With her hands tracing the raised edges of carvings along the walls, or sketching the unfamiliar designs down in one of her logbooks with details on where to find this place again, Drachiathoryx glanced out of the corner of her eye and noticed Raffey staring at her. Upon noting this, the red dragonkin paused and then gave a subtle shake of her hips and a wink. There was no protest when he joined her, though the half-dragon grumble a little at being disagreed with, continuing to stare up at the drawing with her horns cocked a little to the side. Her tongue gave a thoughtful flick out of her mouth.

[color=ed1c24]"You see this much differently than I do. But fine, we'll have it your way."[/color] As she fell in step behind him, she muttered, [color=ed1c24]"Don't get used to it."[/color]

If it was possible for a half fire dragon to cry, Drache's ember eyes would have been watering from the foulness of the fetid stink. But instead, she bore a foul grimace that twisted her face into something fierce. At any moment she expected to find a pile of rotting corpses or worse.

The tomb raider tried to keep track of the carvings on the walls, scribbling the most interesting ones, but found it difficult to concentrate. Yet when the came across the carving of the circle with different landscapes on either side, her ear-frills flattened worriedly. [color=ed1c24]"[i]That[/i]...looks like a portal."[/color] If the vague references to such things she had come across in her reading had taught her anything, it was that portals were Dangerous.

She couldn't wait to find out!

Drache's eyebrow lifted when Raffey started to tear at his shirt, and the dragoness stopped, watching eagerly, only to seem a little disappointed when all she got out of it was a scrap of cloth. She was capable of clamping her nostrils shut (though it meant tasting the stench instead), so she settled for draping the rag across her snout and sniffing the smell of Raffey.

The she-drake had a way of walking when suspicious of danger, the confident swagger becoming more of a slow prowl as her tail and wings lifted up instinctively in readiness. Together they peered into the room, and Drache gave a clack of her teeth.

[color=ed1c24]"Someone's stolen all the shinies, I see."[/color] She wasn't so much angry at the theft as she was that she hadn't gotten there first! She started to move into the room, but the tiered benches gave her pause. Her tail gave a thoughtful twitch. [color=ed1c24]"Only one way out, if you don't count [i]that[/i],"[/color] she gestured to the portal, trying to fight the nearly overwhelming urge to step through it. It was almost like a sort of vertigo. The glowing doorway seemed to grow larger in her mind even though the distance to it seemed to grow. She shook her head to banish the weirdness.

[color=ed1c24]"Don't look at me like that, I've never come across an intact portal before. Who knows what's on the other side! I'm surprised it's unguarded. And where the [i]fuck[/i] is that stink coming from? Your natural musk only kept it at bay for so long, my dear."[/color]

She pulled the scrap of cloth away from her snout and scratched her claws uncertainly against the doorframe, inspecting it to see if it looked like it might be trapped. So many ruins were at least partly unstable, if not booby-trapped. It was a sure sign you were close to something good.

[color=ed1c24]"Wait, Raffey. Don't move." [/color]

Eyeing the stones just inside the doorway, wishing angrily that she had a way of sensing if things were amiss, Drache held her hand out. [color=ed1c24]"Let me borrow that stick. I need to poke something."[/color]