Dawn stared into the darkness. “I have never heard of stoneblood folk,” she murmured softly. “Or anything about gray demons or the kingdom of Raknavor.”

“Do you think they have been gone for a long time, Ankou? I wonder if this Garin guy is still alive. Probably not. The way it looks, the city has been abandoned for years and years.”

This gets stranger by the minute, she thought. Of course, it was a big world and surely there were a lot of things, people and places she didn’t know about. Or that anyone in Greenriver Village had heard about. The books were protected by a stasis field. Would they still be there in that library, waiting for the return of the citizens, hundreds of years from now, she wondered. What a pity she couldn’t touch them, she really would have liked to look at a few of them.

“Want to explore some more, Ankou?” she asked the cat. “It looks like the hunters didn’t find the cave, or the passage here. But we can’t go back to the valley yet. Guess we need to spend at least the night here.”

They wandered the library some more, searching the upper levels too, but found nothing of interest apart from the books they couldn’t touch.

Disappointed, Dawn started to retrace her way down the levels to the cavern floor. She was thirsty after roaming through the dusty buildings. Somewhere, there had to be a water source. The people of Raknavor hardly could have taken their wells with them when they left.

On the center floor of the great room, she encountered piles of rocks and rubble, wondering what these structures had been before they had been turned into ruins. So much rubble here in the center, and yet the houses on the outside of the ring were perfectly preserved. Dawn noticed no sign of water or wells anywhere around.

When they had traversed the whole length of the great room, Dawn beheld a broad passage leading out of the city, descending further into the darkness. ‘Not today,’ she thought. Making her way to one of the houses nearest to the passage she entered and found her way upstairs. She sat down on a stone bed and checked her storage for food.

“Well, beans, oats and potatoes are out. We have no water and no fire to cook something here.” She said to herself. “Thank the gods, there are still some preserves left.” The juice would help against her thirst, too.

She held the opened jar out to Ankou, but he only sniffed at it and turned his head away. “Sorry boy, I have nothing else that is edible without cooking.”

After her meal, she took out her cloak, bundled up and laid down. Ankou settled himself beside her, his warm weight making her feel safe and protected.

Drowsily, she thought back on the day. It had certainly been exciting. Perhaps a bit too much. When she had left Greenriver she had been looking forward to some excitement and an end to her pretty boring and predictable life there. Well, presently she had maybe gotten a bit too much of a good thing.

Unfortunately, the quiet life she had imagined fending for herself in her hidden valley, appeared to be a mirage. Perhaps she had been a bit naive, thinking she could live safely, hidden away in a spot that short a distance away from the village. She would have to find another place to settle down, one that was farther away from Greenriver. Slowly, Dawn fell asleep.

Ankou woke her up ungently, strong claws piercing her thigh. “Ouch,” she cried. “What are you doing?” The cat only snorted. Sleepily, Dawn looked around, bemused for a moment by the foreign environment. Suddenly, she heard that the eerie silence of the ruined city was broken. A rapid clicking sound grew louder and louder as something or someone approached rapidly.

On silent feet she stood up and tentatively approached the window. Outside, out of the broad passage that led further down, an enormous gray figure appeared and entered the floor below her. Dawn saw it had a lot of red eyes, a round bulky body and many legs. Intensely staring at the beast, Dawn suddenly detected a label floating above its head. ‘Gray demon’, she read and was promptly informed that she had acquired the skill Analyze.

Scared, Dawn watched as the beast wandered further into the city and was joined by a second one that left the passage shortly behind the first.

‘That is so not good,’ she thought, panicked. What to do? Should they stay inside and hope the demons wouldn’t detect their presence, or was it better to try and slip around them back into the narrow passage leading to the cave. These big beasts would certainly not be able to fit into that cramped space.

The demons were slowly climbing over the rubble in the center of the floor. It almost appeared as if they were searching for something. Dawn saw their legs were tipped by knifelike protrusions, obviously very sharp ones. They seemed to cut into the rubble effortlessly as they climbed. ‘These are spiders, not demons,” she thought queasily. Naturally, it had to be spiders! She had always been deeply terrified even of normal arachnids and these ones were certainly not of the small variety.

Uncertain, Dawn bit her lip. She was very tempted to stay hidden in the small house. But if more of these ‘demons’ arrived, she would be trapped here without water and with scarcely any food left. Maybe the beasts would simply leave again, disappearing as fast as they had come. She could only hope.

Dawn saw that one of the beasts tried to climb up the wall of one of the houses, but was obviously unable to get a grip. The small paths leading to the upper levels were too narrow for the demons, they couldn’t fit into them.

‘So they can’t climb the buildings and can’t go up via the paths,’ she thought. ’These buildings must be made out of a different, harder stone, than whatever structures they built on the floor.’

That was good to know, at least the spiders or demons with their big bulk would be unable to enter the building she and Ankou were hiding in. Nevertheless, she felt trapped and desperate here.

Keeping one eye on the beasts, she turned to Ankou and whispered: “Let’s get out of here, Ankou. We’ll go up to the upper levels and sneak around them from above. Once we enter the way back to the cave, they won’t be able to follow us.”

The big cat seemed to regard her a little doubtfully. As she looked at him, Dawn could make out a floating label above his head, too. ‘Mountain lynx’ it read. Not really a ghost cat then, she thought wryly.

Inhaling deeply, Dawn activated Shadow Play, deeply grateful for her stealth skill, and silently went down the stairway and out of the house. Ducked, she sneaked around the building and up the next pathway to the upper levels, Ankou trailing noiselessly in her shadow. They went all the way up and rapidly followed the path to the other side of the city. After a few minutes Dawn felt drained, she ducked into the next building and deactivated Shadow Play. She had almost no stamina left and would need to recharge for a while. After a break, they continued on their way to the other side.

Finally, they arrived at the end of the underground chamber. They needed to go down to the floor here, to enter the passage back to the valley. Carefully, Dawn waited a few minutes to once again recharge her stamina and watched the wandering demons out of the window of a building. They were still inspecting the middle of the floor approaching the further end of the city slowly.

With a deep breath, Dawn started once again, down to the floor of the chamber, hidden by her spell. She entered the passage first, Ankou closely following behind her. After the first bend, she deactivated Shadow Play with a sigh of relief. They had made it out unnoticed. Following the passage around several bends she thought with a shudder, ‘even if the hunters are still in the valley, I’d rather return to Greenriver than be killed and eaten by gigantic spiders.’

But when they arrived at the end of the passage, Dawn found herself staring at a blank wall unbroken by any opening. Stunned, she felt around all over the wall with her hands, but she couldn’t find the door. No runes or signs appeared on the wall either. Whatever magic had allowed her to open the door from the other side of the wall, it didn’t make an appearance this time around.

Dawn sank down, her back against the wall. She felt almost paralyzed, unable to think. How to get out of this mess?

Right then, a notification appeared before here eyes.

New quest received: Death to the demons

Locate and annihilate all gray demons and find a way out of the underground kingdom of Raknavor.

Rewards for completion: 10.000 Exp

1 Skill point

Penalty for failure: n/a (in that case you’ll probably be dead anyway)

‘That has to be joke!’ Dawn thought, outraged by the notification.

A quest, that was almost unheard of. Quests were given to adventurers and heroes in stories. As far as she knew, no one from Greenriver Village had ever received a quest. And here she was given one, a girl from a little village, no levels to speak of and armed with a knife. Her, against Gods only knew how many of these enormous spiders. Obviously, a whole city of stoneblood folk had been vanquished by the beasts, despite their warriors and mages. What chance did she have then?

Of course, the experience reward in case of success was insanely high, but she could perceive no way of completing the quest successfully.

‘This can’t be real, surely it is just a nightmare,’ she thought, rubbing her hands over her face distractedly.