Camilla gave Cydric’s hand a final squeeze before she took her place in the loose line. They crept slowly across the tortured landscape although the lack of speed had more to do with exhaustion and hunger than anything else. Camilla wrapped her hand around the hilt of her blade and tried to pull her mind out of the bleakness that seemed to consume it. She had been tired before, cold exhausted but she had still been able to dance and fight, what was it about this place that affected them all so? She frowned at Ivan, had she ever seen Ivan Petrovich down hearted before. Lack of drink was possibly a factor by was it enough all on its own?

Camilla began to hum to herself. It was an old Imperial marching song that she had picked up during her travels with Cydric. The lyrics ranged from obscene to ridiculously obscene depending on the company. The earth rumbled as though in protest but Camilla kept humming after a moment Cydric and Konrad began to variously hum and sing. Even Yants began to mutter his own versions. They lyrics varied wildly, Cydric used ‘mountaineers’ in place of Yants’ ‘Rieklands spears’ but they all ended on a unified ‘fight like sons of bitches’. By the time they reached the shaft Camilla felt immeasurably cheered, Konrad was even grinning. 

The shaft itself was deliberately carved to look random, but close up the marks of tool work were impossible to disguise even for dwarven hands. There was a very slight suction of air every few seconds as though a great bellows were sucking on the far end of the shaft. Skadi picked up a handful of gravel and tossed it into the shaft before cocking an ear. Whatever arcane insight he gained from the ritual must have satisfied him because he nodded his head.

“Alright Manlings, if this madness is our path lets be down it,” he grumbled. They had no rope to string a climbing line so the Dwarf simply began to climb downwards, decending into the darkness hand over hand. Camilla followed close behind, scouting hand and foot holes for the others. They decended perhaps ten feet, crossed a small platform carved into the rock and began to climb down another shaft, far deeper and lit with a volcanic glow from far below. The sucking of the bellows grew more pronouced, each blast of air stiring Camilla’s hair like a tavern door opening in a spring gale. Her arms burned with effort and she became very concious of the very tired, very heavy men climbing down after her. If any of them fell it was a good chance they would take the lot of them down to a messy death. She muttered a prayer to Ranald and tried not to think about it.

Time began to loose meaning as they descended. The world narrowed to the simple activity of finding the next hand hole, placing her foot and the ever present red glow. It came as rather a shock to her when Skaldi stopped moving. She peered down and saw that he was working at a panel of verdigris copper with the edge of a large knife. There was a soft ping and the corner came loose. With the muscules in his massive arms bulging the dwarf twisted the copper sheeting and shoved it into a hole it had been covering. The downward suction of the air drew a cloud of dusty out into his face and the dwarf puffed and spat to clear the dirt from his mouth before swining into the hole and disappearing. Camilla carefully moved down the last hand hole the dwarf had used and swung herself inside, her muscles shrieked in relief when she found herself on another flat platform, this one much more crudely cut. The passage was dusty and had obviously long unused. Cydric clambered through the hole, followed by Ivan and Konrad. Finally Yantz climbed through, to Camilla’s amazement he was carrying Dietricha on his back, clinging around his neck like a child too large for a real horsie ride. Sweat poured down his body and his muscles stood out like corded ropes. As soon as he was clear he gratefully sank to the ground. 

“This is a spoil tunnel,” Skaldi said as he brushed dirt from his face and beard.

“It will connect to one of the main tunnels, they would have used it as the ventillation before the main tunnel was finished. Camilla couldn’t imagine how many hundreds of generations of men had passed away before this place was being built. It seemed to her to be part of the mountain rather than built into it.

“Whatever you say,” Camilla croaked hoarsely. After a few minutes rest they climbed down the shallow incline of the spoil tunnel until they came to another copper panel. Skadi pressed his ear to it for a long time before declaring it save. The panel was much easier to remove when they could use the full lenght of their weapons as pry bars and it came away with a slight screetch. Camilla slid through the opening before anyone could object, dropping four feet to the ground and coming up sword in hand. The chamber before her was deserted. Dozens of pillars carved with strange symbols supported the ceiling. Barrels and casks were stacked in rows, iron hoops dulled with age. It was clearly a store room of some kind

“What does that say?” she asked Skaldi as he clambered down, her outstretched finger pointed to a stenciled mark on one of the barrels.

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