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Windhammer, Copyright Wayne Densley 2001 - 2007 All Rights Reserved
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435
 To try and climb out of the pit seems too dangerous an enterprise and instead you look to the shimmering reflection of the waters below. Quickly you do your best to bind your pack and sword tighter to your body. With the smouldering remains of the nest sending a pall of ash into the air you take a deep breathe and jump from the side of the pit.
Without a sound you fall into the darkness, your body a plummeting shadow within the ever increasing gloom of the pit. As the dark waters below rush up to find you there is little you can do but prepare yourself for the blow, and it comes as a muffled explosion of water that embraces you firmly in its cold grasp.
For a moment you blackout, your senses reeling as you are dragged down into the depths. Straining for air you push yourself upwards, reaching for the surface as you try and save yourself. No matter what you mean to live, and in that dark place you find the strength to make it to the surface, gasping for air as you rise out of the water.
There is little light and no warmth, and as you clear your eyes you can see that you have fallen into a wide natural cavern, filled with water and with only one obvious landfall. Upon the far edge of the lake is a narrow rise of land, nothing more than a pebble beach, but it will do. Purposefully you swim for the pebbles and find solid ground beneath your feet only a few metres from the cavern's edge. It is as you drag yourself out of the water that the real hopelessness of your position becomes clear.
At all sides the cavern is a huge arching chamber of crumbling stone. Even as you look into the darkness you can hear chunks of rock falling into the water. Each is a clear echoing crash of sound that reverberates through the chamber, being lost in the shadows as you stand against the water's edge. A quick survey of the thin strip of land shows that there is no way off the beach, and you have lost all your equipment to the dark waters. Without food you will not last a week in this cold. It dawns quickly as an unavoidable truth that you may have escaped the Arachnari but your fate has been sealed nonetheless. Quietly you sit upon the cold pebbles and wait. In this cold place you have a choice between drowning in the black waters or waiting for the metal collar at your neck to tighten. Either way your quest is over.
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This book, and its associated books and other documents in the Chronicles of Arborell series are the intellectual property of the author, Wayne F Densley, and all rights are reserved by him. Windhammer is best viewed at 1024 x 768 resolution. Any questions regarding the Chronicles of Arborell can be answered by emailing the author at densleyw@shoal.net.au
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Windhammer, Copyright Wayne Densley 2001 - 2007 All Rights Reserved
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