The Dragon's Legacy: Return

Chapter Seventeen: Past Foretold

After everyone had regained themselves, and Esbern traveled around the company with healing spells, they continued their way into the cave. the silence between them only broken by Esbern's exclamations when they came upon a turn in the tunnel.

Delphine eyed the man, a small smile forming on her blood-caked face. "This looks promising."

Before them was a large chamber, the ceiling that opened up into the night sky, which had begun to clear up from the overcast clouds. There were giant pillars and bridges of stone connecting passage to passage on wither side of the opening. Each stone seemed a work of art, each intricately designed to flow within the space.

Esbern practically leaped with joy at the sight of the architecture before them. "Yes! Definitely early Akiviri stonework here!"

There was a small path that led up to three smaller pillars, each with matching insignias of two heads of a dragon faces each other, and an arrow in between them, another with a helmet sort of carving, and then a castle depicted on the last one. If one would have walked around each pillar, you could find each symbol upon a side of the three-sided pillars that supported nothing. To the left of the pillars was a stone bridge, yet it was pulled up like a drawbridge so that you could not pass.

"We've got to get this bridge down," Delphine muttered, slightly kicking the stonework that lay near her boots. "These pillars must have something to do with it."

Esbern nodded and began tracing the etching of the pillars with his aged fingertips. "Yes. These are Akiviri symbols. Let's see..." He moved from each one. "You have the symbol for 'King'... and 'Warrior'... and of course the symbol for 'Dragonborn'." He motioned Eerika to come closer.

Esbern tried to move the pillars, to rotate them so that the symbol for Dragonborn was facing forward. He grunted with effort, but Eerika and Lydia came in and pushed the stones. After the third pillar had been set in place, a hum started to go throughout the room, and the bridge dropped silently.

After they had crossed the mossed-covered platform and through a dark tunnel, they came into a dark, dank room, the stench of old standing water filling Eerika's senses. But as she stepped closer into the room, Esbern held out a hand of caution. "Wait." He stated, halting the group in the dark.

Delphine grumbled, "Why are we stopping?"

Eerika saw him start a spell in his palm, and threw it into the center of the room. It was a mage light spell, the fist-sized ball of light showing what laid before them that had previously been hiding beneath a blanket of shadow. It was a room of large tiles on the floor, each with a glyph carved into it.

"We should be careful here." He mumbled, leaning down to examine the tiles. "See these symbols on the floor?"

Delphine nodded, looking deeper into the room. "Hmm. Esbern's right. Look like pressure plates." She then stepped a foot on the nearest tile, the symbol for 'King'. A loud CLICK sounded, and a stream of fire poured from the opening in the wall.

Esbern leaped back and glared at Delphine, who shrugged her shoulders. "We'll cross once it's safe." He glowered.

But Eerika got an idea. She saw that chain hung from a rock outcrop on the opposite side of the room, no doubt the off switch to the contraptions. Stepping forward, she carefully placed a foot on the tile of 'Dragonborn'. No click sounded and no spouts of fire engulfed her as she set her whole weight on the tile. In front of her was another 'Dragonborn' plate. She continued to leap delicately across the room on the tiles, landing on the tile closest to the chain in a matter of seconds. Pulling the chain, a large groan came from machinery on the other side of the wall, making the tiles hiss as they sunk into the ground, leaving a flat surface of inactivated tiles to walk across.