Leap of Faith

[Brian]

Walking down the stairs, and then around the curve  of the other walkway eventually takes you past a hook in the path to the right.  By your estimate, you actually pass over what you saw of the other passage (you think; it's hard to be certain), and then start heading down a steep ramp.

You must have gone down nearly two hundred meters before it levels out, and settles into an oddly twisted corkscrew shape.  The passageway at this point is reinforced earth and raw stone -- no signs of skilled building anywhere except for the floor, which is (oddly) cobbled.

The lady looks troubled, but the light from her pendant shines on brightly.

[Bjorn]

"Is there something wrong, m'Lady?"  Bjorn asks, quietly, as he moves as silently and cautiously as he can down the corridor.

[Brian]

She looks at you sidelong, then looks back to glance at Parthipan and Paul before saying, "No, nothing."

[Bjorn]

"Ah, that's good," Bjorn says serenely, looking back ahead.  "It's important that there be nothing nagging at our minds before we trust our lives to each other and to Hamar through darkest danger."  Keeping any trace of sarcasm, irony, or humour out of his voice is a skill developed over years of practice.

[Brian]

"...you must still be reeling from the deaths of your friends," she says after a moment.  "I ... I'm worried, of course.  I don't want to die.  But I wouldn't be happy were Liandral and Sir Bloom to fall, either.

"And after--" she cuts off, steals a glance at Paul and Parthipan, and shrugs wordlessly.  "Hamar will see us through as he sees fit," she concludes, somewhat unhappily.

[Bjorn]

"Hamar has already provided for us," Bjorn says, softly.  "Now it is up to us to live up to His gifts."  He grins, self-mockingly, but it's lost into the shadows as he stares down the corridor.  "Or so I think.  I also think, m'Lady, that I haven't died yet, and I didn't plan to get around to that anytime soon.  We'll see the other side, have no fears."

[Ginrai]

As unobservant as he can be at times, Ginrai did notice that the lady cut off after glancing at him along with the comment she made afterwards.  "Is something troubling you, m'Lady?"

[Huitzil]

Paul notices it too, but doesn't respond; he figures that with all the strange crap he's been saying, the Lady has every right to be giving him strange looks.

His hands find their own way down to his lute and begin to pull the strings of their own accord. The tune sounds like the first few notes of "Smoke on the Water", at least how it would sound if played on a lute instead of a six-string guitar.

[Brian]

She shakes her head.  "It's not important," she says.

Huitzil's music echoes down the corridor.  Sounds okay, for being on a lute instead of a proper guitar.

[Bjorn]

"Stop that," Bjorn says, evenly.  "We would rather surprise whatever's waiting for us, rather than the other way around."  Waiting long enough to confirm that Paul quits his strumming, he then follows the corkscrew path.

[Huitzil]

Paul nods and swallows dryly. He places the lute back into its container, then draws his meager knife, ready as he can be for Things that may strike at them.

[Brian]

Anything you run into will likely see the light from the pendant before they heard anything anyway, but you proceed in a grim silence.

You're not sure how long you're walking when your corridor straightens out, and enters the ege of a vast, vaulted, open area.  The floor here is packed dirt, the cobbles quickly becoming sparce, and then absent entirely.

The walls appear to be carved from raw stone, but there are some form of butresses holding the ceiling up.

[Bjorn]

Bjorn studies the darkness, and then turns his head back to the rest of the party.  "We should follow the wall," he says in a low voice.  "Depending on how big this room is, we might easily lose track of our direction."  

Saying that, he starts to follow the wall to the left of the door.

[Brian]

The lady quickly files behind you, anxiously looking at the darkness that covers the majority of this vast room.

Something's moving out there....  You can't see it, but you can hear it.  Sounds like something scrabbling over rock, and with the acoustics, you can't be certain which direction it's actually coming from.

[Huitzil]

Paul splays out his fingers and touches them to the rock of the wall, feeling if it is shaking, trembling, or vibrating at all.