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aliases:
- "Ruins of \"Troy\""
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The Ruins of Troy lie nestled against rolling hills near a farmhouse without Constantinople, a site steeped in mystery and in ancient history. This half-collapsed chamber of stone, in the manner of a megaron or great hall, keeps a central hearth and its columns, whilst a crumbling northern wall opens upon an ominous dark. The air carries a faint scent of sulphur, hinting at what lies beneath, and the walls are dressed with pre-Greek frescoes that whisper of a vanished age. The ground about the ruins is marked by a circle some thirty feet across of life drained of its colour yet vibrant still — a thing to draw the notice of local folk and adventurers alike.
Among those the site drew was a young boy, Ahmet Yusuf, who found the peculiar tree upon the hill, whilst Sidra al-Najjar, a mage, detected faint magical residues in the farmhouse near by. Jean-Zera Mongé, another of the party, marked a lingering transmutation magic about the tree, which argued deeper ties to the ruins. Their search led them to a locked study within the farmhouse, where they turned up writings all upon Troy, and among them a hidden parchment entitled "The Lion's King," a spell for the unlocking of doors.
Venturing further, the party passed through a narrow crevice into the cave, which laid bare the grand hall's plan and marked it for a former throne-room. Here a serpent some eight to ten feet in length came forth from the shadows, warning them of the perils the chamber held and demanding the removal of its "interlopers." This brought them to the discovery of two scholars, Frank Calvert and Heinrich Schliemann, found frozen within a luminous ward before a great door graven with the image of Aphrodite and hung with snake-handled pulls. As the ward began to loosen its hold, Schliemann pressed his urgent wish to open the door, avowing that it gave upon the ancient city of Troy.
The tension mounts as the party weighs the meaning of their findings, the worth of the artifacts, and the serpent's warnings. The Ruins of Troy stand as a place of pivotal moment, rich in the matter of the antiquary and fraught with the promise of discovery and of danger, beckoning still to those who would uncover their secrets.