Summoned to a Shattered World

Birthright Chapter 43 - Into the Abyss

A large fragment of a stone wall jutted from the ceiling ahead, quite unlike the unworked rock all around us. Yet strangely the whole of it was covered in a fine pale dust, which didn't seem to match with anything around it. Elmidath stopped in her tracks and looked back over her shoulder at Tagath and I. "What is that?"

I had no idea, so I stepped aside to let Tagath through. Holding his lantern high, he peered at the broken piece of stone. "I can't say much beyond that obvious, it's too worn to determine much else in regards to who may have built it or why. From the discolouration, I assume it's quite old. Though it's hard to say for sure given its present location."

"Uh-huh. How old do you think it is? And how did it get down here?"

Tagath blew air through his closed teeth. "I'd say a hundred years at least. Maybe more. It could easily be from before the merging. It'd certainly explain how it got down here; nothing else springs to mind."

Leaving the wall be, we moved on. The path curved up and to the right, and we left the incongruous wall behind. Or so I thought. Another section of wall, quite possibly part of the same buried whole, blocked much of the chamber ahead. Considerably longer than the previous section, it curved to form a jagged semi-circle.

Tagath walked forward and passed the lantern over the whole length of it. "Ah. It appears there might be an entire building of some kind down here."

Peering through a gap where the tunnel didn't quite meet the wall, he jerked his head back and cleared his throat. "Um, I'm afraid I've made somewhat of a troubling discovery. There's a corpse behind here, or some portion of one." He raised his hand to forestall Elmidath before she could speak. "No, it's not your father."

"How can you be sure?"

"Well, assuming he were dead, and I don't believe he is, he wouldn't be in such an advanced state of decay. I don't mean any slight on you, of course. I appreciate just how eager you are to find him. Alive or otherwise."

Seeing Elmidath relent, I picked up the conversation. She may not have been concerned about some random corpse down here but I was. "Do you have any idea who they could have been?"

"None whatsoever. The body is in quite a strange state. It's difficult to explain, you'd best take a look yourself."

I went to take a look. Through the narrow gap, I could make out a body lying against the wall. Though they were humanoid in appearance, there was a curious flatness to them. Like they were just an old, withered bag of flesh without any bones inside. To my relief there wasn't much of a smell to speak of. In fact, I couldn't smell anything out of the ordinary at all. Was there something wrong with my nose? It didn't feel blocked but how could a rotting corpse not make a smell. I turned to Tagath. "Is it just me or does this thing not smell at all?"

He frowned. "Now that you mention it... I believe you're right." Gripping the strap of his satchel, his gaze roamed across the room. "I hope we find Orshen soon, this place is beginning to lose its charm."

I agreed wholeheartedly. The sooner we got out of here, the sooner we wouldn't have to worry about ending up a boneless husk like our friend here. I suppose the only way was to continue forward then. Though the actual blade wouldn't be much use in the tight confines of the tunnel, I kept Shotensho in hand just in case. If something happened, I could at least use its magic to defend myself. Rounding the next corner, I found that Tagath had been mistaken.

This wasn't an entire building that had been buried. There was an entire complex down here, at the very least. A veritable maze of stone spread out before us. The walls were in varying states of orientation and structural integrity, but one could vaguely make out how many of them had been connected to one another. From what I could see, they were all covered in the same white dust as the others we'd seen. Was this something that had been added to them in their original state or something they'd acquired after their arrival?