The entrance to the cave was barred by a large wooden door that stretched several handspans above Ihrie's head. Luckily, the staircase had eventually worn a deep enough path into the mountainside to block out all but the bitterest chill, with the wind itself nonexistent. This gave the girls a small reprieve and let them warm up enough to check the entry thoroughly.
The worn oak was fairly plain, and the only bit that caught their attention was a depression in the wood near the center of the door, where it appeared something once had been inlaid. The shape of the missing piece looked vaguely familiar to Ihrie, but it wasn't until Fam started jumping up and down excitedly that she recalled just what it reminded her of.
"Ihrie, it's the," Fam started to interject.
"Don't you dare touch that!"
It was an outline of the Satori Dragon. But, where was the three-eyed effigy?
"I wasn't going to touch anything Ihrie," the cat-girl's pout was obvious even through the layers of cloth. "It's just the spot where it goes anyway."
"Maybe. I just don't want a repeat of last time," the taller girl grumped in return. "We do need to find a way in though. It's not getting any warmer out here."
Fam's slight form wobbled as if she were nodding affirmation. "I can't feel my tail."
Ihrie paid the complaints little attention as she attempted to give the door an experimental shove. The wood creaked a little, but otherwise showed no sign of budging. There wasn't any handle, or place to get a good enough grip to pull on the door, so she left it at that. It didn't look like they were going to just force their way in, and she wasn't going to risk casting a spell. It was cold enough in her current form, she didn't even want to consider the short work the weather would make of her in a tiny rat body.
There was Fam of course, but asking her was pretty much out of the question as well. The Wiccan had been going on about the upset spirits the whole trek up to the mountain, and Ihrie had been around the girl long enough to know that Fam was very rarely willing to even risk upsetting the spirits with outright destruction.
"I didn't come all this way for nothing," Ihrie mumbled to herself, as she pulled a satchel out from beneath her robes, and dug for the map.
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(Posted Thu, 28 Dec 2006 23:13)
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