A Scroll

It appeared to be a slim stone tube, and at first Lois Lane mistook it as a kind of wand. Then she identified the seem around one end, and unscrewing it, discovered that the thin tube contained a tightly-rolled piece of paper or parchment. Setting her smartphone against the wall to provide light, Lois carefully unrolled it, curious to see what ultimate secret the sorceress had hidden up her pussy...and why she hadn't used it.

Unfurled, the scroll was about six inches by three. Dark lines of ancient Greek characters covered it. Nothing Lois could read; if she had any cell or wi fi coverage down here she could use an app to translate it, but as it was she was left trying desperately to remember her highschool lessons. Even if she couldn't understand the words, she could pronounce the individual letters...

It had to be some kind of spell. But what was it, and what would it do? Lois had no idea. She could try and wake Circe up and ask her...but that seemed like a bad idea as well.

Lois chewed over the idea. To try and read the spell, or not?

"I didn't become the Daily Planet's greatest reporter by being a coward," she muttered under her breath.

Holding the light close to the scroll, conscious of all the many ways this could go wrong, Lois Lane began to speak the words of the spell. Her mouth moved through the unfamiliar phonetics, some of which didn't sound like any Greek words she had ever heard of, but could almost be names...of who or what, Lois wasn't certain...and the final word especially was a tongue-twister. Lois did her best, annunciating carefully...and then sat there waiting for something to happen.

The smartphone screen flickered and died. The room became dark...preternaturally dark, like the darkness before time began, when light was not even a memory...and Lois felt a chill settle into her skin as she heard the darkness begin to breathe. A foul old smell hit her nostrils, like the reek of a dirty pair of period panties that had fallen behind the hamper and been forgotten for weeks. The hairs stood up on the reporter's neck as she felt a third presence in the darkened chamber with herself and the sleeping sorceress.

"Who's there?" Lois called out, standing up and putting up her fists, ready to punch out the lights of whoever it was.

The darkness answered.