Chapter 54 Mapping Our Way

We descended many steps of a ladder, about 100 feet down, into a natural cave, about 10 x 15-20ish feet. It had two entrances, which were just natural cave openings, in the east and west. Miara asked what Prestley saw all around us, through the walls.

He described several natural caves and passages, two squared man-made rooms to the west. Nothing below us, Random rooms above us. To the west, beyond the room, were stairs going up. I got a detailed account of what he saw and added it to the map. As I flesh it out, it will make more sense and things will start to connect.

We entered one of the man-made rooms and found a jail or dungeon. Dwarf-height manacales were on the walls, all empty. In the SE corner was a grill in the floor, and there were severl more doors, including one that opened to stairs headed up. I added it all to the map.

Kyuskay looked into the grill. It was an oubliette, which I explained to the foreigners. A place to put people you want to forget about. Looking around, Miara and Kyuskay exchanged glances and agreed: "barbarians". For once, I agree with them. Although considering Miara's rather cavalier attitude to anyone in her way, I suspect her people are at least as barbaric as we are regarding prisoners and criminals.

Prestley suddenly recognized a room he could see on the other side of the wall: the room with the shaft. From the map, I could see we can now get to the other side of the cave-in. Kyuskay continued to look down the oubliettes, and he found one with a long-dead occupent. The bones re-formed themselves into the skeleton of a dwarf, who began screaming at us in dwarven and throwing his bones at us. Goldrim could not calm the dead dwarf down, so we left him alone.

We went up the stairs and discovered an empty kitchen storeroom -- just some empty crates and boxes. Again, Prestley looked around and I added his descriptions to the map. More rooms and passages to explore, including the kitchen.

It was highly unlikely they'd hidden their hero's tomb in the kitchen and dining areas, so we followed a winding pathway uphill. Up there, we found a hallway that had two ocatgonal rooms on either side. The first one had a bunch of stuff put here by the expedition. Modern reproductions for archaic religious rituals: an ornate robe, incense burners and the incense, decorated shields, axes with silvered blades. José said nothing was magical in here, but it all had a vague religious aura. There were no other exits.