[Esus]

The Rule of the Shrykull
Act One: The Fall
Chapter I

It started simply enough. I was staring up at the massive exit for the Paramonian temple. Once again, like I am every time, I was in awe at its splendour – light seemed to shine gold on the vast paramite caricatures from an invisible sun high in the dark ceiling. Looking up at it this time I once again noticed nothing but it’s pure brilliant; shining rock, massive torches, smoothly carved curves, but later inspections told me I was kidding myself. Moss and webbing lined every run-down crevice, the red eyes of bats would intermittently flick on and off, like some mechanical sensor.
But not, at the time I saw only perfectly in pure mudokon graft, as if I were witnessing it the moment it had been completed.

While gazing at the paramites above, I heard a sound behind me. The most recognisable of sounds for one who’s traversed Paramonia: the unmistakable screech of a hungry paramite. I moved without thinking. I heard myself make a yelp of surprise, but I took no heed of it. Turning, I sprinted to the empty left-hand corridor, one I had previously ignored which seemed dark and deserted. Sure enough, the scurrying of dozens of legs could be heard as I stumbled over a rock.
The long corridor in front of me had a comforting straightness, and though I could see no end – well, I could see nothing at all – the reassuring upwards gradient told me it couldn't last forever.

The part I am about to describe will be etched into my memory undoubtedly forever. Let me pause, take a moment to breathe, and explain the situation. I was running up a cunningly getting steeper tunnel in the middle of a massive wooden structure, in the middle of an immense forested plain. Behind me, frozen in state, are a number of paramites excitedly gaining upon their prey; around nine or ten. Three hundred feet below me is a mud called Abe. I later learnt that Abe was set similar trials to my own by the Big Face; he was pretty young, a slave escapee; the slave escapee. He had apparently single handed traversed the deserts and temples of Scrabania, and after accomplishing tasks I would have never previously dreamed of, he was to rescue his would-be friends from their slavery.

Time to resume the action. The closest paramite jumped with all the agility that only a paramite can muster, and landed on my back, clamping its mouth onto my shoulders and head. I fell forwards, arms flailing wildly as my face crashed onto the rough ground, fiercely being torn and grazed. The single mass of our bodies slid forwards; I’m not sure why. Perhaps the ‘mites behind us jumped onto the load with forward momentum, though at the time I had the distinct feeling they had all stopped moving, as if the first to strike had the right of kill.
Before I could open my eyes after the fall, I realised that there was no floor beneath me, I had inadvertently slid into a well. A deep well. My face stung and the paramite on my back released its grip, though remained close above me; I could see **** all, and heard the whistling of wind as it rushed against my face.

Three hundred feet later, I still hadn't been pressurised back up and I slammed into somebody. The paramite, or paramites, I heard scamper in a number of directions.

Chapter II will arive if there is demand for it.