Forest Farseer‘ eyes slowly adjusted as he entered the cave. Two hours walk from where he had made camp in the Far East, the cave was very well hidden, covered by vines and overgrowth so that only the most keen eyed of observers would even been able to tell it was there. He reminded himself to thank celestia he had found that old book buried in the back of the Smithponian Institute left there in the archives, or he never would of been able to even begin to of located this area. Forest was a geologist first and foremost, and while he was good at his work, he had a weakness for always being curious about everything, even if it wasn’t strictly in his field. The book he had found had a list and locations of possible caves in the Far East as well as cryptic references to the ancient relequeries that may lie within. There was one in particular that had caught his eye, and so he planned a geologic mapping expedition to the area, known as Iris lake, due to the shape of a nearby water feature, as planned. Three weeks later, he was there.

The night before, he has been digging through a local journal the farm he had passed through had graciously lent him, and fame across something that he did not expect. This tome, though rather dry reading about crop cycles and local wildlife, did have one reference to a possible ‘dark winged angel of fire’ that supposedly resides in the area, plucking anypony unlucky enough to be caught in the waters of the lake at night. At first he passed it off as superstition and myth, till he realized that the location that these events occurred was in fact in the same area as the cave he was exploring. Several ideas races through his head at once: a ancient curse brought to life as the forgotten bastion of antiquity was unearthed by time, a volcano beginning to form in the area, a natural gas eruption, or…. a dragon. He did not have much contact with such beings, as they did not tend to deal with the areas he did, and the less he felt he was in danger the better. ‘It isn’t that I am not brave, but rather not stupid. I won’t seek out trouble, but I will face it when it comes.’ He has said to a coworker at the institute one time when he had been asked about Daring Do and her… unorthodox… methods of exploring the far reaches of the world. Though different circumstances, his sentiment was the same regarding dragons, and he and rather wary of the possible implications of such a residence. But no matter, he was here now, and would soon find out.

Now that he was in the cave, his eyes were adjusting to the dim light the torch gave off, and he was able to look around. He noted with some surprised that unlike the hills he had seen the day before when he was making for his campsite, that this was a completely different type of rock. The hills, and even some of the rocks he had found clearing out his overnight halt were granite, crystallized magma, but this was more sedimentary rocks; He saw mainly shale but also a few spots of limestone at the bottom of the wall. He took a few quick notes in his journal and kept going deeper into the cave. He would always have time later to come back and grab samples and do a detailed analysis of the formation, and perhaps make a guess as to why the sudden change. As he went deeper into the cave, it widened significantly, though not enough for his torch to not be able to illuminate the entirety of the cavern. He was so lost in the surroundings that he didn’t notice the sudden step down and so tumbled into the depression. He got back up, cursing himself for not paying more careful attention, then suddenly he felt a chill run down his spine. The indent in the ground was no rock formation, it was a footprint.

Ciaran: Removed background for the 2020 Collaboration, from:

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