It was warm here, the kind of warmth only sunkissed valleys and meadows knew, with a gentle breeze which caressed exposed skin as if with the conscious intent to soothe. The verdant scene of swaying trees and thick grass was broken only by the deep blue sky overhead, the white marble columns and staircase sinking into the earth, and the silky red hair before said columns.<br/><br/>It was a good place for a picnic, not a dungeon.<br/><br/>And yet it was indeed a dungeon, the one Tashiel had been seeking, and its appearance appropriately confounded her. It was not a mystic portal surrounded by magma, nor was it a fissure in an icy waste, nor was it an orc infested fortress once built by the dwarves... it was this idyllic scene broken by only a smattering of mostly buried, marble ruins with a single staircase leading down.<br/><br/>The stairs leading down were long and winding, with the white marble walls smooth and unbroken as Tashiel descended. It did not take long before the tranquil world above was distant, with sunkissed warmth turning to a comfortable coolness, with the contrast being just right to give goosebumps. A soft light seemed to emanate from the walls themselves, which when combined with her elven senses was sufficient to move unhindered, if a little slowly as to be sure of her footfalls down each step.<br/><br/>Finally the stairs ended, and the elf found herself at a junction. The path split into three; to her left the path descended into total darkness, deep enough that she could not guess its contents with ease. The only hint to whatever lay that way was a very slight sound which would have been imperceptible to a mere human, a sound which indicated many<em>things </em>moving.<br/><br/>To her right marble floor gave way to mud, and it was clear that the path would take her through a thorny hedge maze of vines filled with the tantalizing perfumes of plants, and... human-like or animalistic grunts further in, like figures or beasts rooting through the subterranean garden.<br/><br/>And straight ahead three marble steps dipped into a softly glowing pool of water, giving off a pale purple light which danced on carven walls. Those carvings were difficult to discern, but the glimpses Tashiel caught might make her heart flutter and her face flushed. The pool stretched on to an altar of some sort where a marble statue of a nude man stood, with an actual golden amulet resting on the neck of the statue, a tempting prize perhaps, but otherwise that way offered no path deeper into the dungeon.