A pilgrim in a dark place, a place that doesn’t want him. Yet still he came, a mixture of curiosity and a hunger for adventure had pulled him to the elvish ruin. It was a ruin, yet it was different than those he had seen before. Most were desolate places, long forgotten, or recently rediscovered by their newest inhabitants. Kyneryth reclaimed what men and mer forgot, vines and moss scaled their walls, weeds and grasses flanked them for all directions, wind and rain lay siege till the ancient stones gave way. But not here…

No vine crawled the white stone walls, no grass grew within a half mile, and what weeds dared grow did so away from the shadow of the elvish ruin. A lone tree lay alone like a great dead sentinel.

The tomb, (for that’s what it really is), remained mostly intact. White stone was unmolested, not a single brick stolen by imperial craftsman. Great Ivory columns and arches rose up out of the ground like the bones of a giant reaching for the sky. In the center of all of this was a marble construct that the pilgrim knew led down deep into the earth. The entrance was misleading, it squatted shortly compared to the great columns, and some of the pale arches rose higher than it.

As the pilgrim drew closer to the entrance a number of shuffling bodies began to come in to view. Ancient guardians, his very presence was an affront to them. Many were nothing more than tightly drawn skin over sharp bones with rotting straps holding heavy armor to their emaciated frames. They bore their neglected weapons clumsily in their bony hands. Rusted axes and nicked blades, they held no threat to the pilgrim.

He stood loosely, feet shoulder width apart, an ebony mace was in his hand, he loosely turned it in his hand. His emerald shield reflected the morning sun as he advanced toward the closest undead. It let out a horrifying shriek as it charged toward him, a rusty axe held high. The pilgrim side stepped the creature, as it passed he brought down his mace into the base of it neck. It abruptly stopped and fell lifelessly to the ground.

He turned around to face the next combatants, One was like the first, dry skin and bone, the other was much more moist, fresher even. Neither one claimed enough agility to strike the pilgrim as he dodged the dry ones slow swing of a great axe, and the awkward swings of the dank zombie. As the brittle wight was the easiest to dispatch, and the more deadly of the two attackers it was the first to be stricken with his mace. The zombie lurched forward to get another graceless swing at the pilgrim, he leapt skillfully backwards, and whacked the zombie on the side of its head, producing a sickening, squelching sound.

As the zombie fell, another gaunt figure charged him with a worn sword, and rusted iron shield. It managed to produce chilling shriek without its lower jaw. It was faster than its companions, and more skilled. It’s sword slashed his shield with four quick strikes one after another. Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Each hit jarred his arm, sending painful shocks up his arm and shoulder. His mace answered the four hits with one of his own, the wight met his mace with rusted shield. The shield crumbled but the recoil of the blow was jarring. Both of them staggered a step backwards after the strike. The pilgrim recovered an instant before the creature, and he brought his mace up unopposed to the dead things fragile skull. It fell backwards landing on the ground.

A low moan from behind him turned his sight down to the rank zombie as it began rise back up. He grabbed his fallen opponents blade up from the ground and thrust it into the back of the rising zombie. It slid easily through the rotten flesh and sunk into the bare ground halfway up the blade, pinning the zombie to the earth. It thrashed weakly in the ground, unable to rise again, the pilgrim ignored it.

Four guardians were all that protected the exterior of this place? Unlikely…but nothing moved besides the pilgrim, and the weak thrashings of the pinned zombie. The air was still and there was no noise of insects…something was wrong, the whole place felt ominous, for a brief moment he felt a dire need to flee this place. Let the dead keep their secrets, let other fools attempt to plunder whatever treasure lay in this haunted place.

It passed. All the same the place needed a quick investigation. Walking in the shadow of this place raised the hairs on his neck. He found evidence of fighting on the eastern side of the dungeon, a broken arrow here, a discarded sword lay forgotten over there. He found the ground soaked with blood in one spot, the mark was fresh, but he found no body. No fallen guardians, no murdered treasure hunters.

He returned to the front of the ruin, to the area where he had dispatched the four undead. The zombie still lay thrashing on the ground, weaker than before. He spotted a rusted axe, taking it in his hand he raised it up and swung it at the zombies neck. A wet plop and it went still and silent.

He turned and walked up to the entrance, a bluish engraving of a tree marked the door. He put his palm on ancient door, it opened easily as he carefully pushed it open. The inky darkness obscured the room, he could see stairs that went steeply down. Reaching for his magicka he cast a light spell, the room let up under the pale emerald light. He could see farther down the stairs, but not by much. He took a deep breath and began his decent
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I thought i'd wright a story about dungeon diving. So the character isn't real fleshed out. He's not really as important as teh place, but i plan on adding more details about him as he goes through. Thanks for reading, please comment, criticize, offer to fix my horrible spelling and grammer lol

It is absolutely wonderful. Seriously, this is extremely well-written, and I look forward to the next installments. Keep up the good work!