Neil

As we approached the doors far end of the roof the flickering light near the entrance was just enough to illuminate a set of double doors in front of us. Slightly ajar, the double doors looked incredibly heavy and the hinges on the sides looked to be in extremely good condition. Looking into the small opening the two of us could only see blackness, even when I shone my light into the gap it was only able to illuminate small sections of a stone hallway. Looking at each other for a second Shassala moved first and put her head near the opening and listened for anything inside.

Ducking down I put my head under hers and listened as well but I couldn’t hear anything over the pounding of my heart. Shassala looked at me and nodded moving in front of the door but back a few feet. Knocking an arrow she pointed it at the opening.

Nodding at her I grasped the handle of the door and I slowly pulled it open, the loud squeal of the hinges announcing us to anything inside the building. As I put my back into it, the door started to slide open and a wave of musty air rolled out towards us.

At first I gagged a little and then even Shassala made a face as she moved the bow from left to right while scanning the shadows in front of her.

When the door was open enough for us to walk in without having to turn sideways I stopped grabbing and pointing my flashlight forwards. My camp flashlight was small and something I chose for weight and packability rather than brightness. Something I was regretting just a little bit right now. But even still the light cut through the darkness easily illuminating the hallway beyond.

Looking into the gloom we saw a long dark hallway with several wooden doors on either side. At the far end the hallway I thought I could make out stairs heading down but my week flashlight cast more shadows than anything that far away. In contrast to the ruins on top of the mountain these ruins seemed to be extremely well preserved. Everything had a thick layer of grime and dust on it, but aside from that most things were still fairly intact. Tapestries on the wall were still whole, if dingy. Paintings on the walls were askew and I could even make out what looked like people on them. The floor had a thick, if dirty, and disgusting carpet on it.

It looked like the entire place had aged a few decades instead of a few centuries like the ruins on the top of the mountain had.

Shassala was just about to enter the hallway when I held an arm in her way and stopped her. Pointing the light up I checked the ceiling and was rewarded by seeing a slime hanging just above the door.

Pulling back I just avoided having it land on my arm by a few inches. Shassala fired her arrow at it and managed to catch it in its center, not that it slowed it down.

Putting my flashlight in my pocket I grasped my new weapon in both hands entered the hallway easily dodging the slimes jump and struck it with the fence post. With a loud THWUMP I hit it dead on and I was rewarded with the slime being cut in half when my fence post went straight through it.

Although the slime tried to pull itself back together I hit it again with a laugh and this time it stopped moving completely, smacking the remains a few times for good measure I eventually pulled my flashlight out of my pocket.

The Ding and the box in front of me barely fazed me.

By defeating a small slime with an improvised staff weapon you have gained some experience fighting with a polearms and staves. Continue practicing or find a teacher to continue to improve.

Not for the first time I wondered about the boxes. Did they really help me learn? Or were they just quantifying things I already figured out?

As I adjusted my grip on the fence post to something that would allow me to respond to enemies faster, and switch my grip easier I considered it must be a bit of both. I certainly hadn’t had this idea before the box, but it was also something simple enough that a fight could have helped me figure it out. Maybe the boxes were just helping me learn and make connections faster?

Putting the question out of my mind for now I gave my weapon a few spins to try out my knew grip and then looked at Shassala as she picked up the pieces of her arrow. In my enthusiasm to hit my enemy I had accidentally broke my weapon in two. Looking at the pieces she put the arrowhead in a small pouch she had on one of her belts and she threw the broken shaft on the ground.

Pointing my flashlight forwards again I looked to see if anything else had joined us in the hallway but fortunately we seemed to be alone, at least for now.

“Here.” I said pointing the flashlight at the first door on the left.

Once again, we took positions on either side of the door and I cracked it open. The two of us listened for a moment before I opened it more fully and swept my light back and forth in the room making sure the floor had nothing lurking on it and then checking the ceiling.

The door creaked loudly as I opened it, but after all the noise we had made so far I barely even noticed it.

As we walked into the room I felt like we had hit pay dirt. There weren’t any jewels or gold in the room, instead this was apparently a storage room. There were rows after rows of boxes lining the walls of the room. Although most looked to have been pried open at some time long ago several were still closed. As I walked into the room glass began crunching under my feet and from behind me Shassala let out a breath from between her teeth. It sounded a little like she was hissing.

Turning around it took me a moment to realize that Shassala had likely cut herself on some of the glass. Most of the time I forgot that she was slithering around on what was her skin.

As she left the room cursing under her breath I followed her and shone the light on her looking at the underside of her tail for any injuries. Looking closely I saw a piece of glass managed to get stuck in her tail where it had slipped in between some of her scales.

“Wha, what do you see?” Shassala asked a slight tremor in her voice that I had never heard before.

Trying to ignore it I answered. “A piece of glass stuck in you. Are you ok?”

“I’m ok, it’s at an odd angel, can you get it out for me?”

“Yeah, no problem.” I said as I gently pulled it out. I wasn’t sure why but for some reason I was getting the impression that Shassala was more nervous about this than I thought she should be. Maybe she wasn’t used to people touching her? Or touching her tail?

When I pulled out the glass, blood immediately started pouring out of the wound. “Your bleeding, I’m going to use some of the potion on it. Hold on.”

Pouring a third of the remaining potion onto the wound it closed immediately and the blood was washed away. Standing up I looked at Shassala and asked. “How’s that?”

For an answer she bent down and gave me a slow gentle kiss on the lips. Instinctively I put my hand on her hip and returned the kiss parting my lips just a little which she did too. After a few minutes of kissing I thought I heard something behind us and turned my head breaking the kiss. Flashing my light I looked around but saw nothing. Looking back at Shassala we both laughed and she backed up.

“Stay here, I’ll take a look.”

“Ok.” She said quietly in a tone of voice that made me want to stay right where I was. With a great expenditure of will power I went back into the room and looked through the open boxes. Any box that was open was just filled with broken glass. Skipping past most of the open boxes I went to one of the few unopened boxes and tried to find a way to open it.

It was a wooden box that had been nailed shut god knows how long ago. Unfortunately despite its age the nails were still holding tight. Slipping my knife into a small crack in the lid I carefully pried it open being careful to not bend or break my best knife. When I got it open a little more than a crack I put in the fence post and managed to pry it open the rest of the way.

“What is it?” Shassala called from the open doorway.

When I finally got it open and looked in, I smiled. It was glassware. Not just any glassware though, but beakers, flasks, and even something that looked a lot like the still my father used. It was a made of a round base with a long thin piece of glass leading off it at a downward angle and an opening that had a stopper in it.

“It’s..” I paused. “I don’t know the words. Wait, I’ll show you.” Actually what was this thing called? “What is it?”

DING

A Retort

This is used in chemistry and alchemy to distill liquids into a more pure form. Be careful this retort has become brittle with age.

Picking up a beaker and a flask I brought them over to Shassala, who took a beaker out of my hand and looked at it. “Careful, they break easily. Do you know what it is called?” Shassala shook her head no so I answered. “Where I am from it is called glass. It is made of melted sand, I think? We can use them for potions. Maybe carry more!”

“You can keep them.” She said.

“I can’t have them all. That’s too much.”

“Too many questions if I bring them back, its best if you keep them.”

DING

For practicing your Lamianese with a native and learning a large variety of words you have attained NOVICE HIGH level of proficiency!

“Thank you. I owe you something nice for this. How about a nice meal later tonight?” I said trying to ignore the window.

Shassala’s beaming smile told me that my offer was a good one. “I’d like that.”

“Let’s check this room, then we’ll go. Unless you want to search more.”

“No just here is ok. We have legends of this place, I never thought I would see it myself, and this is enough.”

Once again we listened, looked at the floor and then the roof before going into the room. This one was a large room, that looked to be an office or a library. There was a very nice looking wooden desk in the room near the far wall with a lumpy thing on it. Looking at the bookshelves against the wall the books looked to be in relatively good condition but I didn’t really want to try and open any of them. When I made my way over to the desk itself and looked at it I saw that the lumpy thing was in fact a corpse.

It looked like someone had been working at their desk when they simply dropped dead and fell on their desk. Looking at the person I had no idea how old the body was, the skin was pulled tight around the skull and looked dry enough to crumble if it was touched, which I was definitely not going to do. Looking down I got a bit of a shock. “Shassala, look legs.” I said shining my light at its lower body.

“Not a Lamia.” Shassala said.

"Who built this place?”

Shassala paused for a moment looking at the corpse, I was just about to ask again when she started speaking. “The Ancients. They built this place. Long ago this was a Lamia holy ground, we worshipped the gods using the sacred pool. Then the ancients came and built their city. There was fighting at first but we couldn’t win against the ancients. Eventually we lived with them at peace. Until they all died.”

“Why don’t Lamia live on the mountain Shassala? Water is there, and it is safe.”

“Safe from what? We have no enemies, the tribes are at peace so there is no need to live so far from all the food. Animals don’t come here.” She said looking at me.

“What do you mean that animals don’t come here?

While I was sure there was more to the story Shassala looked to spooked to keep telling it to me, and I didn’t think now was the time to press her for more answers.

Looking back at the desk I saw that it was very impressive. There were multiple drawers, and places for things like quills, inkwells and a thick paper that I could see under the corpses face. I wasn’t able to get too good a look at what was on the desk without getting too close to the body but from what I could see the desk could have been in any antique store.

“Lets get the glass and go back up. We don’t have a lot of health potion left.”

“Okay, I think this is a good adventure for one day.” Shassala said sounding as nervous as I felt.

Going back to the storage room I gave Shassala my flashlight and fence post then I grabbed as many beakers and glasses as I could hold and comfortably fit in my bag, that done the two of us slowly made our way back up to the mountain top.

When we finally made it back to the surface the sun was shining brightly, the air was fresh and fragrant in our lungs. With a sigh and a deep breath I placed my loot down and stretched my arms out.

“Hell Yeah! Fuck you creepy cave! We kicked your ass!” I shouted back at the building flipping it off and punching towards it.

Shassala looked at me like I was a crazy person before looking at the building and joining in my ranting at the building.

It was actually useful because I was able to learn a lot of different swear words and taunts in Lamianese which caused my level in the language to increase to ‘intermediate low’ so that was nice. By the time we were both done swearing we were laughing and smiling at each other.

On a whim I grabbed Shassalas hand pulled her towards me and gave her a kiss. Without a moment's hesitation she wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me back.