...
You walk down the unremarkable tunnel, trailing your fingers lightly behind you on the walls. This particular exit seems to go on for quite a long way, and is sloping steadily downwards. The further along you walk, the steeper it gets, until you have to hold onto the uneven surface of the wall. A little later, you revise your earlier opinion that it goes on for "quite a way" to it goes on forever. Your legs are even starting to get tired at this point. Well, maybe that's not entirely because of the tunnel; you did climb up the mountain this morning, and then you spent some time crawling around in the dark...you really wish you had some kind of light source. Your eyes have adjusted enough that you can faintly see vaugue outlines, but not enough that you're really comfortable. You really, really want out of the mountain and back to where you can see...but knowing your luck, it'll be a moonless night when you finally escape this place. Which seems increasingly unlikely with every step. You're positive that you're below ground level now...it certainly didn't take this long to climb up this chunk of rock and rubble any way. You sigh to yourself--you've been doing that a lot lately--and sit down on a relatively horizontal boulder in the tunnell. You dig around in your pockets, but they turn up empty. You grumble some more, then get up to continue on your way.
Eventually you notice your palms are getting wet, and you find that the rock wall you're holding is moist, as if covered with a light dusting of dew. The air here is heated as well, and you find that you're uncomfortabley warm in your outdoor gear. You can see a bit of light off in the far distance, a warm, orange-red glow, muted slightly by a surprising amount of mist. You shiver a little despite the heat of the tunnel, finding the steaming light quite eerie, and youself more then a bit unsettled by it. You pause for a momment, and take a deep breath the steady your shakey nerves, and find that the air tastes and smells faintly of sulpher. You grimance in distaste, and try not to breathe so deeply, but decide to continue.
You round the corner and walk into the light.... |
