Reaching the place we had initially squeezed our way into the tunnel didn’t take long at all. We were in high spirits, feeling much better than when the despondency of not finding anything noteworthy had set in. While we walked, we chatted about what we hoped that we might find.

Once we made in back to the place with the light shafts, however, everyone settled down for business. Again, we were headed into the unknown. If Bowen’s conjecture was correct, we likely had little to fear unless the area was trapped. If he was wrong, however, who knows what we might encounter. It was time to ratchet back to red alert, to put our game faces back on. I probably didn’t need to say it but I did anyway.

“Be alert for traps. If Bowen is right and this is an abandoned stronghold of the five-fingered invaders, they may have left some nasty surprises for anyone who blundered their way into the place.”

“Care to share any more wisdom that is just common sense?” Aleyda asked.

“Eat your fruits and vegetables so that you get adequate nutrition and can grow up to be big and strong,” I offered.

That got a little laugh out of Bowen and a scowl from Aleyda.

“Also, remember we are on the clock here,” I said. “We only have so much oil left.”

“Can’t you just light up again?” Aleyda asked.

“I think I can, but if something happens to me how are you going to find your way out from under this mountain?” Way to throw a wet blanket over an exciting time, James.

“Why don’t we save some of the oil and you can just light the way for us now?” Bowen said.

“I’ll try but I don’t know how long I can maintain the light. I’ve never tested my endurance before.”

So, I centered myself in my mind and reached out to the pool of warmth that surrounded me. Because we weren’t in a stressful situation, pulling that power to me was easy and soon I was glowing with a light much brighter than the feeble beams cast by the lantern.

“That’s really interesting,” Bowen said. “I can see the blood vessels under your skin.”

“Glad I can offer a little entertainment,” I shot back. Then, we started moving down the corridor to the left of where we had entered.

We hadn’t walked for long at all when more signs of work wrought by human, or at least sapient, hands appeared. Approximately every hundred feet, there were more light shafts. I wondered if the shafts had actually been designed for light originally or whether they were, in fact, added to improve ventilation and provide fresh air. As I think I mentioned before, the air under the mountain was pretty stale. If there were too many people living in these tunnels, perhaps having enough breathable air had become a concern.

We had only passed another two or three sets of light/air shafts when the evidence of occupation by humans or other sapient creatures became irrefutable. The tunnel continued but it had been artificially worked. The work was fairly crude. The walls weren’t smoothly worked stone but instead were covered with rough chisel marks. Just a few steps past the signs of construction, the tunnel turned at a roughly ninety degree angle to the left. We crept up to the tunnel’s entrance and looked inside.

Clearly, this area had been designed for defense. Along the ceiling, there were many small shafts that pierced the rock in a haphazard pattern. No light emanated from these holes, indicating that they probably didn’t breech the surface of the mountain. Every few feet, the ceiling was buttressed by the remarkably well-preserved remains of a wooden support system.

“Those look like murder holes to me,” I said.

“What are murder holes?” Bowen asked.

“There is likely access to the area above us for the defenders. If someone or something invades, they stand up there and engage the invaders with little risk to themselves. They can drop rocks, dump boiling oil or water, or do anything else that they are ingenious enough to come up with while the invaders founder below.”

“That’s nasty,” Bowen said.

“That’s war,” Aleyda offered. “If they went to all that trouble then there is a likelihood that this tunnel is trapped as well. The question is whether those traps are armed and functional.”

“We have to assume they are,” I replied. “To do anything else would be extremely foolish.”

“Why don’t I carry the lantern and the oil just in case,” Bowen said.

I handed Bowen the lantern and the oil. I had to give the guy credit. He was always scheming to make certain he survived.

“Should we rope ourselves together in case there are pits?” I inquired.

“You two could, but there is little reason for all three of us to be pulled into a pit,” Bowen said. “If you can’t stop Aleyda from falling then there is no way I can stop both you and Aleyda slipping into a pit. You guys both outweigh me.”

“I do not,” Aleyda said indignantly.

“I meant with your armor,” Bowen replied.

I tied myself to Aleyda with a six foot length of rope. Then we began making our way slowly down the passage. Aleyda poked, tapped and prodded the floor ahead of her with her sword. I thought due to the relatively crude nature of the construction we had seen so far, there wouldn’t be any complex mechanical traps. I could be wrong, though.

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As we slowly made our way forward, I noticed that some of the tunnel’s bracing seemed to be different than others. I called for a halt and studied the differences. It appeared that, at least at one point, the bracing could be removed weakening parts of the tunnel. Maybe the idea was to collapse the tunnel on invaders if the defenders couldn’t hold.

“Careful around the bracing,” I said. “Some of these braces look rigged to bring down the tunnel.”

“I’ll say it again,” Aleyda said. “You take a girl to all of the nicest places.”

I stuck my tongue out at her.

We crept forward probing the floor but didn’t find any pits. Within thirty feet or so, the tunnel turned to the right. In ran in that direction for only about ten feet until it turned to the right again, running parallel to the tunnel we had entered through. Several minutes later, our new passage turned to the left and then left again. This place had obviously been designed to bleed an invading army or at least invasive creatures causing them to traverse the same area over and over making perhaps ten feet of progress with every iteration. All the while, I assume the defenders would be trying to inflict as much damage as they could. All in all, I thought the design was pretty ingenious. That ingenuity, though, had likely taken a remarkable amount of work. This was not something that one or two people or even a couple of dozen could have created in a reasonable amount of time. At one point, this complex must have contained a substantial population of some type. Based upon the dimensions, which were sized close to human norm, I was starting to come around to Bowen’s idea.

Back and forth we weaved five times until finally we reached the end of the passage and a set of stout wooden doors. The doors were thrown open, which was great for us because the had no handles on the outside and I could see brackets on the back that were clearly designed for a substantial bar of some sort. If those doors had been barred, I’m not certain how we would have forced our way through them. Thankfully, though, when whoever occupied the complex left they hadn’t locked up after themselves.

We walked into the next room, which was almost like an underground courtyard. Once again, the ceiling was riddled with what I presumed to be murder holes. Arrow slits were cut in the wall opposing us as well. Whoever built this seemed to believe in a belt and suspenders approach to defense. The room wasn’t very large, perhaps thirty feet wide and twenty feet in depth. I assume the design was intended to get an attacking force strung out throughout the hallways and then rain death and destruction on them while they tried to force their way in. Opposite our entry, there was once again a pair of stout wooden doors. They also had been left open, which was just grand as far as I was concerned. I didn’t think the three of us could have generated a whole lot of force with a battering ram made from a fallen tree or something similar.

“Whoever built this seemed to be pretty paranoid,” Bowen said.

“I don’t think it is paranoia when you consider the creatures this island harbors,” I replied. “I doubt that we have seen the nastiest things that are on offer. They also clearly worried about being attacked by a force of humanoids as well. Can you imagine marching in ready to kick some ass only to be funneled into that maze of hallways we just left? As the invaders advance step by step they are taking punishment the whole time. They have to find a way to bust down two seriously reinforced sets of doors. And that’s if the defenders don’t decide to collapse part of the tunnels to begin with. If your theory is correct, I wonder how they knew enough about the world to be so worried? I suppose in a world where magic is real there could be someone who developed scrying or precognition of some sort. I agree, though, that the place seems a little overdesigned. But who am I to criticize? If you are correct in your theory, newly arrived five-fingers managed to claw and scrap their way from nothing to this. That’s damn impressive as far as I am concerned.”

“If this place turns out to be safe we have to move the others here,” Aleyda said. “Even against an army, they could hold out for a long time.”

“I agree,” I said. “But only if it is safe.”

We walked across the killing field and entered the main part of the complex. The next chamber was a little larger than the courtyard outside. Rough stone steps had been erected on either end of the room by the wall nearest to our entry. I scrambled up one set and peered inside. As I suspected, the steps allowed access to the murder holes. There were piles of rubble placed in strategic locations throughout the area, clearly stockpiled ammunition. I didn’t want to explore the entire section. I was worried that the bracing below wouldn’t hold and the result would be a collapse of part of the tunnel. I wasn’t certain that there was another way out of the complex and didn’t want to destroy our only means of escape. Starving to death deep underground was not on the top of my list of plans.

Searching the rest of the room, we found nothing of value. When whoever built this place cleared out, they had stripped it clean. Certainly, some of the furnishings remained. There were weapon racks, but those were empty. There was a large table surrounded by low stools. Compared to the redoubt, it was remarkable how much better the items had survived. I didn’t know whether it was a matter of climate or whether this construction was much more recent, which would discredit Bowen’s theory. I knew that on Earth, caves are often used for storage as well. Perhaps it was as simple as not having had a necromantic ritual unleashed in the place. The only way we were going to solve this mystery, though, was to continue exploring. Once again, there was a set of wide open double doors on the opposite wall leading deeper into the complex.

So, exploring we did go. It took us three days to make our way through the balance of the complex. Part of that was due to the size of the place. By the time we were done, I felt like we had walked every street in a medium sized town. The place wasn’t designed to shelter hundreds of people, it was built for thousands. A lot of the construction largely conformed to the natural shape of the caverns themselves but almost every one had been modified in some way, at least to a minor degree. We didn’t find many caverns set up to be individual houses. It was communal living at its finest. The other thing that slowed us down was my magic. Keeping the light up full time was extremely fatiguing for me. If I kept at it too long, I developed massive headaches and became shaky. That meant for every hour exploring, I had to spend another resting. We didn’t have any choice, though. We hadn’t brought nearly enough oil because none of us thought delving in caves was in our future plans.

On the second day, we found what must have been the town center. It was located in the largest cavern that we had seen so far, one that was perhaps a hundred meters in diameter. I was a little freaked out by the eerie conglomeration of market stalls and the remains of dining areas of some sort. I kept expecting the place to come back to life between one blink and the next. After all, that wouldn’t have been the strangest thing that I had seen since coming to this world. The walls were decorated with paintings and engravings. Some of them were meticulously done while others looked to be little more than graffiti. One section had a list of names on it. There were hundreds of them. An underground stream flowed through a corner of the cavern, pooling into a small pond before it exited through a crack in the wall. I was on edge. It felt like we were invading somebody’s home uninvited.

There were messages scrawled on the walls as well. Lacking context, none of them made any sense to me. Of course, though, with the gift of tongues I could read each of them. I wished that I could shut the ability off. Perhaps then I could recognize if any of them were written in my Earth’s version of English. Seeing that other people from my world had walked these halls before me would have been comforting. Instead, my inability to distinguish one language from another was maddening.

The furniture we encountered appeared to be approximately sized around human norms. The second day we also found a room that essentially served as the place’s garbage dump. Poking through what remained, we found crudely forged pieces of metal, and many bones. Based upon the accumulation, it was clear to me that the complex had been inhabited for quite awhile, several years at least. Also, we found several other small tunnels that I presumed were exits from the complex. After exploring each of them for ten or fifteen minutes, we turned around and went back into the developed area. We really didn’t have time to find our way through another series of natural passages and caves.

On the third day, we found a series of steps circling a shaft that rose high into the mountain, far out of the range of the pool of light that I was able to produce. We started climbing.