Zanevan hissed in frustration, delicately turning the statue's eyelash once again, prompting the gold orb in the socket beneath to rotate, then repeated the process on the other side; the 'eye' there was silver, but otherwise behaved much the same way... This was at least the hundredth time he'd tried it, and not once had there been so much as a sound from the iron door next to him.
This time, however, his luck was better; the ancient mechanism was rusted, and refused to budge more than a foot, despite the door having been designed to accommodate a procession of horses in double file if needed.
Of course, what he was unaware of was that the manipulations he'd just performed had dropped a tiny pair of worm eggs onto his hands, where they had then gotten onto, and temporarily bonded with, his clothing...
Blindworms:
Once used in egg form as traps, the Blindworm originally ate into a person's eyes when they slept, and left only infectious slime behind.
However - to no-one's surprise, given the amount of raw and only partially tamed magic floating around there - when they were brought to the City of Bells, they changed; the most immediately notable, and widespread, alteration was that they no longer secreted the slime, though it is rumored that, as additional batches were brought, other changes took place...
Some have said that, if the proper type is found, it will bind itself to the person whose eyes it eats, replacing them, and, in fact, providing additional senses, letting one sense life and magic. Others suggest yet stranger abilities, such as telepathy, telekinesis, pre/postcognition, or scrying may be granted...
Well. I'd heard of blindworms, but never knew what they were. Keep up with the challenge, no matter what.
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