Meredith, the neighborhood menace’s Reviews > And Gold Was Ours > Status Update

Now, three hundred years later, in this year of 1848, the great house still stands, desolate, a faded ruin of glory. Yet the spirit of the manor remains unconquered, for Esplendor heeds not the ravages wrought by time. Born of love and legend, it looks out knowingly, secretively, over the savage jungle, as though it is only sleeping, waiting breathlessly, expectantly, to be wakened.

None mourned the manor's sad demise, for he who would have wept at its destruction was long dead, and she in whose memory he had built it was colder still.

Giant, deceptively coloured snakes slithered from the overhanging branches of the trees to strangle the unsuspecting, the unwary. The caimans lay ominously still, like fallen trunks in the dark, murky depths of the rivers and swamps, waiting to tear a man to shreds, should he stumble and rouse the sleeping reptiles.

The Jungle, Peru, 1548

Legend called it El Dorado - the Gilded One - a lost city where the forgotten streets were paved with gold, and riches beyond a man's wildest dreams lay waiting to be plundered. Whether or not it truly existed no one knew. Many sought to find it, & many died in the attempt: for life in the dense, steaming jungle of South America was a hard & torturous one, even for those long accustomed to it