Shandom was on board so there was no turning back now. The spirit of adventure sang to her soul and with tail wagging she trotted into the strange cave alongside her trusted Gamma. Gold eyes flickered in the dim light that poured through the mouth of the cave, though they stared down into darkness. “They do keep going, I wonder how far.” The iron tracks went on as far as she could see, into that great darkness, and wondering where they led was both frightening and thrilling.
The other made an assumption about the purpose of the tracks that were affixed to the ground and she considered it for a moment, pausing in her steps to sniff at them. She noticed there were wooden planks beneath the iron, running perpendicular to the tracks. The wood was rotted by age and weather and taken over by moss and weeds. “Interesting… look at that…” she muttered softly before speaking up. “ Maybe it is a hunting device, but I can’t imagine how it was used. They had all manner of machines to process their food for them, though, some I will never understand. They were so lazy and I heard that they never had to hunt thanks to their devices. I bet they were all fat.” She giggled at the thought.
She raised her head, no longer so interested in the wooden ties, and began to walk again. “We should be wary in case it was some machine. Keep your ears and nose open,” she advised in the official Alphess voice. It was obvious why she didn’t add ‘eyes’ to it too. They were headed into darkness, and though they had good night vision, unless there was some strange light source they would not be able to make out too much.
The instant the advisory was spoken – mostly for her own benefit for surely Shandom already intended to be careful – she was back in play mode. Her tail raised high and wagging, tongue lolled out of her mouth. The cave smelled of dampness, rock, and metal. There were more constructs on the walls that had gone rotten with time; wooden support beams that made the shaft seem unnaturally angular. It should have been frightening, and Titania had a natural tenancy to shy away from the machinations of the humans, but there was a strange wild allure to this place for it had not been completely defiled by human hand, only altered.
“What is that?!” She barked in surprise. Though they moved into the obscurity of the darkness, something on the wall glistened as she went past. It caught her eye and she leaped sideways, turning to peer at the sight. The light from outside still touched this area, only slightly though, and there was some kind of magical rock that caught the light and shimmered with silvery tendrils of light. “It’s beautiful!” She eased closer to it, stretching out her neck to nose at the gemstone… or was it metal?... she didn’t know for sure, but she sniffed at it all the same before rearing onto her hind legs and pawing at it - but no matter how hard she scratched at the wall the thing would not come loose.
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