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“It appears Khaal kept many secrets.” If the man had been coming to this cave, then he more than likely knew of the dragon too. “Let’s see what’s beyond this door.”
Not much, as it turned out. A massive room, the ceiling vaulted at least twenty or more feet overhead. Braziers lining the perimeter ignited with a blue flame that burned with no heat. Kormac ran his hand over it and marveled at the strangeness of it.
While he walked the perimeter to the left, Lomar took the right. As Kormac strolled, he noticed the walls carved with more writing, the letters he couldn’t understand running in a single band around the room. A room empty of everything.
Mostly.
Lomar stood at the far end of the chamber, staring at a glossy section of the wall. “There’s something set inside the glass,” he stated before running his fingers over the amber-hued surface.
“Why would they embed glass in stone?” Kormac asked. When he neared the odd feature, his arms tingled. He paused. Lomar didn’t notice and kept running his fingers over the glass. Kormac took that moment of inattention to tug up his sleeve enough to see one of his bracers and the purple glow emanating from them.
What did it react to? He tugged his sleeve back down over it.
“There’s a chip in a few spots,” Lomar remarked before cursing. “Sharp. Be careful.” He put his bleeding finger to his mouth.
Kormac neared but didn’t touch, just looked. A shadowy outline appeared in the amber, and in the center of it, something that seemed to pulse.
His arms itched something fierce.
“I wonder if we can dig it out,” Lomar stated.
“Don’t.” He tempered his sharp command with, “We should know more before we remove it.”
“Know what? It’s probably just a fancy rock.”
“Someone wouldn’t have walled off this cave without reason.”
“Don’t tell me you’re starting to believe in magic.”
“No.” He said it quickly and yet… Something about this place discomfited. It didn’t help that his bracers kept tingling his flesh.
A noise had them whipping around, weapons drawn, only to see Simon, one of the men they’d left guarding outside. “The dragon might be coming back. There’s something in the sky to the north.”
A good reason to leave.
Simon neared. “What’s shining in the wall?” The soldier pressed his hands to the surface and leaned close.
“Still don’t think we should bust it out?” Lomar asked.
Kormac shook his head. “Not if the dragon is coming back. We can always return tomorrow with something better than your axe to crack it.”
As Simon pushed himself away from the glass, he yelped. “Ow.” Like Lomar, he sucked on a bloody wound left by a jagged spot.
It led to Kormac eyeing the pristine floor. No glass shards littered it. Whoever chipped it had cleaned up.
They vacated the chamber, Kormac snaring the bag in passing for study back at camp. As they exited the cave, all eyes went to the empty sky.
“What’s the situation?” Lomar yelled to Junno at the top of the rubble pile.
“I think it might have just been a bird. It’s gone now.”
“You want to go back inside for another gander?” Lomar asked Kormac.
He shook his head. “I think it’s time we headed back to camp. It’s getting late.”
“More like you’re hungry.”
“Ah yes, because there’s nothing like field rations to satiate a man’s belly,” Kormac drawled.
