Vines and moss covered crumbling stone, but even in the dim lamplight, there were some details that stuck out.
"These ruins..." Amell murmured.
"Tevinter," Sten groused. He was tense-- more so than usual.
She reached out and touched the nearest remains of a wall. The Veil was thin here, a sure sign that powerful magic had once been employed. This was unsurprising; one could scarcely find any ruins of Tevinter origins that were not once the site of powerful magic.
There were remnants of walls, but only two chambers could be identified by the foundations they left behind. The stream indeed sprung from the foot of a wall, the tallest still remaining, but nothing much else could be said of it.
Instead, Amell walked to the other side of the ruins, where a lone archway still stood. It was tall, reaching upwards into the foliage, beyond the light of the lamp. But as she moved beneath it and looked up, she could identify a faint turquoise glow. She lowered the lamp and the glow intensified, but became marked by strange striations. She shifted her position to get a better look.
It was a sphere of some sort, certainly a solid object that glowed, because it was suspended by a tangle of twine. She thought it might have been a bird's nest of some sort, but birds most certainly didn't know how to tie knots (unless this foreign land was stranger than she'd anticipated).
"What is it?" Sten asked apprehensively.
"I'm not sure," Amell admitted.
She took another step closer, standing straight under the archway. The strange light was strangely alluring, like a siren's song heard from a great distance--
--and the ground shifted.
Amell jumped in one swift move, expecting to have triggered any manner of trap (fire or spikes or explosions or something completely new and original), but nothing happened. The archway remained still and silent. Then, after a few tense seconds, a horrid grinding noise sounded, like two slabs of stone sliding against each other and just as it became silent again, there was a flash, like green lightning.
Amell blinked and rubbed her eyes.
"Maker's breath, what happened?" she muttered.
"A trap, perhaps," Sten suggested, sounding displeased.
Amell finally regained her sight, only to notice that, taken by surprise by the flash, she'd dropped the lamp on the ground. It was cracked and the light inside had gone out. She had no time to ponder on this, however, because looking up, the formerly empty archway was now filled by a door.
"Terribly elaborate for a trap, though," Amell mused. "Who'd go through this much trouble?"
"Someone who likes playing with their prey," Sten answered.
The door was... not in any way ominous. It was made from some sort of red wood, bathed in the faint glow of the sphere still hanging in the tangle of twine.
She reached out and touched it. The doorknob was an elaborate little iron figurine of a woman with long hair, a bizarre contrast to the plainness of the door itself. She could feel the magic humming in the air and in the wood of the door. It called to her, strangely enough. Perhaps this was what had lured Dyson away from the campsite.
"I do not like this trickery," Sten said warningly.
"It's not Tevinter magic," Amell breathed. "It's not any kind of magic I'm familiar with. It's... odd. It feels very..."
She struggled for words. "Beautiful" came to mind. "Exotic", certainly. "Chaotic", a little. "Wild" seemed to fit somewhat, but that word bore unpleasant memories for Amell, so she pushed it out of her thoughts.
She retracted her hand and took a step back.
"What is wrong?" Sten asked, raising a hand to her shoulder protectively. Amell barely took notice of it.
"Can't you feel it?" she asked, shrinking away from the door while simultaneously wanting to approach it.
"No."
Amell bit her lip.
"It's in my mind, calling me to it."
"Then we should leave at once--"
"No," Amell interrupted. "It's not... compelling me. It simply whispers suggestions. But it might explain what happened to Dyson and that other girl."
"This whole situation seems dangerous," Sten said darkly.
"Of course it is," Amell laughed nervously. "We only ever get in dangerous situations. We never get to go anywhere nice," she added with a mischievous grin. "But I'm curious to see where this takes us."
Before Sten could say anything, she grabbed the doorknob and opened the door.
It swung inwards slowly, soundlessly, revealing not the darkness of the forest that should have been there, but a blue-lit corridor.
"This just gets stranger and stranger, doesn't it?" Amell muttered, peering inside.
"I find that magic gets strangest before it gets deadly," Sten replied, as grim as ever.
But he still followed.
---
Author's note: I hope you all will forgive this short hiatus I took when I tell you exams are almost over. I'm not sure I'll be up to the task of daily updates (and I promise nothing, because I do not want to tempt fate), but I'm working on this fic again. Yay.