'Why don't I go, then?' Meloon asked.
'Because I need you to help me anchor the rope while the others go down ahead of us.' Vharem clapped Meloon on the shoulders and braced his feet against the corridor's walls. He'd wrapped the rope around his waist once and fed it through his gloved hands. Once Vharem was braced, Faxhal saluted them, eased his way past his friend, and picked up the rope and Vharem's lantern.
'You can hardly hold onto the lantern and the rope, little man,' Laraelra said. 'Allow me.' She whispered a few words, causing her fingernails to glow a light blue, and slid that blue light onto the pommel of Faxhal's dagger. He smiled, handed Laraelra the lantern, and kissed her hand as she took the lantern from him. He then slipped down the twisting slide, feeding out rope as he went. After a minute or so, his blue light was out of sight.
The rope suddenly wrenched through their hands. It pulled Vharem off his feet, but Meloon braced his feet and stopped them from sliding more.
'Yow!' Faxhal's feet slipped out from under him after the sharp turn in the tunnel, and he slid a ways before he slowed his fall with his feet against the walls. He yelled, 'Sorry!' back up the tunnel before he looked below and found himself above a vertical opening in the ceiling of a chamber. He said, 'Another drop coming!' up the shaft to warn Vharem, then jumped free, smiling as he slid quickly down more than twice his own height to land on the floor.
The blue light Laraelra placed on him barely reached the ceiling, and Faxhal noticed the opening he'd come through was the highest point in the ceiling-the arc of the ceiling and odd shape of the room made him think of an egg. Stalactites of stretched out and warped brick and mortar hung from the ceiling in places. Faxhal knelt and looked along the floor, easily seeing its uneven slope toward the center.
'Definitely egg-shaped,' he muttered. But why such an odd shape?
The only other features in the room he could see were copious amounts of webbing and spiders.
Faxhal tugged on the rope and yelled up, 'Nothing down here but spiders! All clear. Send Ren down!'
He untied himself and fastened the line to a small clump of stone beneath the opening. It'll take Ren a little while, so I'll look around a bit, he thought.
Faxhal paced around, finding the room's walls and clearing away the veils of dusty webbing with his sword.
Renaer arrived with a, 'Fair day down here, then, friend? Good to have a little light again, that's for sure.' He tugged on the rope to signal he was down. 'What's the situation?'
'Not much here,' Faxhal said, 'and the room's warped floor to ceiling like an egg, though'I don't think it was built like this. I was just walking the perimeter and clearing away webs to find any doors.'
'Well, it'll give us something to do while the others descend.'
Faxhal and Renaer stayed together, using their swords to sweep away webs and a few rotting tapestries here and there. Under nearly a solid mound of webbing, they discovered a long-dry cistern, its edges merged with the slope of the wall.
'So what befalls below, gentles?' Laraelra's voice drew their attention up toward her. She descended, a lit lantern floating alongside her while she slid down. Faxhal found himself dashing over to help her down, his hands at her very skinny waist before he even thought about it.
'What exactly are you doing, Faxhal?' Laraelra flinched from his touch and swung slightly to the side on the rope to drop to the ground. She looked irritated and suspicious-reactions with which Faxhal was very familiar.
What wasn't common to him was the nervous feeling of disappointment in his gut. He looked at her arched eyebrows and muttered, 'I meant no-nothing. Just, nothing.' He stomped toward an unexamined corner.
The three of them diligently and carefully pulled back more and more dust and webs to find the room had once stored old food crates and wine barrels, all since emptied by rats. Faxhal sighed in relief when his probes with his sword finally revealed a door.
Faxhal pressed his ear to the door and listened, but he heard very little.
'Is it safe to drop the rope?' Meloon said. 'Are we going to need to climb back up?'
'Unless you found somewhere to anchor it, we'll have to trust in luck that these other corridors can lead us out of here again,' Renaer said.
'Could be worse,' Meloon said. He tied the rope around himself as Vharem shrugged it off, then braced his feet, and said; 'You first, Vharem. I'll jump after you're down.'
'You sure? It's a long fall,' he said. Meloon answered with a nod. 'Very well, friend.'
Vharem held the rope on both sides of the loop around his trunk. He slowly played out the rope, sliding down into the chamber, and let himself fail the final few feet to land near what seemed to be a long-dry cistern, its back corner rearing up like a stone wave. He moved forward and waved up to Meloon, who let the rope drop to the floor. As soon as Vharem had gathered the rope, Meloon jumped, landing hard but rolling forward to save his legs from injury. 'Whew! There's a jump! You sure we're not in Undermountain, Renaer?' Renaer smiled and offered him an arm to help him up.
'I've scouted a little ways ahead,' Faxhal said. 'Once beyond these first rooms, there's lots of ways to choose from. Most have no noise behind them, but I didn't open any of them yet. Renaer probably knows what they are, so let's go and let him show us his great brains.' He winked at Renaer as the five of them moved through another door and into a very tall but slim door-lined corridor. Renaer took out a small chapbook and flipped pages, nodding as he read and counted out sixteen various doors, eight on each side of the corridor.
The high ceiling echoed their steps back to them. Renaer tried his keys on each of the doors. While some opened into long-empty storehouse chambers, a few opened to reveal melted walls and contortions merging with sewer lines. Laraela shook her head, and muttered, 'Either there's older sewer lines we don't know about, or there are breaks in the system we haven't found.'
More than half the doors would not budge though, their locks either rusted or the doors jammed by the shifts in the corridor. Faxhal nodded toward one and Meloon and said, 'Care to help me knock?' The two men shouldered the door in, and it splintered, falling off its hinge. All they revealed was another warped room with sewage bubbling up in a back corner. After the second of such discoveries, Faxhal gave up helping and just waited on Renaer to open a door with his keys.
The group reached the end of the corridor, which was covered by a carved stone demonic face taller than any of them, its mouth snarling to reveal large fangs the length of Faxhal's forearm. Far above, they could see a light coming through at the ceiling, a vent helping the airflow among the subterranean chambers.
Renaer walked forward, consulted his notes, and reached out to push the demon's head horns closer together on its forehead. An audible click followed, and the demon's face moved slightly. Faxhal could feel a draft rushing out the gap, but when he put his hand on the stone to open it, Renaer cleared his throat and shook his head. Faxhal and Vharem exchanged looks and both of them rolled their eyes. Faxhal whispered, 'Ren, either let us help or show us what your precious books tell you.'
Renaer moved past the others to the nearest door on the right side of the corridor. He reached up, pushed hard on the doorframe, and the stone lintel there slid upward and clicked. Renaer then opened that door and walked through it. 'One of the builders had a dwarf s help in some of the stonework. Good distractions and good traps. If we'd used the corridor behind that demon's head, there's at least four pit traps beneath weighted tip-floors. This is the safe way.'
'Fine,' Faxhal said, 'but let us go first.'
Renaer opened the door, and Faxhal and Vharem entered the room. After a small tunnel about three paces long, Faxhal entered a small round chamber filled with gold light from an enchanted ceiling. Inside the room was a pair of writing desks and a set of tall shelves heavy with parchments and bound books. The desks held old, desiccated parchments and the ink in the wells had long since dried. Faxhal probed ahead with light toe touches and his fingers ran along the walls, feeling slowly for any triggers or traps. He was especially careful by the only flat wall-opposite the entrance-in the chamber, as it was covered by a bas-relief carving of two trolls battling three Watchmen in antiquated garb. Once Faxhal knew the floor was clear, he examined the carvings carefully and identified one trigger to lock a hidden door from this side and a second to open the door. He left those alone for now and continued checking the chamber.
After one circuit of the room, he nodded at Vharem, who waved the others in. The room became crowded with all five inside, and Faxhal hissed everyone quiet when he heard a voice cry out, 'Samurk! Samurk…'
'I hear someone crying,' Faxhal whispered. 'A woman. She keeps muttering a name or something.'
A loud snore buzzed through the room, causing everyone to look at each other in surprise.
