At first I couldn't believe it. The Forest gloom swirled around me, pressing in on all of my senses. My eyes were fully open, but there wasn't enough light to even make out silhouettes. Strangely, I could still feel the warmth of the fire, despite its absence. Even the smell of ash and smoke was the same. I listened, but the sound of the Salamander's voice and its strange fire were missing. I strained my ears, and began to make out other sounds. Off in the distance, I could hear something huge moving through the undergrowth, grumbling as it went.
As I lay on the forest's ground, my sight began to adjust. A rippling, smoldering light pulsed through the world around me, just barely enough to see. I pushed myself off the ground, my arms brushing across the ferns as I did so. Where I touched the dirt the shadows oozed away into the trees, and I could see orange sparks passing between the cracks in the earth.
I stared at the ground. What is that? Nothing came. I half expected the strange spouts of knowledge to come to my aid again, but apparently this was one of those things the Salamander knew and I did not. I pushed my fingers into the dirt and the light flared up again, pushing the shadows back even further.
I was so lost in my investigation that I didn't notice the silence - until it was almost too late. The shadows were beginning to push back towards me like a living thing, but with them came a solid white wall of mist. At first I thought nothing of it, but then it touched my legs and arms. I immediately lost sensation, and I stumbled to my feet, trying to stay upright on legs that no longer felt like my own. The mist began to curl around me, closing in on all directions. I swatted at it with my now useless arms, trying to push it back. I stumbled and fell, but as I did so there was a sudden rise in temperature and the ground where I fell flared up in retaliation, blowing back the cool fog. I slammed my arm into the ground and the heatwave happened again, giving me even more space to breathe.
"So you don't like the fire?" I pushed myself up again and stomped as hard as I could. With numbing mist in effect I wasn't sure how hard that was, but the response was immediate and unexpected. Plants blossomed from my hoof and spread around me, glowing with an unearthly scorched light. Leaves and vines pushed out of the quickly dimming soil. I could see the same light I had noticed earlier sparking along the flora, and I watched in awe as it grew around me. Experimentally, I stamped my other foot down and the process accelerated.
The ground beneath me began to crumble, and I had half a second to regret my choices before I realized my error. A hole opened up in the earth and I lost my footing, rolling down into the freshly made cave, trying to stop my fall. Once I came to a stop, I shook the dirt and roots off my horns and looked around. This time, something became very apparent about my vision: It was very, very dark, but I no longer had any problem seeing. Observing my surroundings was now as easy for me as a cave might be for a bat -- No, even easier than that. That same smoldering light I had observed outside the cavern was here too, but light wasn't the right word. It was closer to... I don't know how to describe it. Like a cross between touch and sight. I could feel the invisible light on my skin, and that let me see through it.
I looked around the small pit I'd fallen down. Thick roots covered the walls, breaking through into a subterranean jungle of their own. On the roots small mushrooms and other fungus grew, melding into the earthy walls. As I touched them, they twitched out of the way, opening a path for me to follow. Without a way to get back up, I began to follow them deeper into the caves.
Eventually I reached a deep cavern with a pooling spring in the center. Bones surrounded it, and I noticed long gouges and scorch marks on the walls. While roots still dominated the room, many of them had been burned or scorched away, and I couldn't help but notice that the roots didn't seem to burn easily. The walls were almost always more damaged than the tree's nether reaches were. I picked through several of the bones, picking out what appeared to be an oversized femur. If I was going to be stuck here, I might as well have a weapon to defend myself with.
I was looking into the pool in the center of the room when smoke began to rise from an entrance I hadn't seen before. Fearing the worst, I quickly ran back to the way I had come in through and hid. As I touched the tendrils they meshed in front of me, forming a wall. I gawked for a moment in surprise, before storing that away for later. Peering through the mesh, I saw only moments later that I had been right to flee. A huge dragon, easily 40 feet long, pushed through the wall of roots on the other side of the room, revealing a much larger entrance than my own. Even as I watched, the roots began to reform the wall, but it turned around and clawed them away, before breathing blinding white fire down on the gouged plants. They writhed at the fire's touch, but the attack proved effective and eventually the plants stilled. Even as the plants finally extinguished, I noticed the light inside them never followed suit. The dragon turned to another site of the room and began to dig with its massive shovel-like claws, ripping huge chunks out of the wall. Within seconds, the dragon disappeared back underground, leaving yet another passageway behind.
I pulled myself from the cocoon of roots and creeped into the room once more. I could hear the dragon's grunts as it continued to dig, but could no longer see it. Only the smoke it breathed remained in the room - and the path it had come from. I peered down that hole, hoping to get a glimpse of what lay beyond it. Even with my augmented sight I couldn't see far enough to make out much. However, I got the impression that the path was slowly curving up.
Looking back down the other tunnel, I made my decision. I couldn't stay down here. Eventually that thing was going to come back, and who knew how friendly it would be. I hefted the bone over my shoulder and began to walk down the path.