Sinkholes, Caves and the Devil’s Millhopper
A trip to hell and back
Frozen Troll
After a short rest, Warren
continued on, finding his way in the dark, one tunnel after another, and
more than a few wrong turns and dead ends when he came to a larger
opening and had to use another of his precious matches. He again looked
away from the match as he stuck it, the match flared up and there before
him exposed by the flash was a giant monster, looking like cross between
and octopus and a troll, it was a monstrous thing, ten feet across,
twenty feet high, a bulbous nose, long dreadlocks of hair going from its
head all the way to the floor. Warren drops the match with it going out
as it hits the floor and he stands there in the darkness thinking he had
been discovered but he hears nothing, then a plonk sound, like a drop of
water hitting a pool, he waits. A few minutes later hears it again,
plonk, he waits, no other sound other than what appears to a drop of
water every couple of minutes. Maybe it wasn’t a monster he thought as
he took out another match and lit it seeing before him a giant rock
formation made by the water dripping over eons, it was actually quite
beautiful he thought. Although not a monster, it did have some
characteristics of one
including what appeared to be to be an arm with a hand at the end
pointing in one direction. If Warren had the time and light, he would
have discovered it actually was a monster, a giant rock troll, frozen
long ago with the mineralized water dripping over it, coating in a
mineral deposit called travertine. At the base of the stone monster
were small pools of water which Warren eagerly drank after realizing how
thirsty he was after his arduous journey. In the short light of the
match, Warren had seen several openings and decided he would take the
passage the stone monster was pointing at and continued on his way.