Seeking The Ultimate Reward (Tia and HotTexasCowboy)

[Tia]

All of the stories and legends that she had read had led her here. Shia'll was sure of it. Here in this place, these ruins, there was the ancient treasure which belonged to the family she was very vaguely almost-part-of. But that didn't matter because she was the only one of that family left and so, she was the only one with a claim.

So, the young woman, long black hair tied back and sharp blue eyes looking around, made her way through the ruins. She had her short sword and she made sure that she was ready for anything (she thought) which might come along. As she walked she realised that here she was following some tracks and she felt her heart rate increase. Maybe here there was the artifact she searched for! Either way, Shia'll was very excited to get herself to the place where she was meant to be.

So, with soft footfalls, the young human woman made her way through the ruins and she felt a tingle of excitement at what might be ahead of her. Riches beyond the telling of it, no doubt and she was ready! Oh, she was more than ready and she carefully pushed open the large wooden door into the unknown.

 

[HotTexasCowboy]

Perhaps it had been a palace once, or a fortress. Abandoned, captured, razed; it was now a ruin, a skeleton of its past greatness. What was left above ground was a collection of half-exposed rooms. Somewhere would be a portal to the underground chambers, where hopefully more might have survived, not pillaged by generations of marauders and squatters. If only she could find it.

The door led to a huge dark room, with all four walls, remarkably, although a large opening in the roof exposed to the dark starlit sky. But there was illumination within the room. She saw a flickering campfire, with hulking shapes gathered around it, sticks holding hunks of meat over the flames. Something warned her she didn't want any part of this, but as she turned to retreat, another figure stepped out of the shadows and blocked her escape to the door.

“Well now,” muttered a deep voice that rattled like gravel in a tin, “what have we here? A visitor? Someone looking to raid our camp?” The figure stepped closer and exposed itself more to the firelight. She saw the broad jaw with the one side fang projecting from the bottom of its jaw. Orcs! she thought, just as she also saw its thick curved sword almost as tall as she herself, wielded by a stout arm as thickly muscled as her thigh.

“Come be our guest, human,” the creature growled, an order, not an invitation, emphasized by the crude leer on its thick lips.