“It’s empty! Who locks up an empty room so well?” Nyx had taken two steps into the room that the group of coursers had taken so long breaking into before she topped and exclaimed in fury and disbelief. The other three coursers stuck their heads in after the blue spotted courser and saw that she was right. Three heavy sighs brushed over Nyx’s rump and stirred her tail hairs as the others saw that she was right. Bare walls, bare floor, just dust, spider webs, and, for some reason, a mir...

Once again, the group of adventuring coursers had ventured into an area of the dungeon that seemed to be mostly worn masonry, in this case corridors broad enough for the coursers to walk two abreast. The walls lacked the decoration that could be found in some other areas, proclaiming utility, strength, and a focus on staying up as long as possible. The intentions of the designer and builder had probably been fulfilled beyond their most optimistic estimates at this point, their creation still ...

With the seemingly endless narrow corridor behind them, the party of coursers breathed a little easier and the line slowly shuffled together into more of a bunch.   “I mean it. If we end up in just an empty, bare cavern… well, there’d better at least be some really cool rock formations.” Nyx tossed her mane and thoroughly enjoyed doing so after having to keep her head ducked for the last part of the corridor. You never realised how much you took the space above your ear...

Shadows seemed to waver and dance threateningly as Nyx’s wisp lit the confines of this narrow corridor for the adventurers. It had started out wide enough for them to walk two abreast, but the walls had slowly curved in and the ceiling lowered as the corridor went from worked stone to natural. Now the party walked in a line. Nyx was in the lead as the tallest courser. Her head was lowered to avoid brushing the ceiling, and her wisp floated at her shoulder rather than above her head as it us...

“Looks like we picked the wrong door.” Nyx observed pessimistically. The tall corser gazed down into the mist filled abyss below the bridge the group of coursers had come to.   “They joined up after a while anyway.” Vashti pointed out reasonably “So they were both equally wrong.”   “Correct. Never trust two talking stone faces who want you to go through their doors.” Nyx irritably shook her forelock out of her eyes and stepped back from the edge....

Working as a team the four coursers had managed to vanquish the shadow champion of the arena. Once the shadow courser had been defeated the arena had returned to the state they found it in. Empty and silent, heavy with the weight of centuries. Nyx had declared they’d won the right to loot the place and wasted no time letting herself into the areas on the other side of the arena and poking through everything for things she wanted.   Much of the paraphernalia of the arena fight...

The group spread out instinctively as they entered a huge… cavern? No this was never created by nature. Vast, yes, but perfectly round and with tiers of seating rising around it. “It’s an arena.” Vashti breathed, trying not to disturb what felt like an oppressively unnatural silence. Even their footsteps were muffled by the sand under their hooves.   “I wonder what it was like when it was used.” Gordon mused quietly, already composing a tale about bold coursers trai...

Rigel trotted along the various paths of the overgrown caverns in a cheerful mood, this was a good little ecosystem, not far below the ground, many entrances and exits, twisting paths, secrets everywhere. It was starting to matter less and less that Rigel couldn’t find the one who summoned it. It had heard that sometimes coursers were created from nothing in this buried kingdom. Dungeon born they were called. Rigel wondered sometimes if the same force was its summoner.   This...

Rigel was enjoying the moor of sleep, at least when it was awake. Chaotic dream states still spawned whenever it slept here and though fascinating and strange, the dream worlds seemed to be going out of their way to make Rigel angry with the strange malfunctions that came with them.   In the morning hours the waking world looked like a dreamscape too, heavy mist or fog muffled and concealed everything, derelict buildings reared out concealment like shadowbeasts. The inability t...

It knew that it was sleeping, it recalled lying down in its land form next to the iridescent black courser. The body had been tired. Land tired was very different from sea/blood/ink/ichor tired, it was a heavy tiredness dragging on the body like a weighted harness.   This must be the dream world then. It had never really dreamed before, never really slept before it wore the form of a courser. Rigel looked around interestedly, the dungeon, but not. It stood in the area known as ...

This venture into the dungeon hadn’t brought any monsters or traps so far. Instead the terrain itself had been out to get the odd group of coursers who’d decided to stick together for fun and profit, rough footing, steep slopes, unexpected holes in the floor. Everyone was getting annoyed, even Rigel who’d pranced and bounded through most of it with a don’t-give-a-damn attitude any goat would have been proud of.   The group had picked up a few odds and ends as they passe...

The blue bands of Nyx’s spell wrapped around the lean form of Rigel and pulled the blue heraldic courser bodily out of the sarcophagus. Behind Nyx Vashti and Gordon exchanged horrified glances, neither of them could imagine why Rigel had chosen to leap in there.   Dropped unceremoniously in the middle of the clear area of the floor Rigel stood shakily, snorted blood from its nostrils and shook dark liquid off all over the room and its companions.   “Oh, thank...

A tapping of hooves echoed through the empty corridors, a strange and compelling rhythm. “Dammit Gordon, you’d better not be writing a song about this already. Nothing’s even happened yet.” Nyx flicked at the golden coated bard with her tail.   “Music is in my soul Nyx.” Gordon stepped aside adroitly, breaking the pattern of his tapping hooves. The group had been paused for a rest while the going was good, but something was starting to wear on everyone’s nerves, a...

A tale then, of ruffians bold, who came into our camp to loot our gold They found more than treasure there, though these lousy fellows had not a care When we returned from a scouting foray and these louts did become our quarry They faced us down with quite the sneer, brash bravado and a cruel cheer   Weapons were drawn and insults were flung, somebody’s mother compared to bat dung The party of raiders refused to back down, bade us to leap in a sink...

A puddle in the overgrown caverns waited, still and calm, a drop of water fell from on high and plopped down into the slightly discoloured water sending ripples dancing across it. The amount of ripples grew all out of proportion to the single drip that had disturbed the surface, something deeper had been disturbed. Trails of black and red swirled fitfully under the surface, twisting into strange and sinister shapes.   The trails coalesced into one and an inky tentacle erupted f...