T Lain - City of Fire

“Are you certain they came up here?” Grawltak growled fiercely.

The scout nodded. They had followed the soft-skins’ trail from south of the village and only stopped once for a short rest. His gnolls were tired, but their noses still worked. They’d found the horses only a few hundred feet away. They slew the dark one, but the gray bolted farther into the canyon when they’d approached it.

The gnoll pack butchered the fallen horse and took as much meat as they could carry. They were messy and loud about it, but Grawltak let them enjoy themselves while he considered his next move. He pushed them hard, and would push them harder. If the soft-skins went underground, then they must be following the map his mistress said the half-orc possessed. He needed to keep pressing them, to catch them if possible. Horse blood would have to do for sleep and fresh-killed meat would have to do for rest.

Grawltak himself could not enjoy it. He needed to check in with his leader. Crouching down on all fours, he pulled out the disk and set it on a rock. He chanted until it glowed to life.

“Mistress…” he said.

The red face answered.

The hall continued straight as far as they could see. Every twenty feet a new pair of torch sconces were mounted on the wall, and each flared to life as the adventurers approached. Four pairs of torches lit when they stepped into the hall, and there seemed to be no end of them as they walked down the silent passage.

“Magic,” Krusk said. He still held the key in his open hand and its flames flickered brightly.

“You think?” Naull observed dryly, but her nervous sarcasm was lost on the half-orc.

As the party continued on, they noticed the torches behind them didn’t dim after they passed. The portcullis, it seemed, remained open as well.

“Do you think we should go back and close it?” Naull asked Regdar. The opening seemed small and far away, but it was clear in the light.

He shook his head. “No. If we need to get out of here in a hurry, I don’t want to try to figure out how to open it from this side. Besides, do you know how to shut it?”

Naull shook her head.

“Then let’s keep moving.”

The passage continued for several hundred feet. It stayed straight and level, and the width never varied. Reddish flagstones covered the floor, large enough that only two and a half were needed from wall to wall. The walls appeared to be made of burnished sandstone, but they were smooth to the touch and not porous at all. The ceiling, which was rounded and stood at its highest point nearly thirty feet from the floor, was darkly colored but had shades of red as well. They saw no dust or dirt anywhere.

“This is just creepy,” Naull said at last. Regdar nodded. “I mean, we’ve been in some pretty nasty goblin tunnels, and that passage down here was nowhere I’d like to stay for any length of time, but this is so, so regular. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Dwarf-make,” Krusk said, but he didn’t sound certain.

“I don’t know, Krusk,” Regdar answered. “I mean, dwarves are pretty good with stone and all, but even their work fades after centuries. I don’t want you to bite my head off—” the fighter turned to Naull—“but do you want to check for magic?”

The wizard shook her head. “I don’t,” she said. “I mean, I’m sure the torches are magical, but they could really just be a triggered version of a continual flame spell. That’s no big deal. Whatever magic keeps these passages intact and completely clean after all these years…” She shook her head. “I’ve heard stories of powerful magic blowing the backs of wizards’ heads off when they try detecting it. I’ll be perfectly happy if nothing like that ever happens to me. Let’s just say I cast my spell and determined that, yes, this whole place is magic, all right?”

Regdar smiled at Naull’s speech, and she grinned back, feeling a little better. Another pair of torches flared to life.

Alhandra, who was walking a little ahead of the party pointed with her sword and called out softly, “Did you say ‘clean,’ Naull?”

The others hurried up. About eighty feet ahead, just at the farthest edge of the torchlight, the party saw that the passage opened up. It looked like it might be a room, hut they couldn’t see beyond the reach of the torches. Just where the hall widened lay what looked for all the world like bundles of ripped or discarded cloth. Clothing, perhaps, and other bits of gear.

Regdar drew his sword from its back sheath. Krusk, like Alhandra, already had his weapon in his hands.

“A trap?” Naull asked.

“Maybe,” the fighter answered. “Could be what’s left of the last people who came down here.”

Naull looked over at Krusk, who tucked the key into his chain shirt.

“But nobody’s been down here for centuries,” she said. “They couldn’t get here without the key.”

“Maybe there are other keys,” Regdar answered uncertainly.

“Whatever it is, we aren’t going to find out much from here,” the wizard stated finally. She started walking forward.

With a sharp exclamation of alarm, Regdar jumped forward.

“No—wait here,” he said. “I’ll check it out.”

“I’ve seen how you find traps, Regdar,” she said, mimicking him striding forward and looking oblivious. She jerked up short, flailing her arms and overbalancing as if her foot was caught in a noose. “Look! A trap!”

“Very funny, but that bit of cloth isn’t going to protect you if something shoots out of the wall,” he said, jabbing Naull high in her sternum.

“Well… let Krusk come with me. He’s good at spotting things, and I can try to find any magic.”

“What about getting your head blown off by arcane forces?”

“I’ll chance it,” she said. She crooked a finger at the barbarian, who shuffled forward. “C’mon. Let’s see what there is to see.”

Despite her jaunty attitude, Naull felt her stomach churning as she and Krusk moved toward the open area. Regdar and Alhandra followed them until the torches in the room—four of them, spaced evenly around the walls—flared to life. The room looked to be about thirty feet in diameter, and a door stood at the far end.

On the floor they saw several piles of ragged clothes, bits of old adventuring gear, and even a few glittering gems. Naull easily resisted the urge to jump forward and examine them. It wasn’t the time to be greedy. In fact, their presence made Regdar’s guess about the trap seem even more likely.

Although, she wondered, if people died here, where are the bodies?

“Anything about a door in that memory of yours, Krusk?” she asked in a low voice.

The barbarian paused again, and his lips started to move. He had to run through the litany front to back.

“… a door at the edge of magic,” he began aloud finally, “the key will come to life. Open the door to see the light and reveal the gate.”

Quickly, Naull shuffled through the papers in the packet. She looked into the room—they still stood twenty or so feet from the entrance—and at the door. She saw an image of flame graven into the stone door. It looked similar to the image of the key, but not exactly the same. However, to the right of the door, at about waist height, she saw what looked very much like a keyhole.

“Yes!” the wizard cried out. “This is it!”

She stuffed the papers into her pouch and stepped forward into the room. As she stepped past the first pile of debris, the rags on the floor sprang to life. Krusk cried out in warning, but he was too late.

The gnolls wrinkled their noses as they picked their way down the passage. As trackers, they welcomed the advantage a strong scent afforded, but these smells from below ground were unfamiliar and unsettling to the scouts.