The Serpent's Cipher

Previously

…Before me, resting on a pedestal of obsidian that seemed to absorb all light, was the Serpent’s Cipher. It wasn’t what I’d imagined. No gleaming jewel, no ornate artifact. Instead, it was a coiled serpent, carved from a stone that shifted from emerald green to sapphire blue with every subtle flicker of the torchlight. Its scales were impossibly intricate, each one a tiny, perfect hexagon, and its eyes, two chips of what looked like pure starlight, seemed to hold an ancient, knowing gaze. This was it. The culmination of months of relentless pursuit, of deciphering riddles under starlit skies, of ev