We waited for a while to see if the skeletons would start hammering on the door, though I couldn't say how long precisely - being underground with just our lanterns to illuminate the catacombs for two days had done something strange to my perception of time. Katrin seemed to be hardest hit by it, but she recovered rapidly - or faked it - whenever we were in an enclosed space that could be fully lit.

"I guess the shadows are getting to me," she admitted, "ever since we had to run from that big group of zombies. It's fine. I can handle it, I'm not losing my mind or anything. I'm just... I'm tired of this."

The others were keeping it to themselves if they were bothered, though for the three mercenaries it would probably be embarrassing to admit to their employer that they were feeling spooked. At any rate, the skeletons never started beating on the door. Connie had seemed sure - based on the notebook she kept referring to - that there were no working traps or curses or anything in this room, so I took a few moments to walk around and examine what few things there were to see.

The center of the cube-shaped room was dominated by a transparent crystal that, rather than being a carved coffin as it first appeared, was actually a solid piece of stone with a perfectly-preserved body inside. I had to admit it was an incredibly classy way to display a body. The man on display was on the older side, with skin that wasn't just olive but actually had an almost greenish tint to it - something I'd never seen on Earth. As with everyone I met, I couldn't quite map any of his features to any ethnicity I was familiar with either.

"Well he's dressed nice, and that's a fancy sarcophagus, but I'm not seeing any treasure that's easy to take," Aestrid observed.

"No treasure here," Connie said as she slipped the notebook away again, "he kept that somewhere else. But the key is here. I don't... actually know what it looks like. But it's a key of some sort, and it's hidden on the wall."

The walls were covered in colorful tiles, each a different pattern or image. Along the edges they had little tabs and slots, like jigsaw puzzle pieces, although they weren't actually connected - the tabs didn't tend to line up, and were just set into some sort of grout. "So one of these tiles is a key, and you have no idea which one?"

"Right. I'm working off of limited information."

I started examining the tiles, but there were just so many. "Do you have a picture of what the key fits into? You know, so we can figure out how many little tab things it should have?"

Connie winced. "No. Sorry. The..." she leaned in close to me and switched to English, "the people that did this in my timeline, they figured it out. And they didn't have a picture either. So it's got to be something we can figure out."

"Okay. Fine. Uh... I guess there's too many to just take all of them, huh?"

Sige laughed. "I'm not carrying a whole fucking tomb's worth of walls all the way back up there. I'm not even looking forward to carrying myself."

Mila nodded from her spot on the ground, where she appeared to be rapidly falling asleep. "Yes, can't we get out some other way? The darkness is unpleasant, I don't want two more days of it - more, I suppose, since going up is going to be harder on my knees. I'll have to take twice as many breaks, and I'm sure I'm not the only one."

Aestrid nodded. "My knees are fine but there are probably a hundred skeletons outside, and that possessed delver, and gods know what else. We have two people with dimensional magic, surely we can take some sort of shortcut to the surface."

Sige shook his head. "Don't fucking look at me. I'm best at Itzele, and I don't want to see what it fucking looks like for the Necropolis - that's if it even exists down here. Most likely it's just solid fucking rock. And I can do others, but it's fucking hard because we're in an overlap zone already so chances are I'd fuck it up. Cyne is a little better at it, but that fucking look on his face says he feels the same way."

"I do. For planes that map directly to locations on the material world, it would be disaster. Some of the others can be reached, but the ones we would be most likely to succeed with would also be the ones that would gain us nothing. I suppose the best option would be Nusos, since that's where we're going after this regardless - but we would just be exchanging one set of monsters in dark tunnels for another."

Connie seemed to be considering it - either she'd forgotten about Errod and the kids or just didn't care at this point. "If we're going to have to travel through that anyway, better once than twice - right?"

Cyne shook his head. "Nusos is an ever-changing arrangement of rooms and hallways. It's influenced by buildings in the material world, so you'll see familiar architectural styles as well as furniture or decorations. It's easiest to enter at places that are similar to other spots, that have lots of walls and doors close together, or that have a somewhat maze-like feel. So entering from here in the Necropolis would be trivial, though we would need to wander the passageways somewhat.

"The problem is that once inside Nusos it takes time and concentration to change your surroundings, which means we would still be in catacombs. The most powerful monsters in Nusos feed on fear, so stumbling around in dark tunnels of the dead is not suggested. Instead, if we enter Nusos from somewhere more relaxed and pleasant - some small town that doesn't have wards up to prevent planar travel - our journey will be much safer."

"Well. Hang on, actually." Sige was squinting at Connie. "You haven't told us much about where the fuck we're going. Nusos... I mean Cyne knows more than I fucking do but I've gone through it a few times and it's all about how similar the places are. You just fucking walk, and think about where you want to be, and eventually you get there. So I agree I don't want to wander in the Nusos version of this place but it all fucking comes down to the question of how long, right? Figure three fucking days to go back up since it was two to get down, maybe even four if you won't spring for the ride out."

"But the creatures in this kind of area in Nusos are particularly dangerous - "

"Right, fucking sure. It's worth taking longer to avoid it... if that would mean we avoid it. But Connie here hasn't described where we're going, has she? If our fucking destination looks a lot like where we already are, then not only would travel time be way fucking less but it's through an area we'd have to go through anyway."

Everyone looked at Connie. "Fair point. Okay. So... I do not know where we're going. It's similar to here in the sense that it's underground, though not nearly so deep. Uh."

Cyne opened to a new page in his notebook. "What about the architectural style?"

"Probably no similarity to the majority of the Necropolis, though that's all different styles anyway. Made by the same people as this tomb. It's... uh... it's within the current territory of the kingdom of Erathik, but it's from a smaller kingdom that sprung up after the collapse of the old Empire and then got wiped out by some people who got wiped out by some people who got absorbed into Erathik. I just have some notes but the... the key is supposed to help us get there."

Cyne frowned. "Well, we'll need something more specific if we want to get there through Nusos. Vague descriptions won't be enough to find a distinct real-world location. We could come out into any number of similar places otherwise. If you don't know something unique we can concentrate on, there's no point in entering Nusos at all."

I hated that I had nothing to contribute. I was just listening to the others talk, and it was sounding more and more like Connie had overestimated her ability to follow these clues from the other timeline to the lost Duminere. That hurt, because I recognized the part of myself that would have done the same. I paced around the room, trailing my fingers along the tiles. They were about eight inches to a side, an estimate I made entirely based on my memory of how wide a sheet of paper was on Earth. Some had fanciful patterns, some were mostly plain, and some just had a few lines. They were all brightly colored, making this tomb look ridiculous. If the key was supposed to help...

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I got a few looks when I started crawling around on my hands and knees, and even more when I hauled myself up onto the sarcophagus to get a better look at the top of the wall. "Sige! Gimme a lift, right there."

Without asking questions he helped me climb up onto his hand and then shoulder, and using my knife carefully I pried a tile loose. I rotated it, and smiled. "Hey! We need to know what our destination looks like to get there through Nusos, right? Well, I just found a door."

It was a tiny door, set into the middle of the tile - but the closer I looked the more certain I was that it was what we needed. I climbed down off of Sige, and Katrin counted and measured the tabs on the sides.

"We need more. It'll be a whole room. This is going to take forever."

The search began, picking the left side of the door tile as a random starting point. Every time we found a tile that looked about right I would hold them together to confirm, and in the end we had pried out seven more tiles - all of which potentially fit, with no way to say which one was right. Then we started on the next piece - the 'ceiling' of the little box we were making - and the tabs on that one had to match not only the door tile but at least one of the others we had found. It took more than an hour, but at the end we had assembled a tiny room out of six tiles.

Katrin didn't seem happy. "I don't know. They all fit, and I don't see any others that would, but visually... it's a mess. None of the colors line up at all."

Cyne smiled, turning the cube in his hands and removing one side at a time to get a look at the interior from different angles. "No, that's perfect. They must have intended the room to be accessed through Nusos, but didn't want anyone stumbling in by mistake. If you know exactly what to picture you can find it, but if you don't you would never be holding the right image in your mind. Before we go into Nusos, we should all study this carefully."

"So... are we doing that from down here?" I asked, "Or heading back up?" Katrin squeezed my hand, and I knew if they made the choice to go from here she was going to expect me to argue.

"I would still recommend going back to the surface," Cyne said, "A room this colorful, with a different purpose and design than the catacombs... it would take a significant amount of travel from here, and as I said some very powerful creatures would be working against us to keep us lost and afraid."

"Good," Katrin chimed in, "Because I know my brother and I'm worried he would come down here looking for us if we don't return in the next few days."

It was well past time that we go to bed according to Cyne's watch, so everyone got comfortable. I had to pee, but while we had obviously been forced to defile the Necropolis as we traveled I drew the line at both pissing in an actual tomb and doing it so close to where we were sleeping. Unfortunately the possibility of armed skeletons meant I couldn't find a spot out in the halls, so I had to hold it. On the plus side, Cyne said he could afford to give us each a quick pass of healing on our feet to deal with any blisters or soreness, so we would be extra fresh in the morning.

As always, I had some fucked up dreams - but this time they were so jumbled I couldn't remember anything apart from being lost in a dark maze of twisty little passages, all alike. No surprise there. I woke up only mildly stiff and having successfully held my bladder, and helped everyone get packed back up. We had the normal meal of cheese, jerky, and these heavily seasoned dense breadstick things - they weren't bad at all, but I was getting sick of the whole routine.

"Katrin, hurry up. I have to piss so bad and we still might need to wait for Aestrid and Sige to kill some skeleton things."

She nodded, but continued to move slowly. "Sorry. I'm just not looking forward to this. Going all the way back up, in the dark. It's fine. I'm fine."

Sige literally kicked the door free from the surrounding frame, which hadn't ever been properly sealed up after we entered. It slammed into something with a terrible crunching sound, and there was a clatter of metal as a skeleton dropped its sword. Sige stepped back and Aestrid climbed up onto the door which was now at a forty-five degree angle, then she grinned and the door abruptly slammed down onto the ground as if she weighed a ton. Some that hadn't been crushed moved forward to grab her before she could stand, but Sige stepped back in and punched one so hard its skull detached before grabbing another by its armor and flinging it into the darkness.

Aestrid hopped to her feet and stepped out, allowing herself to be surrounded, and then casually began to cut the straps on the things' breastplates so they would fall loose. A few tried instead to go after Sige, but he was faster than them and just kept knocking them down; he wasn't doing a ton of damage, but they simply couldn't land a hit on him and after a few tumbles the ancient bones were starting to break.

Only one got past and tried to come inside, while Sige was distracted by a skeleton that he clearly thought was already dead until it sliced fairly deeply into his left calf - it was basically the same mistake he'd made a few days prior. While he dealt with it, the other took a stab at Connie but got her hooked stick right in its face; she actually caught the hook inside its mouth and pulled it forward so that it fell down, and then stood on its back and wrenched with all her might until its skull popped free. Sige and Aestrid cleaned up the rest, and Cyne fixed Sige's leg while I stood there awkwardly with Katrin and Mila.

"Well shit, I didn't do anything."

Katrin nodded. "I keep pulling the spellbook out, getting all ready, but then... Sige and Aestrid always have it under control."

"I mean I guess that's what we're paying them for. And I don't want to get hurt, and I didn't pack the right kind of weapons for undead things. But... I don't know, I feel silly just standing here."

Mila tuned into the conversation for a moment and smiled at me. "Oh, dears. You know, when I was your age I didn't have my sculpture shop yet so I had to make money other ways. And there were days it was quite intense, I remember once I found a fellow's ear stuck in my boot and couldn't even begin to guess whose it was. And I can tell you, I much prefer my quiet life and my statues and... oh, did I ask someone to water the plants before I left? Oh, bother."

Neither of us had anything to say in response to that.

We headed back up, doing our best to retrace our steps so that we would save time. If we could take the same route back up and skip the exploration part, it would make up for the extra effort of going up so many flights of stairs. Having been stuck in the middle of the marching order the whole time I had no idea which turns we had made, but thankfully some of the others had been paying attention and we very rapidly found our way back to Mila's ramps and made excellent progress. As expected it was harder going uphill, but Cyne's healing of our feet had done wonders and the upside to being on the return trip was that we had less water to haul around which had been the heaviest thing in our packs by far.

As we neared the area where the man with the spider-thing had attacked us we did our best to move silently and be on alert. My moccasins ensured I didn't make a sound, but in the stillness of the Necropolis a group of seven people shuffling along was pretty noticeable even with them doing their best. Still, there was no sign of him and soon we had made it past. That meant we soon reached a spot where we could no longer retrace our steps, however.

"They're still there, can you hear them?" Aestrid asked. "Clawing at the door. Good luck boys, your fingers will wear away before that stone does."

We were on the narrow, cracked ledge at the edge of the pit where Mila had sealed the zombie horde in just as Aestrid escaped. Going back the way we came was one hundred percent not an option. Connie sighed, looking out across the pit - but our lights didn't reach the far end.

"Well," she said, "we could just explore for a bit I suppose. There's bound to be other ways up, though I'm a little worried that we'll also find another passage into the area with the horde."

Sige was looking up at a nearby hole. "Some of those fucking chalk marks. Looks like... shit, practically a fucking ladder. We could all just fucking climb, skip the next four or five floors. Yesrin's tits, I wish we'd seen this on the way down."

Connie looked too, and seemed to consider. "It's pretty tempting. You have low standards for ladders, though. I think we need the rope for this one, although those notches will be great for footholds as we climb."

Sige grinned. "I can climb up and tie off a fucking rope. No problem. Give me six minutes or so, no big deal."

"No. No, I don't want you to go alone. Shit, but I don't want to make everyone climb up there."

"Well it's too fucking good to pass up. I can bring someone with me?"

Connie looked over at us. "Yeah. Not Aestrid, we need one of the fighters to stay back. And not the weaker climbers. Um. You know what, screw it. I'll come."

They headed up while the rest of us took a breather. Katrin and Mila watched in one direction, while Aestrid stood guard by the sealed door - leaving me and Cyne milling around in-between. I was still feeling odd about not contributing, but I couldn't argue against it either; I was only good at fighting people who were unprepared or untrained and I had no magic. Plus, I was worried enough about Connie being off away from the group that I wasn't really in a 'bring on the zombies' kind of mindset. I paced back and forth, silently, trying to count the minutes. It hadn't been long, but it felt like forever.

And then the explosion happened.