these are excerpts from a novel ( one hopes :) ) I am trying to write. I am hoping for some critique on this as I add more and more of it to Hub. Comments are welcome.... the price for reading ;)

The shadow moves with the utmost silence and grace across the compound and comes to rest at the ivy archway leading to the sacrosanct Gardens of Silvanus. The garden, built by those who worship nature in its truest form a score or more generations back,is quite the wonder to behold.

The pitch black dirt pathway is flanked by fragrant rose bushes, of all hues, which intertwine with Silvanus' blessed holly bushes, as well as tiered hedges of small trees that have an exotic, almost far eastern appearance. This pathway leads to the holy circle of moonlight prayers, the exact center of the circular, convoluted garden, and the resting place of the shadow's objective.

One look around verifies that the way is clear of sentinels, of any type, and the stealthy figure moves onward down the freshly turned earthen path without leaving a hint of it's passing.

The ivory coloured eyelid of the chickadee blinks only once as the shadow passes beneath it, unobserved by the strange intruder. By time it blinks again, it had leaped off the branch, on which it was perched, and is in full flight heading deeper into the garden.

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The stag stopped in it's tracks, raising it's head up as the long ears twitched forward. His breath hitting the cold, early morning fall air in duel plumes, mildly obscuring his forward line of sight.

Blood pumped through the harts body at vein popping force, as its senses tweaked and strained to find out what it was that froze him in his tracks. Instinct takes over - freeze and locate threat. Was it a snap of a branch on the forest floor, tromped under foot of some unseen predator? Or the creaking of the ancient oak trees, just getting their last stretches in before setting themselves into their long winter slumber?

The air is too cold and still for the keen olfactory senses of the buck to pick up any scent of the danger it feels he is in. Confused and frightened, he refuses to move.

Just prior to the mule-deer feeling the arrow shaft enter his neck just above the upper left shoulder and fall over dead, the small brown grass spider the stag was looking at - at that very moment - was hustling around its web and lightly removing the morning dew drops from the strained , gossamer lines. The spider looked into his eyes, waved one leg at him, as if the light that was dwindling from them mattered not to her and ( if it is at all possible for any arachnoid to do ) she seemed to almost smile.

Then, the arachnid continued on preening its trap of the dew drops - for the fly-fest that is sure to come about, won't be long off.

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The empty sconce tipped to the left with the slightest of effort and the expected stone on stone grinding that should be heard, when the granite slab shifted inwards, never came.

The light from the torch breeches the secret threshold an illuminates a descending staircase. The dust and cobwebs make the trap detecting challenging, but not impossible. Savannah smiles and then crouches to get a better look at the pressure plate just on the other side of the portal.

" Great", the Adventurer sighs, " one of many I would guess"

" What's one more trap in the great scheme of things the Gods have fated for us?" answered Renthac in his usual sarcastic manner.

"Just one less for you to go through before you get to ask your God that question directly, I would dare to say". Savannah retorts with a snicker but never taking her eyes from her job at hand. "But next time, you can pass over uncharted dungeon floors and then you can ask that. OK?"

The wild mage guffawed, " My God? My God first would say 'What took you so long in getting here?'

The click that happened next was followed by " oops" - which is a word most famously said by Renthac on numerous occasions and one word that never came out of his trusty companions mouth.

The wild mage uttered one curse before the floor fell out from beneath his feet.

"Dungeons!"

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