She drew closer, searching for a pressure stone, or any discoloration that might indicate a release. Nothing.
She tried pulling the section, pushing it, leveraging it out. Nothing.
Over the next two hours, she attempted every imaginable approach, raging from meditation to communication to plain old beating the door down. Nothing.
Eventually, she sat down on the steep slope, pondering her next move. A reddish glow arose behind around her, faint and temperate at first, steadily gaining in intensity.
“Hmm?” She turned, and saw the door, its seam highlighted by a warm crimson light. Draconic writing traced itself into existence on the rock portal.
“Wow,”
She moved close to it, placing her ear to the stone. She could hear a faint rumbling from the other side.
“Gorbash? Can you hear me?”
The rumbling began to intensify. The red glow, more intense than ever, began to overtake her body.
“Gorbash?”
When she focused through the rumbling, which now permeated the sides of the mountain, she could finally make out the source of the sound. It came from within, and it was quickly rising.
But it didn’t sound like the swooping sound she was used to, the one made by draconic wings pushing air. It sounded like…gurgling.
She tried to push away, to run, to do anything, but found herself rooted to the door. She was utterly enveloped in the crimson force, and could do little but watch helplessly as the peak of the cone exploded in a sulfur belch. She found herself unable to even scream as the first blast of lava erupted from the wasted mouth, rolling rapidly down the slope to vaporize her.
Tue Apr 23 20:12:17 2002