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You find yourself in an ancient forest; old vines and lichens hang off the gnarled graying trunks, and there is no sound but the soft whisper of moss and grass beneath your feet, and the sighing of wind through the leaves of the trees. The pale full moonlight filters through a gap in the trees, alighting a clearing with cold gray light. In the center of the clearing, a large cat with thick black fur and light purple, pink and blue bangs is stretched out on a large fallen tree trunk over a silver disk of water. her dark fur is swallowed up in shadows, and her left forepaw and tail hang loosely off of the tree trunk. Her liquid azure blue-green eyes are fixed on the shimmering water below her, where the moon, a white sheen of light dances on the water. You can see the ripples and shines reflecting on her black-gray fur, flickering and flashing, and her eyes glow with an eerie light. You hover behind a thick tree-trunk, uncertain of what to do with such a mysterious creature lying in the moonlight.

Then, she lifts her head.

"I know you're there,"

She tells you in a soft voice. As she shifts her paws and smoothly sits up, you can see a light silver chain around the fur of her neck. Your eyes meet her's, a swirling vortex of emotion and secrets. "As Moonsilver's fursona, I am here as a guard." She meows in the same gentle voice. "And I am here to show you Moonsilver's Lair. Welcome."

As you stare at her, speechless, she arches her back in a stretch and then leaps gracefully over the pool and off of the trunk. Without turning her head, she speaks to you. "You are about to enter the realm of Moonsilver. If you do not wish to stay, then leave at once. But if you do... continue to follow." She flicks her tail at you and strides across the clearing without looking back. Deciding to follow her, you trail after her to the edge of the clearing, where an enormous tree stands. It is truly massive, it is the biggest tree you have ever seen. It looms over you and towers to the sky, and each branch is as thick as a regular oak tree. You run your hands over the bark, marvelling at its cold and stiff hardness, with all the rough ridges in the bark frozen in place. You realize it is fossilized wood. The cat pauses in front of a dark hole yawning out and into the tree.

She turns to you once more, and says, "If you are certain you wish to proceed, then I will be your guide. My name is Alina." Her eyes meet yours and burn into them like sunlight against water, then she steps back and gestures into the cavern with her tail. Taking a deep breath, you duck into the darkness. You hear no sound as Alina comes in as well, but you can sense her presence in the cavern with you. You wonder how you will be able to navigate in such darkness. "As it is late at night, it is too dark for human eyes to see. Grab my tail and follow me. But you do more than grab it lightly and your not getting out of here. It's a maze. So follow closely, and tred lightly, unless you want to be left in this empty cave forever." you hear her voice far to your right, and you realize that her warning in genuine. So you carefully feel for her tail, and hang on to it lightly. Alina starts to walk forward, and you go along after her, hoping that there are no things hanging off the ceiling that might smack you full in the face without warning.

After a while, you become aware of the sound of dripping water somewhere in the tree. Slowly, your eyes are adjusting, and through a crack in the tree, you can see from the pale light filtering through that there is a puddle on the ground, and some water dripping through the ceiling of the tree. You are fascinated in the gray hard walls of the tree, and after arranging the shape in your head several times and trying to imagine it from the outside, you realize by the thin roots sticking out of the roof and the arches of the walls, that you are just underneath the roots of the great tree. Alina's voice comes from ahead, "Moonsilver's Lair is in a great hollow tree. It is full of passages, and different sectors and rooms, and each contains something different. This entire thing is too vast to visit in an entire night, so we will only visit the premisies where you are permitted, and the most interesting ones."[/center] You feel her tail twitch slightly in your hand as she gestures you towards the side, "You might want to shift left here. There's a large root that sticks under ground here, and its been known for people to slam into it." You shuffle sideways carefully and duck, just in case.

You begin to wonder how Alina finds her way through such darkness... and when you are going to see something worth looking at. You feel Alina suddenly halt, and she flicks her tail, a silent signal for you to let go. You drop her tail immediately. "I can't climb these steps with you clinging to my tail," she explains, and then you feel her come to your side so her long fur just touches you. "It's about four of your steps ahead, and each step is large enough so you have to bend your knee into a 90 degree angle. I'll go ahead of you. When I stop, you stop too. They spiral upwards also, and if its possible, I'd like you to follow closely and try and keep track of where I am. Try and keep me directly in front of you. That should keep you from crashing into any walls." You see her eyes gleaming in the dark as she turns to look at you in case you have any questions. Having none, she bunches her legs and springs up the first three steps. Hastily, you follow, feeling each step with your foot before stepping onto it.

Ahead of you, you hear Alina's pawsteps, then silence as she pauses to wait for you. You can almost sense her impatience, so finally you hear her paws patting the wall, and then a curious click, and suddenly you are shielding your eyes from a dull yellow light. "It's going to take forever going at this rate," Alina remarks, twisting at the object between her paws. She turns the light lower, and your eyes adjust, so you look around. You notice there are many unlit lamps along the wall. Noticing your stare, Alina explains, "I just took a lamp from the wall, because I decided we need some light. These are usually lit until late night, and then extinguished for the night. Everyone in here is distributed with a lamp for the night use. You're going to have to be exceptionally quiet though, because everyone's probably asleep." She twitches her ears and then turns back to the steps and starts trotting up them.

While you follow her, you notice that there are many large openings in the side of the corridor of steps, and you pause to lean slightly out of one, and you realize that you are going further up the tree, and that this window was made so there wasn't no daylight at all inside. Alina is getting ahead, so you quickly follow her again.

WIP