[color=f26522]"Oh, I mean to go down,"[/color] Alphonse said, but he stopped by the desk to grab a leg of the broken chair that was by it.  He wrapped it in a piece torn from the strange material of the cot, and poured what was left of his ale skin onto it.  When he touched it to Gren's torch, it lit up.  

[color=f26522]"This won't last as long as yours, so let's make it count."[/color]

He stepped boldly down the tunnel with his slightly dimmer makeshift torch.  The stairs went down a short way into darkness, and Alph nearly tripped when the floor suddenly leveled out.  He searched along the tunnel walls, it kept going to who knew where.  But not far from the stairs he found more papers, these ones written on.  

[color=f26522]"Gale,"[/color] he called back in a whisper thick with excitement, [color=f26522]"Come read these."[/color]  Alphonse meanwhile was distracted by the set of rounded stones he had found.  They glimmered brilliantly in the light of his and Gren's torches.  They were different colors, and horribly attractive.  One in particular was the shining orange of burnished bronze.  What he first took for a reflection of his torch, he quickly realized there was a spot [i]glowing inside[/i] of the stone.  

[color=f26522]"What kind of... what are these?"[/color]  He wanted to reach out for one, but a last shred of caution stayed his hand.