The trek up to the very pinnacle of the Isle’s highest mountain had been a long and arduous one; many days of slow progress up the barely-navigable paths and winding, rickety wooden walkways set into the cliffsides had been fought through, with minimal supplies. Food was scarce, and Leaf and Dust had been required to scavenge for food among the sparse outcrops of jungle nearing the mountain’s peak. It was on the final day of their exploration, as they began nearing the bitingly cold and barren mountain peak that they found what they had been searching for. Set into the side of the mountain and clawing its way over onto the top lay a battered, broken-looking old monastery. Loose planks hung off in many places, and some swayed as the winds blew harshly around. The sound of the howling wind running through the great wounds in the structure was broken by its low groaning and creaking, and the sound of chimes and ancient, rusted bells which chimed with the changing winds.

‘Come on… We need to go in.’ Dust uttered, trotting toward the structure. Leaf tried to come up with some way of wriggling his way out of the situation, but realised all too late that it would be no use. Defeated, he trod along behind her as she approached the towering, forgotten monastery.

Just accessing the ruined structure was a difficult task; the upper, less damaged section of the monastery was perched on the very peak of the mountain. It was accessible only by an unstable-looking wooden staircase that wound up to the colossal doors of the building through the barren, dangerous crags of rock. The pair began clambering up the broken staircase carefully, avoiding the midsections of the planks which made it up. As they clambered higher, some sections of the staircase began to falter, sections of the ancient wood splitting and creaking violently. The chimes and bells within the monastery above began to rattle and call out frantically as a forceful wind swept across the mountaintop, pushing the ancient staircase to its limits. As could be expected, the lower sections of the stairway began keeling over, collapsing into piles of broken wood that were pulled off the mountainside by the high, vicious winds.

‘Run!’ Leaf cried out to Dust, trying to yell over the sound of the wind as she continued a little while ahead of her. He began sprinting as the wind picked up again, whirling around and assaulting the foundations of the staircase. Dust turned, spotting the fast-approaching Leaf. The pair began sprinting at top speed upward, avoiding parts of the staircase which began to collapse beneath their hooves. A few stray planks of wood fell from the monastery above and crashed into the stairs before them, knocking great holes in their path. Forced to jump over the wide chasm, they continued onward and upward as the wind died down. Ahead of them, the main doors of the monastery appeared out of the fog. They slowed their pace, catching their breath.

‘Sweet Celestia… It’s beautiful.’ Dust managed to gasp out, as the clambered up onto the wooden decking before the front door. Stepping closer, there was a horrifying crunch of splintering wood. She dropped downward through the thin floor, down into the dark abyss below. Leaf was left dumbstruck, leaping to the edge of the gaping hole and yelling down into it.

‘Dust! Dust, are you okay?!’ He called down into the all-encompassing blackness. No reply. ‘Oh no, oh no…’ he began muttering to himself, turning over the possibilities in his mind. Had she fallen through into a cavern full of jagged rocks? Into a spike pit of some kind? Down a network of tunnels, never to see the light of day again? ‘Okay… Okay, I can do this.’ He repeated to himself a few times, before calling down into the pit again. ‘Dust! If you can hear me, I’m going to get you out! Just wait there!’ And with that, he clambered to his feet and, sidestepping the hole in the floor tentatively, wandered inside the ancient monastery.

Dust could not hear him, in fact. Her fall had left her with a broken hind leg and a concussion, and soon, she had slipped into icy-cold unconsciousness. But before the blackness enveloped her, she had gotten one good look at the room now surrounding her – and the sights she had seen had turned her stomach.

‘Hello? Is anyone there?’ Leaf called, wandering through the antechamber at the front of the structure. The wind howled around the halls, banging and scratching at the old wooden planks which made up the building. In the distance, doors and window-shutters banged of their own accord. The smell of rot was pungent in the air, along with the barely-perceptible, musky odour of aged parchment and other ancient materials. Leaf passed into the main hall carefully, and the interior took his breath away for a few moments. The blinding-white, bare sky shone through huge tears in the roof far above, the crumbling wooden rafters swaying slightly and creaking agonisingly in the battering wind. The planked walls bore carvings of nameless figures, great creatures of strange appearance, and all manner of imagery. And in the centre of the hall, towering above him, stood a colossal figure. Rusted and discoloured with age, stood a huge bronze statue of the Goddess figure which had been seen all across the island. Leaf felt a sense of dread looking upon that statue; its dark expression, its titanic size and its skeletal limbs that bore the ever-present, sacrificial bowl made him tremble. Leaf carried on through the ancient wooden halls of the monastery, deeper down into the lower levels of the building – unaware of the multitude of eyes that watched him as he passed.

Corpses lay everywhere. In various stages of decay, strewn across the floor. Dust stared in horror all around at the subterranean storehouse she now found herself in, and began taking in the sights and smells. The entire chamber was carved into the solid rock upon which the monastery stood, with ancient wooden panelling and pillars to support the weight of the cracked, rotten ceiling above. Some of the dead who lay about the place were wrapped in tattered linen cocoons, and some cocoons hung from the ceiling like flies caught in some horrific spider’s web.

‘Celestia…’ Dust wheezed, trying hard not to gag at the stench of rot as she clambered to her hooves painfully. Her badly twisted hind leg became evident almost immediately, and she found herself limping slowly and blindly around the dingy cavern she now occupied, eventually finding a huge set of double-doors and, with considerable effort, pushing them open to slip inside.

Author's Note

To anyone returning to this story after its long hiatus, I *have* changed the status of that 'broken' leg to merely 'badly twisted' - I reckon a broken leg would make further events in the next chapter almost impossible.