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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 7606534" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 295“This place is a maze,” Kavek said as they turned into yet another passage.Bredan didn’t say anything.  He was starting to doubt himself, and the subtle twinges that he’d been using to guide them.  Clearly something had warned him about the fire trap in the first corridor, and he’d thought he’d felt something when he’d lifted his sword at the first three-way fork, but they’d been wandering for what felt like at least an hour and he was starting to feel that maybe they were just lost.He still did the ritual at every branching, but he suspected that his companions were starting to come to the same realization.  Clearly the ancient city was huge, and this network of caverns, worked chambers, and connecting passages extended under a good portion of it.  But thus far they had not come to anything that looked like it could be an exit or a route to their ultimate destination.At least they hadn’t come upon any more traps or creatures like the black pudding.  There had been a few hazards, including a chamber with a collapsed floor that they’d finally just given up on, retracing their steps to the previous fork and selecting the other option.  Once they had found themselves back in a room they had already explored.  Bredan could almost feel the looks shared behind his back when they’d realized that they had just looped back around.They had stopped once more to share around a swallow of water and a few bites of their remaining rations.  There wasn’t much left of either now.  The air remained stale, but Bredan wasn’t sure if it was slowly poisoning them.  He had a bit of a headache, but that could have just been the lack of rest and the repeated battering that he’d taken over the last few hours.His mind had wandered so thoroughly that he didn’t realize they had come into a new chamber until Kalasien touched him on the arm.  With a start he came back to the present and looked around in surprise.This place was definitely new.  The chamber was irregularly shaped, its walls meeting at angles that didn’t quite match.  It was spacious, its far side lost in darkness beyond the limited radiance of Bredan’s sword.  There was a large mound of rubble in the center of the room, tall enough that it looked like it would take a considerable effort to scale.  Above it the ceiling rose in an inverted funnel to what might have been an opening, but it was impossible to be sure in the weak light.“Anyone see another way out?” Bredan asked.“Our eyes are no better than yours,” Kalasien said.Bredan shot him a look.  Kalasien’s mood seemed to be souring the longer they spent down here.  It was a notable change; the Arreshian agent had hardly seemed to feel emotion at all since they’d departed Li Syval.  It was understandable; Bredan himself had felt on edge ever since they’d arrived on the shores of Weltarin.  But if the man was close to losing control that was something he needed to know.They were moving slowly into the room, and Bredan was about to say something to Kalasien, when a rumbling sound froze them in mid-step.The sound was coming from the mound in the center of the room.  It became a vibration, then a cascade of dirt and stone as the rubble shifted.  Bredan was not entirely surprised when it rose up and took on the form of a giant humanoid creature, a heap of living rock that stood a good ten feet tall and loomed over the companions like an avalanche.The floor shook as it took a step toward them.</blockquote>

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