Thread: The Dragon's Treasure

Columns of smooth marble, floors inlaid with precious stones and gold, walls adorned with fine silk tapestries, all fineries worthy of royalty. Priceless treasures and ancient artifacts were stacked neatly in various rooms, each organized and categorized with great care, never tarnished or dusty despite their lack of use. These treasures didn't belong to royalty or an aristocrat, but were stowed carefully in a cave, in the home of a powerful dragon. She had taken great care to make sure the cave was more than just a hole in the side of some mountain. Hidden carefully, the entrance was only accessable via an underwater entrance under a remote lake, visited infrequently by anyone other than local wildlife. While the tunnel into the cavern was plain, dark, and dank, once past the first few twists and turns, it opened up into the first elaborate chamber. The dragoness had made her home in this cave nearly a century prior, and had spent nearly as much time carving it out exactly to her specifications. Dragons were particular creatures, especially when it came to their living quarters. The floor had been carefully polished smooth, a mosaic pattern adorned with gold, rubies, emeralds, and other precious stones, all polished down to an almost glass-like smooth surface. No wall was left bare, silken tapestries that draped sometimes from ceiling to floor, beautifully carved sconces holding torches and lanterns, few identical but none that seemed out of place. They burned with a heatless flame that never extinguished, shining enough light to brighten the entire interior of the expansive caverns to a warm glow. She had collected these treasures for her entire life, as dragons instinctively do. Even by the standards of her elders, her hoard was impressive. A relatively young dragon, Tahlia prided herself on her accomplishments. She had a long life ahead of her, and instead of amassing more treasures for herself, she could focus on poring over the rooms filled with books and other writings. Not to say that she wouldn't be trying to add more, but there was no need to. Her collection was large enough to be passable for decades to come. She, herself, was quite the sight to see. Standing nearly the height of a single-story house with all four legs planted on the ground, she still managed to move gracefully, hardly making a sound on the stone floors as she moved through the expansive halls. Bronze-colored scales, always kept rigorously clean, caught the flickering firelight. As was the style of her kind, she often wore the larger pieces of jewlery as adornments, and had crafted some pieces of her own to fit her size, as most of what she had collected was designed for human-sized owners. Still, with all of the gold and silver, coins and gems, artifacts and riches she had collected, there was one treasure that she valued above all else, and her most recent addition. Priceless and irreplaceable, and quite the accomplishment for any dragon to obtain a mortal girl. Her talons made a light tapping cadence on the stone floors as she walked, the occasional scraping of her scales on the wall as she fit through a slightly smaller corridor. She had given the girl a room to herself, as elaborate as the rest of the cavern, to which she was heading. There was nothing lacking, a bed, wardrobe with a store of clothing, and she had already presented the girl with gifts of jewlery and other such trinkets.