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[quote=Anise]Picked up the lantern and turned it around looking inside of it to inspect the egg. "What... is this?"[/quote]

It is, quite simply, a very large egg about the size of that which an ostrich might lay, though it feels heavy like stone. The pale blue shell appears to be strong and thick and not easily breakable. A rune is etched into the hard eggshell. The etching glows a darker blue, while the rest of the egg emits a bright, blue light. It glows a bright, pale blue light in the same way of a firefly.

The stony, heavy egg is encased in the old, green copper lantern. The metal top and bottom of the lantern are pressed flush against the egg, as if the lantern had been built specifically to protect it. The glass sides of the lantern are also up against the egg, and there are no doors nor hinges. The only way to remove the egg from the lantern would be to destroy the lantern. But now, part of the work was already done: one glass panel has a long thin crack in it, and one metal corner of the lantern is slightly bent -- but it is resilient, and will continue to do its job.

[quote=Arin] Not wanting to place their only source of light on the ground, Arin handed it back to Anise and placed his ear to the cold surface. His cheek was immediately freezing. "Don't you think we should find out what this is?" He began to knock on the metal.[/quote]

With an ear against the cool metal, a deep, slow echo could be heard:

[i]Tock . . . . Tick . . Tock . . . . . . Tock . . . . . Tick . . Tock . . . .[/i]

His knuckles against the platform knocked at a slightly lower pitch the farther toward the middle he rapped.

[quote=Hania]She squatted down to examine the metal plate and ran her finger over a deep etch in the plate's surface. "Are these letters...?" she asked to nobody in particular. She cocked her head and tried to make out if the marks made any resemblance of a language.[/quote]

They were hard to make out through the decades of mold, lichen, weeds and roots -- but there were, upon investigation, four circles inside one another, connected by a ten-pointed star. Five Runes were positioned around the formation, carved deep into the metal but filled with little mushrooms and moss.

[quote=Hania]She turned back around and pointed out towards the owl, "...maybe the owl has something to help."[/quote]
The owl fluttered, and it chuckled at them. [i]hooHOOhooHOO![/i]

Now that the light of the lantern had been significantly diminished due to its proximity to the ground, the shadows were free to move without fear of the lantern's light. From behind the tree, a pair of monstrous, bright yellow eyes watched them. They narrowed, and widened, focused intently on one little human, then another. A great paw shuffled in the weeds and ripped their roots with claws like swords.

Arin, the closest to the tree and to the great beast in its shadow, might be able to smell its hot breath, and hear the drip of sticky yellow saliva that dangled from its fangs. It smelled like rotted flesh.

The rune that Hania had touched began to shimmer ever so slightly. The metal platform trembled, and dirt and rock were dislodged from its edges.

The owl spread its wings and floated toward them again with a silent flap of feathers. It lighted on Randold's shoulder, tickling his ear with its wing, and it stared at him with big, meaningful eyes.