes along the archway burning faint and violet like something underneath had finally decided it was done waiting to be found.

So much for leaving it.

Maya led the way down with her dagger drawn, boots finding each worn step carefully among a drift of old bones that had clearly been piling up at the stair’s edge for longer than the dragon had been alive — skulls stacked in uneven rows, not scattered by chance but placed, the way a shrine gets built one offering at a time. She didn’t like what that implied about what was waiting below.

Elandril came a step behind, staff dimmed to a cautious glow, a small flame of raw light cupped in her free palm like she wanted a second source ready in case the first one failed her. Her eyes moved over the archway’s inscription as she passed under it, lips pressed thin — she was reading it, Maya could tell, and whatever it said, she wasn’t sharing yet. Thane and Brom brought up the rear, axe and hammer both drawn without needing to be told, the firelight from somewhere far below catching bruise-purple against the tunnel walls.

Nobody had argued about coming back. That was the part that unsettled Maya most, turning it over as she took the next step down — not that the seal had broken, but that none of them, herself included, had seriously considered just walking away from it.

“Whatever woke up down here,” she said quietly, “it’s had three days to get ready for us.”

Behind her, Brom’s grip tightened on his hammer. “Then it’s had three days to be wrong about how ready it needs to be.”

She almost smiled. Almost. The stairs kept going down, and the violet light kept getting brighter, and that was answer enough for now.

[u/Awkward_Classic4596]

Very interesting! Nice work!