With a half-baked plan.

The same bathhouse as before. No blood, no ritualistic oddities, and no noise. I head to the room where I had stayed the night prior, only to find nothing but the bed, left as it was in a poorly maintained state of wrinkled, damn sheets; with tossed about blankets and pillow. Back in the bath, there were more doors, one opposite the bedroom, and one opposite the portal.

Halicarnassus.

I am pulled toward the doorway across from the portal. Entering, I find an empty dining area, with fresh plates, wine glasses, and cutlery dotted across a vast, finely decorated table, which itself sat upon a danty, long rug. The room itself seemed to have been cut directly from another house; grafted too this Domain as a keepsake. The wooden planks that made up the walls seemed utterly dry, despite lacking any protection from the moisture-thick steam coming from the bathhouse at all times. I see no other means out of this dinning area...

Halicarnassus.

I'm pulled further in the direction of the table. Once I reach its center, I'm pulled downward. I fling the entire thing forward, crashing it into the wall in a cacophony of shattering woodwork. The rug is next to go, ripped in half, with each end tossed aside; revealing a trapdoor.

"Why would she hide secret doors in her own personal little slice of the Hells..."

Don't know. Don't care.

Pulling open the door, I find a ladder; a dark, yet easy enough descent... if I didn't have an enormous pair of wings behind me. An idea forms. A terrible, awful, no-good, bad idea.

I hate this...

I focus on my back, doing all I can to think of my wings as nothing more than a figment of my imagination; a memory to be forgotten. An idea that can be let go. Pain surges from my back as I hear a series of loud snapping and crackling. Running my hand along my back, It were as though my wings had never existed. I head down the ladder, inching my way downwards with each little step down the narrow hole. Unable to see, I simply have to have faith the ladder won't...

*snap*

Damn it!

I'm in a freefall downwards as the final step snaps, dropping me into a pitch black nothing. Just as I'm about to attempt to will my wings back into being, I hit the smooth, stone ground hard, the air evacuating from my lungs like they were bellows being stomped by a giant. As I gather myself, I find it hard to see in this seemingly unnatural shadow. I breath deeply, only to feel something enter my mouth.

"Agh! Pleh! Pleh!" I spit out whatever it was working its way into my body out of shock

"What are you doing!? This is a veritable buffet for you!"

...what?

"You're a dragon, infused with the power of Dark! Why would you stop eating these shadows?!"

Eat... shadows...

"By Carnachias's strap-on... you're hopeless."

Feeling around my mouth, there's no evidence of anything strange or slimy having made its way into my gullet. I breath deeply once more, and feeling something akin to smoke rush into my throat. Soon, the room around me clears entirely of its enchantment, revealing a stone room; etched with a large swirling symbol across the ground. Aside from the feeling of satisfaction at having unveiling the room, I feel as though I had just eaten a three course meal; yet, with no sensation of bloating or sluggishness, as though I had taken in raw energy.

I can do that?

"What does that fuzzball even teach you!?"

Math... Science... History...

"So nothing useful in a life or **** situation. Fucking Light Worshippers..."

Looking around, there were several pathways out of the enchanted trap room. One leads down into a pit; filled with spikes, serpents, and more spikes. Another loops around another entrance to the trapped room, creating the illusion of progress as you stumble around the dark, and eventually fall for the previously mention spike path. The last has an actual door, which seems too have been built to feel like nothing more than a series of cracks in the wall, preventing the blinded victim from finding it before dying to the spike pit.

Before opening the door, I look to the swirling etching; which slowly begins to create more shadow smoke.

Ariel would have told the others, no doubt. They'll come looking for me, and find that portal. If I leave this enchantment active... No. We can't have that...

I take another deep breath, feeling the pressure build in my throat, and releasing my dark-flame breath to burn the ground. After the etching is thoroughly melted away, and the darkness stops its rise, I return too the door. Rather than simply open it, and allow it to possibly close behind me, I grab each cracked side of the door. I begin to pull with all my might, struggling against the stone until it finally breaks away with a satisfying *shtwing!* of its locking mechanisms. Lifting the door above my head like a boulder, I slam it down below where the ladder led me; hopfully easing any fall my friends could have on their way to me.

I return to the doorway; my body itching for the chance to fight my target.