You take the risk

Whatever lies on the other side of this round portal may be just what Cassia needs to recover, there may even be something that can help you make your way through the catacombs and rescue Eudora, but on the other hand it might...

The latch at the center of the door releases the door as if it had been oiled and tested just yesterday and you step back with a firm grip on your pole arm excavating tool, ready for anything that might come bursting through the door. What you aren't ready for is the burst of light that shines through the door. It is almost as bright as the blinding flash that had emanated from the blue stone and seared the demons riding you not that long ago. After hours of creeping through the undercity with only the half light of the bluestones the brilliant light that flooded from the sealed room blinds you for a few seconds. When your vision returns you see what looks like afternoon sunlight pouring out of the chamber and onto the dusty floor of the great outer hall.

Blinking a few more times helps a little and you peer in through the round doorway, inside you see a bedroom with a large round bed near the back of the room and a collection of matching furniture tastefully arranged between the bed and your position. The light source is a great glass window that appears to look out on a distant mountain range. How can window deep underground look out over a scenic view? Yet this is clearly not a picture, when you step closer to the clear glass pane you can see movement in the clouds that drift through the blue skies and a half-dozen drakes circling over a distant meadow. Pushing the impossibility of the window for the moment, you pick up Cassia's unconscious form and step into the room.

This room looks as fresh and clean as any room used every day, a vase of green glass is full of fragrant flowers and a bowl of mixed fruit sits on the table without a sign of rot or decay. Even the air is clean, almost as though the window let in the mountain air free of dust, or the stench of the city above. You set Cassia's limp body gently on the chaise and squirt some water from your skin into her mouth, reflexively she tries to swallow but a trickle of water escapes from her mouth and dribbles down her chin dripping onto her peeking breast. The sight of her nipple hardening as the trickle of water chills it is easily as erotic as anything the demons had done to break your will. With an angry snort you turn your back on the temptation of her naked flesh and examine the rest of the room.

Everywhere are signs of wealth and luxury - a large gold rimmed mirror hangs on the wall, the silvered glass is smoother than a pool of still water - not even you mistress had such a fine looking glass; the fruit rests in a silver wire basket and the table and chairs are inlaid with mother of pearl that shimmers with a luminescence against the dark fine grained wood of the furniture. Moving past the table and chairs you approach the bed, more than the other furniture in the room, this bed accentuates how different this room is from what you are used to. Not just because of its circular shape or the carvings on the panels that encircle the mattress that depict scenes of demonic orgies, the brilliant colors of the starburst pattern of the bed covering is unlike anything you've ever seen and even the feel of the fabric different from any cloth you can remember. Every couple feet, coils of braided silver chain hang in neat loops from the carved hooks, if really made of silver, those finely crafted chains alone are more valuable than anything you've ever seen in your young life.

On the far side of the chamber is a small wooden platform and on the wall rising from the floor behind the platform are curved blocks of woods hanging from hinges; it takes you a second or too to realize that the sensuously carved wooden blocks are actually stocks that could be used to fasten a captive by the throat, wrists and ankles immobilizing them against the wall. Sitting on a shelf right between where the captive's legs would be is a jewel encrusted golden dildo carved with amazing realism, and hanging on both sides of the stocks is a collection of lashes, switches, barbed clamps and hooked goads. Suddenly the dark specks on the wall and platform take on a very sinister note. "What kind of people were these?" You ask but the unconscious Cassia has no answers for you. The grim reminder of just how these demons mistreat their captives keeps you from relaxing; and you carefully searched the rest of the room to make sure you were really alone in this enchanted room.

A soft moan from Cassia draws your attention to where she is sitting. She is once again holding the padding of her armor up to her neck hiding the naked breast from your eyes and her other hand is clutching her forehead, as her eyes rise to find yours questioningly.

"What happened?" And then as she looks around the perfectly preserved sun-lit room, "where are we?"