An oddness surrounded this place. It was more long than it was wide, its cobblestone floor sending echoes of Lorelai’s party’s hoofsteps throughout the ruined place. Much of it was worn stone and iron, though its walls used to be good, strong wood, now rotting and speckled with holes and cave-ins. On either side all down the corridor were unusual cells, iron bars creating windows to peer through, but the bars stopped before covering the doors, which were onl...

Evening had fallen faster than any of them had anticipated. There weren’t many cracks in the ceiling of the dungeon to see the dulled blues of the evening turn to the deep oranges of dusk, but any Courser could tell when nightfall came, as the spirits of the old kingdom grew more plentiful, more energetic.  Lorelai eyed a gathering of them off to the side, their sheer ice-blue forms shimmering with the slow breeze ...

The silence that enveloped them all weighed heavy on their backs. Lorelai swallowed the last from her canteen and lowered it to the ground, her ears tucked back, gaze locked anywhere but her other companions. Everyone laid on the soft grass around each other, not too close nor too far, no more scrapes to patch up to give them something to fill the quiet. It prickled at Lorelai’s hackles, almost as much as her bandages itched against her skin. ...

Lorelai’s hackles prickled with each flicker of light from the torch. Claddagh had taken the lead, her pale tan coat nearly a stark white with the light. Renee followed her close behind, the bay’s ears swiveling back and forth, tense, and Lorelai took care not to catch Renee’s black tail on her forelegs, not wanting to startle Renee into doing something rash. As for the last one in their party…. Lorelai resist...

Lorelai’s sweat condensed beneath the leather belt around her barrel and the armor she wore at her chest and rump. Bubbling lava lit this dark cavern a searing red and yellow, and Lorelai’s eyes watered as she kept her gaze downward, each step made with meticulous care. The hard earth beneath her hooves glowed with the magma beneath it, and one wrong step could cause this path to crack apart. She didn’t tend to ...

War cries and clashing metal reverberated in Lorelai’s head. It stayed there, muffled, the large, open cavern she stood in otherwise empty of noise and movement. The water Lorelai stared at reverberated, too, pulsing with every stomp and thud of marching feet. The pond before her was shallow, perhaps not even deep enough to go past half her hoof were she to step within it. It glimmered with activity, though, its pul...

Harsh, heavy scuttling echoed in the chamber, sending shivers down Lorelai’s spine. She whirled her head around, hackles raised, scut-tail standing straight up, as she searched for the source of the noise. Her gaze locked on a glint in the dull cavern, the gray metal of steel. It shuffled about, crawling over rocks and damp greenery, growing closer, closer, but Lorelai stood her ground, her anxiety abated now that s...

Solid stone had turned to gravel in this cavern, each step of Lorelai’s hooves sinking some into the untraversed debris. She surveyed the area: rot touched every piece of wood that still held itself together, and mite holes and rust speckled each piece of fabric and metal she could make out from beneath layers of rubble. Piles of debris encircled what looked to be an ancient fire pit, the gravel there dotted white with ash with iron pots turned over within it....

Lorelai folded her legs beneath herself and settled on the cool stone floor. It was smooth and worn from the hooves of all the Coursers that’d wandered here before, and this small chamber’s ceiling was only a few hands higher than Lorelai’s head. Beads of water clung to each divot in the wall, and some dripped onto Lorelai’s smoky blue fur, a welcome relief from the exertion of dungeon diving. She rolled to he...

Lorelai steadied herself on her hooves as the booming echo faded away. Dust floated down, down, down from the high cavern ceiling, and lichens rustled their leaves, like this whole cavern’s heart had stopped at the golem’s voice. Where is your knight? he had said. The echo continued in Lorelai’s head, her lips pulling into a frown. Her ears flicked as her heart kept...