and ask how far she would have to slide. She just looped her belt over the rope, grabbed up her precious bow, and slipped out, tucking her feet defensively as she blindly slid over the rim of a deep chasm.
Juraviel and Cazzira put up lamps to guide her in on the other end, the pair standing on a landing, with a dark tunnel behind them. As soon as Brynn touched down, Cazzira grabbed up the rope and gave a deft twist and tug that detached it across the way.
If hey pulled it in and ran on, and this time, with a gorge blocking the way behind them, they did not hear the flapping feet of goblin pursuit. Tthey went on for a long, long time, until sheer exhaustion stopped iem.
They made their camp in as defensible a position as they could find, set their order of watch, and, despite their nervousness each of them slept soundly.
They moved off with all speed the next day, along the only tunnel available to them, though Cazzira admitted that she had little idea of where they were "In Tymwyvenne, we have a saying that most who perish in the Path of Starless Might do so of old age," she told them with a half-hearted chuckle If she was trying to be humorous, neither of the other two caught it.
They seemed to be going generally in the right direction, south, as far as their instincts could tell, but more troubling, they were going down more than up. And the air grew warmer and more stifling with each passing hour The next change came so gradually that it took them all many, many steps to even notice.
Juraviel stopped, and the other two glanced at him and were held by the curious expression on his face. ?The tunnels are not natural," he explained ?They have been worked."
Both Cazzira and Brynn moved to the side of the tunnel, holding aloft their respective lights to study both wall and flooring. Sure enough, they found crafted supports along walls and ceiling, and worked blocks flooring the somewhat even slope beneath their feet.
Brynn and Juraviel inevitably turned to Cazzira for some explanation, but the Doc'alfar had none to offer.
"There are no cities down here, no settle-ments at all, that the Tylwyn Doc know of," she explained. ?Unless these are goblin tunnels."
Juraviel was shaking his head before she ever finished that last, ominous thought. ?No goblins made these,"
he said with some confidence. ?Goblins tear down, they do not create."
"The world is a wide place, Belli'mar Juraviel," Cazzira reminded. ?By your own words, not all humans are alike - the men of the kingdom north of the mountains are not so closely akin to the To-gai-ru. Perhaps the same can be said of goblins."
Juraviel considered the words briefly, but shook his head again. Not goblins.
"We should know soon enough," Brynn put in, and she started away, the other two falling into step beside her.
The worked tunnel went on for more than a hour of walking, opening fi-nally into a wide chamber sectioned by walls of mortared stone, each run-ning out from a wall, left and right, and with a narrow doorway set in the middle. Gingerly, ready for fight or flight, the trio moved up to the door, to find that it was not fully closed, and was swinging unevenly on its old and rusty hinges.
Juraviel took the lead, gently pushing it open, studying the stonework im-mediately beyond, then rushing ahead, glancing left and then spinning around to the right, looking past the door.
Then he looked back to his companions and shrugged.
The trio went left, moving along a corridor of stonework walls, six to feet high, all the way to the wall, and finding only a dead end, with no 'her doors or openings apparent. ' raviel looked at his companions, shrugged again, then hopped, beating jmss to lift him to the top of the wall. Then he leaped higher, a short gave him an overview of the wide chamber for as far as his light would illuminate. Knowing that he would make quite a fine target there, the elf came down almost immediately.
A maze of walls," he explained. ?There seem to be openings, but at op-osite ends of each successive corridor. ?
"A defensive design," Cazzira noted. ?To force enemies to battle along hundreds of feet of narrow corridors merely to cross this one chamber."
"Then let us hope it is not now defended," said Juraviel, and he started along the corridor