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You step over to the window and look out onto one of the most beautiful places you have ever seen. The ground is covered with a thick carpet of grass and flowers, and tall trees reach their branches toward you as if to invite you to come sit in their shade or swing from their branches. As you watch, a doe and her small fawn step up to take a drink from a nearby stream, completely unafraid of anything around them. A faint blue haze that seems to be seeping out of the ground only adds an air of enchantment and mystery to the scene. You lean out of the window, and the sound of birdsong reaches your ears. You can't take it any more. You have to get out into that paradise! You fling the window all the way open and leap through it, eager to lie on that lush grass and take a drink from the sparkling stream, but instead of touching the soil of the meadow, your feet hit...nothing. You hang in mid-air for a split second, unable to understand what's going on, and watch the entire garden scene fade around you until nothing but the blue haze is left. Then, suddenly, you don't have time to notice anything any more--because you're heading downwards, very fast. The blue haze becomes a blue blur as you fall what seems like several stories, picking up speed as you go. Visions of falling for days or even weeks begin to flash before your eyes, and you begin to wonder what it would be like to spend the rest of your life falling out of this window--but you never make it past the first few days, because the ground rushes up to meet you and the world goes black. A short while later, you awaken, dazed, blinking, and surprised to discover that there is nothing wrong with you beyond a few scrapes and bruises. Okay, make that a lot of scrapes and bruises, you amend as you try to stand up. You struggle to your feet and take a look around you, but there isn't much to see. You appear to be in some kind of enclosed courtyard, fenced in by a rough stone wall too high and too unsteady to climb. The ground consists of slabs of the same gray rock, broken here and there by a few withered blades of grass. Behind you, the yellow stone of the castle wall stands out in stark relief against the dreary landscape. If you look up as high as you possibly can, you can just barely make out the open window through the blue haze. You hear a shrill chuckle, and you spin around, trying without success to figure out where it came from. When you turn back toward the castle wall, you notice that a glowing skull has appeared on a level with your face. "Gotcha..." it croons in a nasal voice.
You know that you should probably be surprised, but by this point, nothing surprises you anymore. "What do you WANT?" you growl. The skull winks at you with an empty socket, but continues as if you had never spoken. "Foolish little traveler...Juleidah gave you help and good advice, but you were willing to throw it all away for an illusion--and now there's no way out." The portion of the wall where the skull is swings out, revealing a secret passageway into a cold, dark hallway. "Welcome to the lower levels of Dragon Castle, fool!" Still screeching with mad laughter, it disappears. You realize that the skull is right--you have no choice but to go on. Maybe it's not as bad as it looks, you tell yourself. Maybe...
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