CHAPTER 2
The passageway is dusty and very short. At the end is a ladder inlaid in the stone; you see it leads to a well lit room. You judge it safe, for you think it to be the opposite back room where the monk came from earlier. Now, you've gathered, that this must be the place where the 'Rod' is, for it was not upon the gold piles; thoroughly searched. You say a quick prayer and climb up.
Upon a bath of molten rock and boiling metal you see, inside this casket, a black obsidian rod; for its shadow boils the metal like water upon a hot pot, and still bubbles form and the foam is white. And yet the rod never touches either thing; it somehow wishes to be completely separate from every any thing, you feel.
You grab a piece of paper and hurl it unto the casket; you see then that the paper curls almost instinctively, hurling itself into the air like a bug, and it dies blackened. You take a closer look, leaning forward, but a foul stink drives you back! You feel sick...
You hurl...but you feel fine after a while. Still, you breathed it for only a split second, yet you feel burns on your skin. You grab the tongs, but you put them back; you grab the whole box instead, closed. It is warm... You clutch the thing as you ascend the spiral staircase, the only other thing in this room.
This room then, was never visited. The second floor of the tower is of the same black stone, but it is clean; spotless. Looking above, you see that the tower extends so far up, it must reach the end of the world. You look outside: the Beast is not there. Does it know? No matter, you were expecting it to be, but instead you can catch it and end this here. You descend through the main stairwell until you reach the broken end.
What a creature! Three heads, four tails, six legs! Aye, a dogs head fights with the snake, and a hawks head watches ever-careful; and every such animal breed has an equal tail and leg, except that some God thought up to add a goat to that mix! What a spineless, cruel freak to put me here in such a position!
You pour the contents of the casket down below.