ANTECHAMBER

Murphy helps you pull apart the wires to let the others in, then you both manage to slip inside before they fall together again. You’re all standing in an atrium full of daylight, even though, judging from when you walked in, it should be about midnight by now. Black, glossy wires cover every wall, falling in from holes in the broken skylight above. Before you have time to react, Fred shouts,

“HELLO?!”

The sound reverberates a bit in the large room. Suddenly, the wires all change color before your eyes into dizzying black-and-white stripes, and they begin to shift slowly against each other, like the body of a massive snake. An enormous draconic head slithers out of the skylight and two small arms follow. The creature comes to rest in a small coil on the ground, with the rest of its body reaching back up through the skylight. It speaks without opening its mouth.

“Hello, it’s nice to meet you.”