The ground beneath the center of the gorge shuddered violently, and a geyser of scalding ash blasted thirty feet into the sulfurous air.
Caleb Conway shifted his weight back onto his right heel, extending an arm to signal the squad to halt their advance toward the boiling mineral basin. Twenty paces ahead, nestled on a narrow shelf of volcanic basalt surrounded by bubbling magma pools, six volcanic lotus flowers bloomed in fiery brilliance, their crimson petals pulsing with dense herbal vitality. Yet before Edric could unstrap his collection satchel, the cracked stone terrace sheared in two, and a serpentine horror tore its way out from the subterranean vents.
The beast measured forty feet of segmented obsidian scales, but its anatomy was sickeningly distorted.
Thick bone spurs protrude
