It pauses to read the sign, grateful for the aurora providing more light than the dim purple glow of its eyes and seams.

Magic, huh? Well, she's inky, purple-black goop animating a durable, porcelain-like doll body. If that's not magic, she's not sure what is.

It's not sure of much, actually. It knows it needs to enter the lost lands of Heywyred, but beyond that.

She shrugs to herself, taking a moment to stare up at the pretty lights in the sky.

Then she trudges in through the passage.

She passes through a dark space, green with moss and flowers living off a sliver of light, deeper into the mountain.

Eventually she emerges to beneath the sun again, and finds herself in an old, broken-down village. The houses look dilapidated, like they haven't been lived in for years or perhaps even decades. 

Two things stand in the center of town, making a yin-yang in its center:

An old well, large enough to step into completely, overgrown with moss...

And a whole small gazebo, full up with pillows, and still lit by glowing orange crystals.

An old man sits in the gazebo, puffing gently on a curved pipe and contemplating the ruins of the village.

He looks up, sees the doll coming, and visibly startles. 

"Ho there! I haven't seen a traveller for many years. Who are you, then?"

It shrugs.

"Let me know if you figure that out," it says. "Some kind of doll. Came in from the wastes."

"How strange. I didn't think anything could survive out there." 

He looks her over. "Though... You look a bit strange yourself. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised." 

"Strange is probably right," she replies, with something that might be a hint of a smile. "I sure don't look to be made of the same stuff as you."

This is a civilized seeming place. She triggers an internal mechanism, and her gun hand folds up with a series of clicks and whirs, replaced by a hand to match her left, articulated joints of enchanted porcelain.

"I wonder if you have some connection to the world below... ah, bah. Ignore me. I shouldn't be encouraging people to risk the depths. That's where everyone else in this village went, and none of them have come back." 

It tilts its head. "The world below?"

"The old House of Heywyred. It was a glittering kingdom at its height, a place of power and high technology. But these days it's nothing more than a monster-haunted ruin. The old technology's gone mad and tries to kill anyone who descends. Many adventurers used to come to try their luck, to retrieve some bauble or treasure, but few of them ever came back from down below. Now people have stopped coming. The House is dead, and I'm nothing more than its grave-tender."

It frowns for a moment, then sits across from the old man in the gazebo.

Porcelain face sliding back into a warmer smile, it asks him, "Since I've got an unpleasant hunch I'll have to go down there to figure anything out, I'd love to hear what stories you can tell me about the place, or about this town. Would you mind sharing?"

"I'm not sure what there is to tell. The ruins are before even my time. The town itself is an old place and has been fading for decades. I was born here some eighty years ago and I've been alone for a few years now. There was a shopkeeper here some years ago but he went down into the ruins hunting for a key he'd had filched by a drone, and hasn't come back. I haven't seen anyone else in decades. Mostly I tend the graveyard out by the east edge of town, keep my own house in order. This old body of mine doesn't need food or water, it's got a touch of the old Heywyred tech about it. I can just sit in the sun and it does enough to fuel me."

She nods. "I can appreciate not needing to eat, at least. I don't think I need to, either. Didn't eat anything on the hike through the wastes, at least."

She looks around with a hum. "Is there anything I can help with around here, maybe in exchange for slightly more effective clothes, or anything that might help down below?"

"If you can bring back any of the old technology from below, I might be able to repair a few things. Help the town feel a little more alive. Can't promise much, but I can try." 

It nods. "I guess I'll head down, then. Thanks for the company."

And it walks up to the well and peers down.

A spiral staircase goes around the perimeter of the well, descending into the dark. At the bottom she can just barely see a pool of water.

At least there're stairs. She hops the edge of the well, porcelain feed hitting the stones with a faint tatap, and starts walking down, looking around carefully.

She emerges into a small grotto, lit dimly by the light filtering in from the well above. The water runs through here and onwards down through a crack in the ground. There are three exits: one to the north, one to the west, and one to the east. 

There's no sign of any living things in here. 

She walks up to the pool of water and crouches down, running her fingertips through the water, savoring the simple sensation for a moment.

Then she rises, restores her hand to a gun, and heads through the west exit.

The shore continues this direction, running through a long canal that descends over several waterfalls. Passageways break off to the left and right, running in several different directions. There's a total of four exits outward, not counting the one she came through near the top of the flow - one woven with vines and thorns that the water runs through, two spilling off in opposite directions from the canal, and one down the water's flow towards the bottom.