The battle done and the coast all but clear, we use my [Fog Cloud Arrows] to give us a little extra cover across the open square and up the wide, giant-size-appropriate pathways, though the concealment doesn’t feel completely necessary.

The natural mist rises to cover us as we get closer to the falls and the cave entrance tucked behind them comes into view through the haze. We press against the cliff face, trying to peer past the entrance’s dim, tight corner. I can make out the shadows of an elaborately carved archway behind it, but any additional details are obscured by the angle and the mist. I can’t hear anything above the crash of the water below and from everyone else’s frowns, it doesn’t seem like their senses are doing much better.

We’re going to have to go in without any information, but at least we have a way out behind us, and we put a lot of work into making sure the way back would be relatively clear.

Quietly, we ease behind the waterfall and as our eyes adjust, we’re met with the stench of damp, blood, and decay. It’s heavy and thick and immediately turns my stomach as we follow the slick tunnel along the edge of a small pool of stagnate water immediately behind the falls. The remains of several formerly animated corpses float in the water, their coagulated blood and rotting organs trailing out from large gashes in their decaying flesh. They’ve been ripped to shreds by something large.

We find the cause of their final demise some forty or so steps into the branching left tunnel: the bodies of giant lizard-like creatures that are in turn surrounded by crushed skeletons and ripped apart zombies. There’s blood splashed on some of the rocks.

“Maybe she was injured,” I murmur, gesturing to some a small smear and then an empty elixir vile a few yards away.

“Maybe,” Meg says, her brow furrowed. “Shh…”

We all pause and silence, listening hard. Under the sound of rushing water we hear the light moan, accompanied by the sounds of conflict. It sounds like it’s coming up through a well, and it’s clearly deep in the tunnel system, but it seems to be a difficult fight.

“Do we follow?” Flynt keeps his voice soft. “Or go the other direction?” He glances over his shoulder toward the right-hand branch that also appears to lead deeper into the mountain.

As we’ve paused, I’ve brought up my [Map], but it’s not hugely helpful. I see the opening of the cave system and not much else—just a bunch of [Fog of War] haze and the label for the space: [Hill Giant Catacombs]. The tunnel system is more cramped than I’d have expected given who supposedly utilized it, but I suppose catacombs aren’t necessarily meant to be comfortable for the living.

“That way is likely to have more of these creatures, or worse.” Meg rests a hand on one of the monsters and frowns at it. “Though, the group ahead of us may be making enough noise that they’ll pull everything in the cave system toward them.”

“This way is likely have more undead and a necromancer at the end of it.” Flynt raises an eyebrow at her. “So I come back to my questions from last night. Is our goal to follow the necromancer or to do our own investigation?”

“Why not both?” I glance at him.

“Because each is dangerous enough in its own right.”

“I’m in no hurry to tangle with her, but I think going in this way is the better option,” Meg says, frowning slightly. “We go in quietly, keep to the shadows, and we do everything possible to avoid conflict. We go down the other way and meet one of these guys, we’re going to make noise and let them know someone else is here. I’d rather follow in their wake.”

“Definitely happy to let them draw the fight,” I mutter, covering my nose with my hand against the smell.

We take a moment’s pause to gather our wits, and Jonas applies a touch of healing to Meg and Tyrus, who both caught a little bit of abuse from the giant. I have a couple of bruises and scratches from when I dove out of the way of the boulder, but they’re not worth making a fuss over right now. When we’re ready to move out, Tyrus and Meg take the lead as usual.

We maintain our careful, deliberate pace as we enter the tunnels, following various signs of recent passage: from the innocuous light footprints, to the more grisly bodies and remains, which are mostly monster and skeleton with the occasional disanimated zombie and even some humanoid corpses mixed in. We encounter two dead humans and one person with at least partial elven heritage. One was taken out by a cave-in trap, the other two were mauled by creatures. All three wore plain clothing without any symbols or other marks that we could find.

We run into a few traps, but they’ve all been either triggered or dismantled. A couple look like they just rotted away to become all but harmless. The echo of conflict drifts vaguely up through the cavern system, but it doesn’t sound particularly close.

“Careful,” Tyrus says as we approach a divergence in the tunnel. We’ve passed a couple of these already, but both previous divergences had one direction blocked by piles of stone. This split, however, is clear, and Tyrus pauses to point out the signs of a trap trigger.

“That… looks familiar,” I mutter, peering at it. There are two sets of trigger points on both the top and bottom, and the right and left, creating a grid within the tall, wide entry way. “Reminds me of what was set up at the mouth of the vault. Just bigger.”

“Doesn’t it just?” The dwarf raises an eyebrow at me. “I don’t know about you, but that makes me pretty curious.”

I nod and glance at the others. “What do you all think?”

“Are you thinking that they set this?” Meg asks.

Tyrus taps at his nose. “Exactly. The similarities are too coincidental.”

Flynt frowns. “Why would they do that?”

“Why indeed.” Tyrus grins. “Maybe something they want to come back to later and they want to try to keep it safe.”

“It’s probably a burial chamber,” Jonas says. “We should be careful. It’s not likely to have another way out.”

Tyrus nods. “Means there’s not another way in, either. At least we’d know they were coming. But I want to see what our creepy friends wanted to come back to.”

We all exchange glances, a silent conversation passing between us. Finally, Meg nods, meeting Flynt’s eyes and then mine. “A quick look. If only so we have a fallback spot. If it comes down to it, I’d rather fight them in a giant burial chamber than in these passageways.”

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Everyone nods and we all step back so I can dismantle the traps from a distance, just like I did for the entry to the vault where this whole thing started. It’s as easy as it was then, and slowly, we venture in. This time, I take the front with Tyrus, helping to keep a look out for additional traps, though we don’t find any.

The passage eventually opens up into a much taller, wider room, and pressure I hadn’t realized had built up on my shoulders releases as it suddenly feels like there’s breathing space. Flynt’s magical torch doesn’t do much to reveal the chamber, so I step outside its cast to get a better look: my dark vision is hazy and grayscale, but it at least gives me an impression of the space.

The chamber itself is huge, still, and absolutely silent. The vague echoes that carried through the passages are nothing but a memory in here. Vague shadows rise up against the walls, and I have the impression of staring at something big in the dark before the shapes start to make sense. Giant-scaled stone tables stand about six feet off the ground. They’d be low for a giant like the one we saw outside of Oosal, but judging from the reanimated form we fought outside, hill giants are a bit on the shorter side, about twelve feet tall. This would be the equivalent of a kitchen cabinet for them. On top of them are very large skeletons, some covered in armor and others, deeper into the cavern, seem to be clutching swords.

I glance at my companions who have fanned out around the burial chamber, inspecting the large pots and other grave goods around each of the eleven tables in the space.

“We take nothing,” Flynt hisses, his voice low. “A corrupted temple is one thing, but we’re not grave robbing. Even if they are giants.”

Tyrus raises his hands. “No protest from me. Last thing I want is a giant’s ghost haunting me.”

“Keira, Jonas, you too.”

“Trust me,” I murmur, somewhat distracted by a shimmer that catches my eye under one of the tables. “It’s not something I’m eager for either…”

Approaching the table in the back, I pause to inspect the carvings along its legs: more of the same hieroglyphics that we saw on the gates and throughout the settlement. Again, a brief shine catches my peripheral vision, though I can’t put a finger on what it is, exactly. Something is just… off with a section of wall behind this table.

Having learned a lesson from Meg’s disappearance during the Spider Adventure, I hiss at my party, and motion for them as I duck under the table and move toward the wall. It’s smooth, like most of the catacomb walls, but there’s a shimmery quality to part of it, which pricks at my mind.

“What do you see?” Flynt peers through the dimness at me, bracing himself on the top edge of the table, his magical light casting his features in a dull blue.

“Something’s different about this part of the wall… you can’t see it?”

He shakes his head. “Looks like a wall…”

I tap at the wall on either side of where the shimmery fuzziness is. Solid stone. I hesitate, glance back at Flynt again, then hold my breath and do the same right in the middle. My fingers go straight through. It feels like reaching into thick pudding, and goosebumps fan over my skin, causing me to shiver as I withdraw my hand.

“Well, that’s interesting,” Flynt says.

He gestures for the others to join us as I check the full boundaries of the shimmering space. It’s about five and a half feet tall and about four feet wide. We could all fit through, though most of us would have to duck. And then, of course, there’s the question of where it goes and how—and if—we could get back.

“I don’t see anything,” Meg says.

Jonas nods in confirmation that he doesn’t either, though Tyrus immediately steps under there with me (he doesn’t need to duck). The dwarf makes a motion with his index finger at roughly the shape of it and I nod. He makes a hmm sound. I’m not too surprised that he can also see it. Not only do dwarves have excellent dark vision, but he’s also a rogue class—this could be those [Skullduggery] skills at work.

Meg frowns further. “We’re all in agreement that this is a little strange, right? It’s not just me?”

“You mean, the idea of hill giants creating a magically concealed chamber they couldn’t fit into?” I glance back at her. “Definitely strange. But clearly, someone did.”

“And you just happened to find it?” Flynt asks.

“I didn’t just happen to anything. We were all looking for anything out of the ordinary. I found something, investigated, and…” I make a motion to present the wall. “Out of the ordinary.”

“So what do we do about it?” Jonas asks.

“We could tie the end of the rope around my waist and I’ll go through carefully.”

Our healer does a good imitation of Meg’s frown. “What if it pulls you through though? I’ve heard of that kind of trap. I was reading about it in one of the books in the Emporium.”

“It would already have sucked me through the first time I touched it.”

Meg face-palms at that, but it’s unfair. Not only had she previously been the one to randomly disappear, I’d also read the same book Jonas had, trying to get some new [Skills] to appear or to raise my points in something but, no such luck. Yet.

“It doesn’t look like how they described the suction traps,” I defend, “which is why I touched it in the first place. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have. I have minimal idea what I’m doing, but I’m not a total idiot.”

“She’s right, suction traps are totally different beasts.” Tyrus continues to inspect it. “This is definitely not a trap. It looks more like a sanctuary space.”

“Magical safe room,” I murmur, nodding. It’s one of the things listed in An Introduction to Useful Magicks, which has also been part of my reading stack. I haven’t gotten very far in it; it’s interesting content, but dryly written.

“Exactly. Sanctuary spaces are usually coded to certain genetic profiles. Can be as narrowly defined as a certain individual, could be as broad as an entire people. Or more.” Tyrus sets his fingertips against it and they, too, sink in—and he’s just as easily able to remove them. “Not just coded to elves, then.”

“And that is really strange,” Meg reaffirms.

“Who would have done it?” Jonas asks.

Flynt shakes his head. “A sanctuary space is pretty expensive. I find it hard to believe someone would just forget to take it down.”

“What if they’re still in there, then?” Jonas asks. “Or elsewhere in the catacombs? Could it belong to the necromancer? Could this be why they trapped it?” His voice is hushed, eyes wide as he peers back over his shoulder.

I shake my head. “I don’t think so. Look at the cobwebs and everything. No one’s been under here in a very long while.”

Meg frowns again, peering through her own dim light to try and discern it. “It could be old, I mean, legitimately old. The Stormbringer and Terravin families both used these during campaigns as early as the Dragon Wars. They’d send spies out behind enemy lines to set them up and stock them, often adding some sort of teleport focus in case of trouble. Similar to what we saw at the shrine in the spider cave.”

“Where did you read that?” Flynt sounds intrigued and a little impressed.

“I don’t remember. But that could be why it’s not more locked down—it’s prepared for a larger contingent to be able to access.”

“Interesting.” I frown at it. “Yeah. Okay. I want to see what it is. I like my plan.” I reach into my bag and pull out the rope. “Who is going to anchor?”

“Keira,” Tyrus says, giving me a meaningful slow down look.

I draw a breath. “Or we can pretend like we didn’t see it.”

“Those aren’t exactly the only options,” Flynt points out, but ducks his head and reaches forward for the other end of the rope. “You and Tyrus should both go. Watch each other’s backs and look for traps. We have one of these spaces in the cellar of the Emporium—they can be pretty large.”

Meg frowns at him. “Do you really?”

Flynt shrugs. “Oosal wasn’t always a very nice place. Da had it installed ages ago. But I haven’t been inside it since I was a boy.”

“Why not?” Jonas asks.

“He kept some creepy things in it. I used to think it was haunted. It really doesn’t matter.”

I look at Tyrus. “I’ll go through first.”

He shakes his head. “I’m the trap finder.”

“Yeah, but it’s my idea. And I can find traps too. Wait for the signal.”

He sighs heavily but nods. He counts out a good twenty feet of rope before tying it around his waist, then hands one end to me and the other to Flynt. There’s enough to keep some slack between us, and I do the same, tying it tight. Flynt nods and wraps the other end around his waist, then around his forearm a few times, which feels like overkill, but I’m not going to say anything. He steps out from under the table so he can more easily brace himself just in case.

“Alright,” he says. “Come back if anything’s not right.”

Before anyone can argue more, I turn and step forward.

It’s a bit what I imagined going through the Stargate would be like: slow at first, as if moving through a thick mud; then, it’s like something lets go and I fall forward, stumbling. I don’t have a sense of travel so much as just an awareness that I’m somewhere else. As I get re-oriented, I look up—you always want to look up—and I stop short as my gaze falls on the wide-spread wings of the largest dragon statue I’ve ever seen.