Author's Note:
You may have missed two updates before this.
Archeologist
Mountains always fascinated her from a young age. She always wondered about what lived deep in the belly of stone. Sometimes she found skeletons belonging to strange creatures. Other times, she found forbidding caves full of crude drawings of a strange language, accompanied with pictures of gruesome death and torture. And other times, she discovered true treasures.
She stood in what appeared to be a large hall entirely carved from stone. She was deep in the mountain. Silver veins crept along the walls and joined together in an elaborate web on the ceiling. The ceiling was supported by numerous pillars on either side. The carvings in the pillars were inlaid with gold. The structure must be thousands of years old, but it was built to last.
The hall opened into numerous other rooms. The doorways were empty and it was possible the doors were wooden that rotted away long ago. She heard members of her team working their way through the labyrinth of rooms.
"This must have been a city." She murmured. She encountered few skeletons on the way. She deduced from them that the people that lived here was small and stout, with clever fingers to work such masterpieces.
The archeologist held up the torch, watching the way the light reflect on gold and silver inlays. She made her way to a ruined archway and her breath caught. It led to a ruined staircase high above a pit. The staircase was broken in the middle, and there were no barriers on either side.
She took a single cautious step forward. Her foot struck something. It skittered away on the floor. She reached the object and knelt. It was an axe, rusted from disuse but the runes on it were still visible.
"Fascinating," she murmured.
She was so engrossed in what she found that she missed the flurry of movement of fire and shadow deep within the pit.
Author's Note:
This is Moria. Based on Gandalf's remark that older and fouler things dwell deep in the earth.
