Late one night in the study, I was reading tales of old ancient relics discovered within crypts and tunnels beneith many western cities. The candle on the table was burning quite low when I turned to a loose page in the middle of the book. As the page fell to the floor I realized the center of the book was cut out into a square hiding space. In the void there was a bronze key wrapped in an old dirty rag. When I unfolded the mysterious rag to look at the key I realized it was covered in drawings of things I did not recognize. As basic as the drawings were they seemed to point to a place, and in some basic tongue I could barely make out that the “Drawings would point my way”. I was convinced it was a primative map of some sort, but to what? I folded up the map and placed it in a space spot on my person to hide it.
We were riding camels through the Raheem desert in search of the elusive wanderer. Thick dust swooped in all around us, until my party and I were separated. I found a place to hide from the storm, a small cave in the sandy floor. Releasing my camel of it’s saddle and bindings to find his own shelter, I crawled inside the cave to wait out the dust storm. Inside the cave I lit a torch and discovered it was deeper than I had previously thought. The walls appeared carved by centuries of flowing water, I thought about my meager water supply and decided to go deeper into the cave to possibly find more. In some places that cave was such a tight squeeze I became anxious, for what if I became stuck? Would anyone ever find me alive or would my bones be picked clean by hungry desert creatures? None the less I pressed on, I needed to find more water, and hoped a natural spring would provide some.
Just as my torch began to burn low I found a skeleton laying on the ground. His clothing, tattered, lay all over the room, and a small pool in the corner smelled of ancient rot. Putting out my torch in the sand I wrapped his clothes over my torch tightly and dipped it in the pool of natural oils. Re-lighting my torch I searched the bones and found a purse of silver and bronze coins I did not recognize. As I looked up I saw a drawing on the wall that looked strangely furmilliar. Taking my old mysterious rag out of my secret hiding spot I looked over the drawings and saw it scrawled on there. Clearly the drawings were pointing the way. I followed the cavern where the cave drawings were painted. I could not have picked a more trecherous route had I tried. The depth of this cave was immense, as great as the smells were terrible, I pressed on.
I saw a light down in a side cavern, glowing a pale blue as any full moon. Covering the walls were crystals and veins of gold, silver, and other strange metals. Fearing a cave in I tried not to disturb them, Greed has led to many a treasure hunter’s demise, but I saw water trickling down off the rock. While filling my water skins I found the next drawing to follow. The deeper into the cave I went the warmer the cave got, I could tell I was traveling pretty deep. I soon came to a cliff, the next drawing was carved into the floor in high relief. It was more detailed than the others, who ever made this map wanted me to go down that cliff, they even left a sturdy Iron chain for me to traverse down. Once at the bottom I found two skeleton’s dressed in armor, they appeared to have fallen from the top. Their bones were shattered and their armor crushed flat, their daggers and swords were still in prestine shape, not even rusty from the stagnant, moist cave air. Luckily their blades were made of a light weight metal, so I picked them up and tied them together using wool twine from my bag, and carried all 3 of them as one.
Soon I saw a light shining through the cave, I was convinced I had reached the lowest possible point, the heat was almost unbearable. A stream of lava flowed next to the path, glowing and putting off an incredible heat.
The heat was unbearable, but… anything worth hiding is worth hiding well. Out of the corner of my eye I spied a symbol on the wall. The final symbol on my map! This was it, I had arrived at my destination. The pot of gold at the end of the preverbial rainbow. I could now bear the heat, as I was so excited to find what this mysterious treasure could be. What was this? More writing on the wall, feathers. Clearly who ever hid this treasure liked birds or something. The more I looked around in this labrynth of rocks and feathers, the more I began to feel as though it werent here, but then I saw them. Sitting on what appeared to be an ivory altar. Wings that shined grey, on the altar was written in gold “Saldalphon”. I had found the wings of the Arch-angel Sandalphon.
After strapping the wings to my back I felt light as a feather. I began to lift off of the ground and float with great ease. I decided to take them outside and test them out. After a long trecherous walk and flying up the face of that cliff with the iron chain I reached the begining of the cave to find Sand had sealed me inside. I now had to find a new exit, which would be no easy task, my torch was begining to burn low.
I asked for help, directing my request to whatever diety would listen, and just then the earth began to shake. A stone slab began to slide and an opening formed infront of me. As I crawled through I saw the Nangen army marching north to fight the mongol hordes. I quickly put on my Mystcloak of transparancy and quietly made my way through unnoticed.
When I reached the edge of the Woodlands I tried on my new wings, amazing how after possibly centuries of being burried close to the center of the earth they worked without flaw. I’m sure anyone would pay a great fortune to own wings that made them fly, but I could not part with such a treasured item. Instead I will keep them on, wearing them to my grave, or.. forever if I can find the lost fountain of youth.