Cliff Palace

This piece was commissioned by a friend at work for use during a D&D campaign. I'm rather proud of it, actually. :) Friend has expressed interest in future pieces as well, and I'm excited to actually get to write for actual monies. 

- - -

The air is chill and damp, smelling of rain. Above you on the mountain slope, a sheer, rugged cliff face towers. At the base, a natural hollow is filled by a lopsided stump of a house like a lone, broken tooth in a dead grey gum.

Hardly a sound comes to you, even as you move toward the house - or is it a house? It looks small in comparison to the cliff, but as you get closer you realize the building is massive, built to giant proportions. Crumbly, grey-green moss is eating away at the warped facade, but portions of the stone door frame have been rubbed clean on the right-hand side. The door itself is reduced to large splinters, barely holding together with ragged flags of wiry hair clinging bravely to sharp tips. Thunder rumbles ominously overhead - there's no other shelter nearby and it seems likely if you don't go inside, you'll get soaked.

Nothing is moving on the other side of the demolished door, but the biting, eye-watering scent of rotting meat wafts out to greet you. Just inside the threshold, bare rock is exposed to the debris of many seasons, chaff and dirt blown through the open door on spring and autumn winds. A strip of the floor is clear of this evidence of neglect, as though something large was recently dragged through the door.

Will you go inside?