A Haunting Melody

Xarus awoke an hour into the group's rest, rubbing his head. A small tinge of pain made itself known as he tried to sit up, stopping him for a moment before he slowly finished propping himself upright. He looked at the faces of his friends as he sat up, seeing their concern at his grimace of pain, and smiled sheepishly. "So, did we return the dragon?"

"Yes," answered Emmy, with a hint of annoyance in her voice. "Though if I ever get my hands on Meepo again.."

"Our reward was a key to the locked doorway, from when we first entered this place" Silas motioned to the door. An eerie sound crept from it, a foreboding melody that sent a chill down his spine. "Entering the room and hearing the music clearly compels you to return to the entrance, so we just decided to rest while figuring out how to proceed."

"I don't see the issue," Dan said, with his typical smile lining his face. "Isn't that right, Kunzite?" The bird responded with the call it always gave to it's master, an odd yell of 'Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!' "That's right, they're just babies."

Arisa eyed Bidawrih quizzically. "So...you worship a thief god? Are you some sort of criminal?"

Bidawrih flashed a quick smile. "Oh heavens no. I worship Shai, the patron god of rogues. Shai is a loving and caring deity, who understands taking from places long past to enhance the lives of his followers and those close to him."

"So, a tomb raider." Silas responded.

"We prefer to think of it as a holy duty over simply 'raiding,' but you may call it what you will. You must understand, the apples that have appeared in the local lands are said to be worth quite a fortune, and if this is the place where they do indeed grow then I figured it was worth my time." He stopped and turned his eyes over to the open door, the haunting melody still creeping out from it. "And as luck would have it, we appear to have just been allowed access to an incredibly old and guarded site. Who knows what loo- uh, artifacts of ages past, could be within! May Shai bless our findings." He curled his right hand into a fist with his thumb still extended, and drew a line with it across his throat.

So much now lay before the group of friends and their newly gained ally Bidawrih. The fate of Samira and Sir Bradford was still shrouded in mystery, somewhere deeper in this dungeon. The question of who this 'Belak' was and what the tree deeper in this old keep could possibly be. And now before them were the Kobolod's holy lands, with the first barrier in front of them being some strange magic unfamiliar to them. What other mysteries could lie ahead, and what awaited the band of heroes in the rooms ahead? Only time would tell.