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Composer : Didier Merlateau Title : "Enter" Time : 1:50 Formation : Eleven |
A long tunnel hewn from transparent stone surrounded Kettleturner. He had been walking briskly for several minutes. He was starting to get worried. No one had come to welcome him and the place seemed deserted. Even at the entrance, which should have been guarded, he had seen no sign of life.
The corridor he was following would inevitably lead somewhere. Outside, night had fallen and the heavy silence encouraged him to go faster. What evil spell could have been laid upon this place ? Suddenly the corridor gave onto a immense room. Numerous forges lay abandoned. He could see cornices jutting out from the cliff face. Without a doubt it was an ancient dwarven dwelling place. Several tools lay strewn around and our friend felt a great sadness coupled with a feeling of apprehension well up in him. What dire secret did this deserted realm conceal ? The dwarves of the Crystal Mountain were powerful, virtually invulnerable. What disaster could have caused them to vanish ?
Kettleturner thought for a moment and then decided to look around. He started towards one of the forges. Suddenly a strange thing happened ; his movements became slower and slower, as if he was wrapped in a cloak of lead. The poor dwarf tried his hardest to break free from the spell, but to no avail. After a moment he threw himself towards a forge in with a great bound. He gently left the ground, lifted some 5 metres in the air and finally landed heavily on an anvil. He came down as slowly as he had gone up but the pain was as great as if he had fallen at normal speed. Everything was slowed but constants, such as weight , seemed unaffected.
After a long moment while he tried to rub some of the pain out of his limbs, he looked at the forge. It seemed to have been abandoned hurriedly. On a small table he found an empty bottle.
Kettleturner picked it up with the intention of using it to see if the slow spell worked on objects as well as living beings. Slowly but accurately he threw the bottle against the crystal cliff.
It's flight was agonisingly slow but the impact was explosive. The bottle smashed into a thousand fragments as if it had hit at great speed.
The dwarf was still puzzled. He continued his search slowly but surely. He entered King Tribar's palace, visited several corridors and finally came upon a desk. On the large table parchments ware piled high and he found several bottles like the one he had used in his previous experiment. These bottles contained a clear liquid. He opened one, sniffed it's contents and put it down. It smelled terrible. Grimacing he set to work to decipher the parchments. Quickly his attention was drawn to an envelope sealed with the seal of King Tribar.
At the same time :
Kettleturner (chapter
3)