The man had been walking through the forest for what felt like hours. However he soon began to feel like he was being watched, he became more and more paranoid as he walked further into the forest. He also swore that every now and again he would see eyes in the background of the forest. Suddenly a cloud of fog surrounded him, it felt cold and had an almost evil feel to it. It was very thick as the man could barely see a foot in front of him, suddenly he took another step, lost his footing, and fell about three feet into a pit that had been covered up by the fog.
"Goddammit" he cursed. After he deduced that he had not been injured he took in his surrounding's as the fog began to clear away. He then realized that he was not in just a pit, but rather a den/nest of another animal. There were bones and old carcasses scattered about throughout the pit, some bones had clear bite marks on them while others had been snapped in half. The man quickly got up and began to climb out of the pit, after that he planned to head in the opposite direction as fast as possible. However when he got to the top he almost fell back down in disbelief and literal shock at what he saw. There standing right in front of him was a Manticore, a lion with bat like wings and the tail of a scorpion. The man was only taken out of his initial shock when the manticore roared at him, likely a result of him 'trespassing' in it's home.
The man quickly raised his machine gun and aimed it at the beast while getting into his defensive stance from earlier. The Manticore however just raised its eyebrows at him, likely expecting him to run and not actually defend himself. However when the Manticore eventually charged at him the man opened fire with the machine gun striking the manticore on his left leg and lower body. The Manticore almost immediately collapsed to the ground howling in pain while the man took this opportunity to escape. He must have run for nearly two miles before he came to a stop and was able to reflect on what had just happened.
"What the fuck was that" he asked himself. The man ran through his mental list of every animal that existed on Earth(that he knew of course). However he could not find anything that accurately fit the description of the creature he had just encountered. The only thing that came close that he could think of was a Manticore, but they're only in fairly tales... in fiction... right?
"Yes, only in fiction" the man told himself. "Only in fiction, they're just myth and legend... I must be dreaming, either that or I've died and gone to hell" he continued.
Suddenly he heard another loud roar, the Manticore had seemed to recover from his injuries and was giving chase. Without a second to lose he jumped up and started to run again. Thankfully he had been exercising regularly for the past ten or so years so he could easily run from the manticore for quite a while. However thanks to his decent knowledge about mythical creatures the man knew that the Manticore would eventually catch up to him as it was faster, running would only delay the inevitable so he needed to find a place to hide. Just as luck would have it he then saw an old ruined castle through the foliage.
"Well better than nothing" he said.
The castle however was across a ravine with an old unsafe looking bridge between him and the castle. The man hesitated for a second before a second roar from the manticore made him realize that he was going to have to cross the bridge. Cursing his luck he put his right foot on the bridge, once it was clear that the bridge could somehow take his weight he pressed forwards. He was about halfway across the bridge when the manticore burst through the trees and stopped at the edge of the cliff. The man looked back at him and the manticore looked at the man. After a few seconds a smirk came to the manticore's face as he raised his right paw and extended his claw. After realizing what the manticore was going to do the man turned and booked it. No sooner had he turned a snapping sound echoed from behind him as well as the bridge began to fall.
"That fucker cut the rope!" he thought.
He was right as the bridge began it's descent into the foggy depths below, thinking fast the man grabbed onto one of the planks and prayed that there were no rocks directly below him, and that the bridge was somehow stronger than it looked. After a couple of seconds the man slammed into the other side of the cliff. He was sure that the bridge would break and he would fall to his death but the bridge didn't break. Above him he heard the manticore huff through the fog and then walk away, wincing every now and then, he had thought the man had died. Slightly shaking the man began to climb the now vertical bridge by using each plank on it as a point to pull himself up almost like how you would climb a ladder. After a while of climbing he finally reached the top.
"Finally" he said to himself as he looked at the reward for his efforts. The once primitive looking and run down castle now looked like a casino and resort built into one.
As he approached the old structure he took in its shape, design, and condition. For the most part the structure looked very old and run down, likely not having been used for a very long time. Due to this it was almost impossible to tell what the original design may have been but from what the man saw it probably was comparable to your average castle design from the middle ages. There was also a path from the bridge that led to two massive wooden doors at the base of the castle which was likely the main entry point in the castles heyday. The man walked up to the doors and to his surprise they opened just from him pushing slightly against them.
"Strange, I thought I would have to blow them up based on how my luck is today" he thought, however the man was grateful.
After he walked through he was surprised at what he saw, instead of finding a throne room like he expected too he instead saw a podium looking thing in the center of a empty room with six pieces of cut stone emerging from it. There were also small perfectly round stones on them. The small pieces of stones also had strange symbols carved into them.
"Quite strange" the man thought, however he was also intrigued. After a few more seconds of staring at the podium he then set about exploring the rest of the castle.