Move 169: An Unknown Darkness
169.0: An Unknown DarknessThe Garlstone Mines--Morning, 4 Eleint 1374 DR
The party investigated the altar and the carnage surrounding it briefly. There were no obvious symbols showing to which god this altar, which did not seem to be part of any permanent shrine, was dedicated, but in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, one would likely assume it to have been used most recently for worship of Cyric.
After those who were curious examined things to their satisfaction, the group took up a single file marching order and headed into the dark tunnel off the southwestern corner of the cavern. The light stone that Jana carried provided enough illumination to see by, although it left the rear of the group with hardly any light behind them. The dark passageway sloped downward for some distance before leveling off. The unworked walls of the tunnel made it seem to be a natural one. After about fifteen minutes of walking, the tunnel showed no sign of ending or of opening into another cavern. This left them with the decision of continuing onward into the unknown darkness or returning to the mines proper.
Aloysius peered ahead into the darkness as best he could, craning his neck to see around those ahead of him. "Azrun?" he whispered. "Dost thou have any more of those illuminating stones? I'm in favor of moving forward, although I'll go along with whate'er the rest of thee think prudent."
He fidgeted with his pouches, reassuring himself that he could quickly withdraw any needed spell components on short notice.
Azrun shook his head, "Sorry Aloysius, I haven't made any others yet. I can make another tomorrow perhaps. Especially considering we're looking to stay in this tunnel."
Echo reminded Aloysius, "We do have a lantern somewhere." She shifted her weight back and forth on her feet, "I say we keep going too."
"Reminds me of what we didn't find under the keep in the forest," Arachne sighed softly. "That tunnel went on and on, also without any branches. And, eventually, we turned around and retreated again after getting Lasiar killed, fighting against an almost superior batch of orcs.
"If we retreat now, I suppose it would be because we want to return the treasure we'd gathered to civilization and take time to think about our underground tactics. I think, yes, we've satisfied ourselves that the abandoned mine is empty of hostages we might rescue and what we're looking at now is someone else's underground realm that might have its own slave population. Orcs, we're thinking, but it could be someone else." Arachne paused. "Oh hell," she finally decided. "We might as well keep going: We've no valuable news about evil forces or missing friends to share with anyone in Milbourne or elsewhere."
"I concur," said Aloysius. "The only other apparent alternative would be to leave and then return later.
We are relatively strong as it now stands, so we may as well push onward."He turned to Arachne. "What else can you tell us of the tunnel underneath the keep? Did it look similar to this one? It seems like it would be quite a distance, but wonder do I if the two tunnels could connect somehwere."
"Oh, well, the engineering was quite different," Arachne allowed. "What we have here is unworked stone, whereas there, someone had gone to a lot of trouble to dig their way through the ground: There were old support timbers (brought in from the forest above) and a few places where the dirt walls had collapsed somewhat. And then there were the bugs and the orcs -- But what's here is just a long, skinny cavern. Weird that it's remained high enough to walk through all this way. Likewise, that it's dry...
"Of course, all that means is that the geology near the keep was pretty different from around here. There could well be underground connection running all the way from there up to here -- we certainly found nothing to disprove the idea."
"That would be my guess." Blacky said "Though I am unfamiliar with underground passages. Ranchefus apparently did flee through the passage at the keep and somehow ended up here. I am guessing this goes back to the keep."
"So let's go," Jana said, drawing her sword. She took up the first position, light stone in her free hand.
With the minor change in the marching order of Jana taking the lead instead of Blacky, the group continued down the tunnel. They walked in the darkness with only the light stone to allow them to see. After a couple of hours, they came to a fork in the passageway.
Aloysius squinted ahead into the semi-darkness. "Janathell? If one tunnel looks the same as the other, lead us whiche'er way thy inclination guides thee. Does anyone think we might want to light a lantern to supplement Azrun's stone?"
"Beats the hells outta me," Jana said, peering down each fork in turn. "I'm all turned around. If I knew which way was which, I'd say the one that heads away from the keep."
"I don't know either," Echo said. "Does anyone have a way of making some kind of...educated guess?" She looked back at the rear of the group, "Who has a lantern? Can Renn or Daelen carry it so there is some more light back there?"
"I know not how we could make such a determination," replied Aloysius. "Mayhap it would be wise to simply follow one wall or the other in order to avoid becoming lost. My vote is for 'left', although I have no objective basis for such a recommendation."
"Left is fine with me, unless someone has a reason for one or the other," Echo agreed. "I've got some chalk that we can mark the walls with where we have to choose a tunnel. But that might let us to be followed, if someone was following us."
Azrun looked at the two tunnels, "Left looks as good as right to me. I'll just follow where ever you guys go."
"Okay, left," Jana agreed with a shrug. She started down the left fork.
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