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TWWWW SubChp.1 Unexpected Finding

(Let's take a quick moment to introduce the main character Tanya: A 16 year old porcupine with chestnut colour fur and her quills are white with a few black stripes, eye colour a faded blue. Now to the story)

Tanya gave a long sigh, she really didn't see the point in this.

What exactly? She had to spend a night in the ruined fortress the village was built next to, because of a stupid bet. It was an old military position, long forgotten in the side of the mountain. Eventually a group came and built a village in the fort's walls, it was a convenient position for its ready build defense and adjacent to a popular trade route from the ports to the capital.

Tonight she was going to be in the high up, main structure of the old fort. Though she wasn't far from other people she would need to yell pretty loud for anyone to hear her.

She finally made it up the stepped path to the entrance, she felt a bit intimidated by it. Built into the mountain was a fortified wooden door, at its sides were several small holes for archers to defend from, and above the door faucets for pouring burning oil on attackers. A hard bunker that served the last defense, a pity its door was completely destroyed by what must have been an explosion.

She walked inside and lit her torch, lighting up as much as she could of the dark interior. She could see 3 large ballistia in the entrance, intended to kill whatever broke in, from their broken sight it was clear they did not succeed. Their old wrecks obscured the path so after scrambling over them she was officially inside

As she walked further in the stories began to repeat themselves in her mind. Stories of how doors inside opened or locked on their own, empty armor moving on its own, and glowing green eyes in the darkness. She kept her eyes open and listened carefully for any kind of sign of ghosts as she walked down the bare stone corridor.

She came to a bunch of doors in the stone walls. She went to the nearest and opened the old wooden door and peeked inside and... Nothing, just what looked like a small store room with empty barrels and cobwebs. She left the room and moved to the next door. She opened the door, winching as this one screeched as it opened. Inside were some broken crates, a barrel and a pile old bones on the floor. Kind of disappointing. "On to the next room" she said to herself.

She opened the next door without a care this time, she wasn't feeling like being cautious. The room was reasonably big, but some of the ceiling had caved in at the back. The rest of the room was littered with broken beds, scattered bits of armor and a few bones. Was this a barracks? She turned and was about to leave when she heard a metal scraping noise. Her quills leaped up to attention as she spun around so fast she nearly killed her torch. Next to the wall a suit of intact armor fell over, scraping against the wall as it fell over and crashed with a loud clang to the ground.

She stood staring at the rusted armor in silence, expecting it to jump up at any moment. After a while of nothing happening she calmed and dismissed it as random event. She left the room and continued on exploring. She guessed she should just find a spot to sleep. She really didn't believe there was anything here, the tales were most likely just fiction. Though going and checking everywhere wasn't a bad idea, she really didn't want to be caught off guard by some spirit or prankster.

She walked down the hall to its dark end where it split in two. She turned left but found the path completely blocked with rubble. She turned and went down the right path and came across a partly broken door. She pushed it open and entered a small room with two doors. The one was covered in old red paint that was flaking off. The other was heavily reinforced with large metal plates and bars crossing over it. The red door poked her curiosity and she went over to it and tried the handle. The door opened a bit before it got stopped by something behind it. She peered inside through the gap but could only see rocks.

Another caved in part. And she felt disappointed, a red painted door all alone in a bleak fortress felt as if it may hold some great secret.

No choice but the armoured door. But she didn't have any hope that it would be possible to open, she didn't even see a keyhole or a handle. She moved to it and placed her hand on the metal and pushed with no result. Pulling on one of the bars had no effect on the door either.

With no result from either door she stopped for a moment to think of what to do. But her thoughts were interrupted when the door she originally came through swung back with a sharp squeak and shut with a loud bang.

She nearly jumped out of her skin. But she reacted fast and ran to the door and shouted. "Who's there?!" But just before she could pull the door open she heard the latch lock. She grabbed the door handle and tugged furiously at it but the door didn't budge.

Fear began to fill her but she held it back. There weren't really ghosts here, just some prankster, she thought. This was nowhere near the rift or near the magi academy, and she was sure she heard some metallic shuffling noises from the other side. She looked through the cracks in the door and saw the rusted suit of armour hunched over and shuffling away.

"Come back here! Let me out!" She shouted after him as she proceeded to bang on the door. "Don't leave me locked-"her sentence was cut short by a loud clunk and rattling of metal. She looked over her shoulder and stared paralyzed with fear.

The reinforced door was open and she watched a large mass of black with vertical white stripes slip through the opened door, and the door close behind it with another clunk and rattle.

She dropped her torch, the torch nearly dying out, and fell to her knees before she curled up into a fetal position. She simply lay there shaking and whimpering for what must have been an hour. Her mind eventually began to work again and asked why she wasn't dead yet? Maybe it won't kill her? What was it? Was it the whole time behind her? Or did it enter behind her. But the thought that began to dominate her thoughts was that she needed to escape. She stopped whimpering and got up. Still badly shaken it took her a while to get standing and to pick up her torch. The door she came through was damaged but she doubted she could break it completely. She moved to the red door while keeping an eye on the reinforced door. She grabbed the red door's handle and opened and closed it repeatedly, noting that every time it opened a bit more. It may be possible there is an exit through the door she thought.

She continued trying to open the door over and over, with each try she heard rubble falling over. She only stopped when she heard glass shattering. She looked over her shoulder at the other door for a while to see if nothing had moved in. She returned her attention to the red door, the gap was now a reasonable size to squeeze through. She moved her torch and right arm through first, then her other arm and then began climbing onto the rocks as she squeezed through the gap.

As she got through she got her opportunity to see what was behind the door. A room, its walls covered with red paint that was peeling off at some points, a red carpet, and expensive looking furniture made from mahogany. She also found the rocks she was climbing over damp, from water dripping from the ceiling, and some mushrooms growing in the pool of water on the carpet. Besides the smell of damp she also smelled something sweet? She got her legs through and clambered down off the rocks. She stood in the room and started to take a better look around, she needed to find another path, but there were no other doors here. Maybe there is a hidden passage? She saw what blocked the door was in fact a tall set of shelves, stacked with bottles, one of which lay broken on the ground and looked like it contained wine. There was a cupboard, when she opened its door and inside was just some dusty clothes that have been eaten by moths and a whole bunch of dead moths. She punched the back board a bit and searched for a lever or handle, and found nothing. She moved away from the cupboard to a small wall mounted chandelier with long strands of wax hanging from it. She gripped it and pulled. Her heart jumped with joy when it started to move but met crashing disappointment when it just snapped off the wall. She moved on and noted a large painting above the bed in the room. She immediately leaned over the bed ad ripped the painting off the wall with one hand. Behind the painting was a hole in the wall. A strange joy began to fill her at seeing the hole. It was just big enough for a person to fit through. Though she wouldn't be able to take her rather bulky torch, she got to digging through her bag and pulled out a handier candle and lit it using the torch before killing it using some of her bottled water.

The candle gave less light but she could carry it through the hole. She got her bag and climbed on the bed and into the hole. It was definitely cramped inside and as she moved her quills scraped against the top of the tunnel. Before her she could just see more tunnel, and the light of the candle couldn't reach that far in the tunnel leaving a great big black unknown that she needed to crawl to.

She continued on and on. The tunnel turned and started angling downwards. And she could start hearing music. And after another long crawl she went around another turn and could see a dim cliché light at the end of the tunnel. As she crawled to the light the music started to become louder, it sounded like a whole band, but now she could start hearing that there was something off about the music.

She was afraid at what she might find at the end of the tunnel. But she had no other way. She crawled onwards till she reached the end.

The tunnel opened into a tiny room filled with crates and barrels and lit by light coming from a passage out of the room. She could just barely get out the tunnel and stand up. She saw in one of the open crates there were apples. Strangely they looked kind of fresh. She left the room through the passage and immediately walked into another room.

She really didn't expect this. In the centre of the room was some bright orange glowing stone that illuminated the room. By the stone was a bed made from fluffy animal hides on the floor. To the side of the room was a pile of animal hides, bit to the side of that was a pile of books. There was an easel with a half painted painting surrounded with small pots. A pair of potted plants. A bunch of canvases stacked against the wall. A bunch of buckets, one filled with cutlery and plates. And a table with a single chair by it.

But what was stranger than the glowing stone was what stood on a large metal box. On top of it was a smaller brass block, a black disk spinning round with a small brass pole poking it sat on top if it, form the side of the block rose a long, twisting brass flower. Most extraordinary of this brass construction was that the music she was hearing was coming out of the flower.

She didn't know whether she should be intrigued or afraid. How was such a small device containing a whole band? She began to reach out a hand to the box when suddenly the light coming from the stone blacked out and she was left alone with only the light of her candle.

She began shaking. She didn't want to know why the light just disappeared. She heard something in the room. Did someone say something? "W-wh-o is there?" she stuttered, turning around and staring into the black of the room that her candle did not illuminate.

From the darkness a pair of green eyes stared.

"I said: get away from that, or die."

She really only heard the 'die' part of what the ghost said. She felt faint. She reached out her left hand to the metal box to stabilize herself.

Before she could touch the box a blade shot out of the dark and swiped at her left hand. Her left wrist stung painfully. She screamed and turned to run but she tripped and fell, then blank.