You have to wake up at 5:00 am, get ready, walk up to the summit of this blasted mountain and do this all without dying in the heat. The heat was distant but still present as you got ready and presentable although you knew it would ambush you when you stepped out the door. Your breath doesn't stink, you are dressed as sharply as ever and you are fed, but you still had to go out into that heat.
With a feeling of dread you slowly approach the front door before you stop just in front of it and rest your head against it. “1...2...3.. Go!” You think as you burst out into the unpleasant heat that was fortunately not humid but had a more direct form of searing misery.
Your front door leads immediately to a cliffside road that twists its way up to the nearby market. You follow the road up into the near empty marketplace save for several shopkeepers setting up shop, all of whom shot you strange looks. Once you clear the marketplace the you move on to the annoyingly steep path to the summit.
This damn dusty steep dirt path gives out footing sparingly or gives it to you so the can wind blow it away. You try to cover as much ground during lulls in the wind so you can reduce your chance of falling to your death or dying of heat stroke. Once you reach the one-quarter mark the trail leads itself into a cave, the entrance itself was several meters above the ground. Once you climb up into its mouth you get a refreshing blast of the cave’s cool moist air and the fungal smell that accompanied it.
The cave was exactly what one thinks of when one thinks of a cave without even the excuse of size to make it remarkable. The path is now a old wooden waterlogged walkway that gently sloped its way upward and into darkness. As you follow the path you quickly realize no one bothered to light this place up and you soon you find yourself unable to see anything ahead of you. You carefully feel ahead of you before placing your talon down so you can repeat the process. This process was much more difficult when corners got involved and they introduced you to their friend, solid rock wall. Stairs introduce themselves quickly and painfully but provide fast predictable travel through the darkness.
You found the ever elusive light at the end of the tunnel and find yourself on a smooth rock face just about twenty meters higher than the entrance of the cave. The trail continued although it is paved with gravel this time although all the scenery you get is still the rail-less decent to death. This path was much lighter on you save for the occasional slip or early warning signs of heat stroke, a particularly tall half-constructed tower looms in the distance.
You rush up the final hill and get a good look at the entire complex. The most noticeable features are the unfinished tower and a massive airship that must have docked while you were dicking around in the dark. The rest of the complex is a sprawl of smaller buildings and entrances to tunnels with tents littered all around the place, all neatly wrapped up in a barbed wire fence.
You walk up to the security gate to find two genuinely surprised guards who gave you a security pass and the comment “The Admiral was right we couldn't have missed him if we tried.” You are surprisingly not the center of attention although unlike the town everybody here has something to do. You make a b-line for the officer’s nest.
The signs to the nest brought you down the samey tunnels that are just like the ones in the mines. Just when you reach the sign that read “Officer’s nest” a red crested gryphon blocks your path.
“Hi! my name is Rosetta and the Captain just gave you to me for the next 3 weeks.” gryphons around here really like throwing shit at you don’t they?
<Aren't you gonna tell me what we are even doing?>
“Planning the diplomatic ball!”
<Where the hell are going to find a space big enough.... wait you can understand me?>
“I’m the only one in this base that can! Now lemme show you the ballroom.” Ballroom?
<One second. First I was told the captain could understand me second I thought I was here to assist in construction and third I know for a fact that the admiral can understand me.>
“You've been reassigned and the Captain lied.” You've been bounced around twice times in the past 24 hours.
<Let’s just get started with the work.> Okay planning a ball sounds like fun mostly because you love that sort of formal party thing that happens there.
The lioness hurriedly escorts you through the tunnels whilst rambling on about something completely unrelated to work. You pass many confused looking soldiers some of whom decided to whistle cat calls at the two you.
Rosetta runs ahead of you and into a long wide hallway that looks it runs the way to the surface and opens a massive open room ahead. Rosetta waits for you to catch up to her so you can enter the ballroom together.
The hallway leads into a massive and elegantly constructed room. Above you massive arches kept the structure from caving in on itself while adding to the elegant esthetic of the room. Below you is a clean white marble floor that is connected to the ceiling by two rows of massive white stone pillars. A number or small balconies decorate the walls alongside some Gryphon Kingdom banners.
“Like it?” Rosetta asks in a playful tone.
<Yes.> You are shocked at the scale of the scale of the thing.
“We have an important job ahead of us we better get started.”