"Syeonyx? What's wrong?"
I explained to him what I found, and he looked at me quizzically for a few moments. UOPETA hadn't replied, nor had he joined us at the top, so I decided to go and find him instead. We headed down his shaft, and continued going, past the pool of water he had blocked off, and further down still. As we drew closer, the sounds of a pickaxe striking stone became audible, and grew louder as we went further and further down. Eventually, we were deep enough to be able to see UOPETA working at the bottom, and I called out again. This time, UOPETA stopped working, and turned to face me. He seemed a little confused to see both me and THEROS standing a few steps above him, looking slightly confused ourselves! Setting down the pickaxe, he turned back towards us.
"Why do I get the feeling I'm not going to like this...? What's wrong now? What have you found?"
"Syeonyx has found something a little... Odd... He doesn't want to explain any more than that..."
The full effect of what I saw can only be explained by seeing it for themselves, rather than me standing there trying to describe what I saw. After a few moments of further talking, I convinced UOPETA to follow me up the stairs to my shaft, and we set off back up the stairs. A few minutes later, we were descending the stairs of my shaft, reaching the deviation in my path due to the chamber.
"I see you went to the side, rather than straight through...? Probably for the best. There could be evidence still in that chamber, and disturbing it would be a bad idea... I don't know, maybe we'll eventually find those missing pages that AMPHIS went on about..."
We continued down the remainder of my shaft, to the point where I had to stop due to the structure of the chamber beneath. Even UOPETA looked surprised as we cautiously made our way down, avoiding the steep drop into the lava flow. We reached the base, and I led them around to the left, where I had found the chamber. We stopped at the entrance to the large, open area, and UOPETA whistled slowly.
"There's a lot of iron here! Excellent find! Is this what you came to show me?"
Erm... No, not quite... Continuing across the chamber to the other side, UOPETA and THEROS followed me. The confusion on UOPETA's face had returned, and THEROS seemed to share the same feelings. I stepped to one side and allowed them to look past to where the wooden wall stood in our way. UOPETA and THEROS stood there staring for some time, in total silence, emulating my exact feelings and thoughts when I first saw the wooden wall... After some time, UOPETA managed to speak, but only a little, obviously still in shock.
"Erm... Okay... Right... What now...?"
That was a good question... No sounds could be heard from within inside the wooden shelter, but it didn't mean that no-one was there. I cautiously approached the small wooden door set into the wall, and peered through the slats at the top. Inside, I saw a bed on the far wall, with every other wall covered by bookshelves, full to overflowing point with books of all colours and sizes! UOPETA took a peek after me, and then THEROS. Afterwards, UOPETA pushed on the door to test if it was locked, finding that it swung open freely, and without so much of a creak!Stepping through, we followed him into the wooden shelter, careful to close the door behind us.
We were sure no that the shelter was entirely empty and void of life... But was it abandoned, or had we stumbled across the home of someone whilst they were out somewhere...? Whoever did or had lived here certainly read a lot! Books filled every shelf, and there was barely any wooden shelving visible beneath all of the paper and book spines! We stood in the centre of the one large room, and just stared at the walls, not sure where to even begin...
"Erm... Any guesses on what this is...?"
A resounding silence... Walking over to one of the shelves, I began to scan the books stacked along at eye level, realising after ten or so that most of these were hand written. Taking one off the shelf, I opened it at the start, and was instantly met with the strange symbols that belonged to the pig-pen cipher. I showed this to UOPETA and THEROS, and they instantly made the connection as well.
"Interesting... We could have found something quite useful here then..."
Putting the book back on the shelf, and picking up another, I checked the first page again, and once more, I was met with more symbols... I couldn't even begin to guess what these books were based on, even if they were only translated into Latin!
"Uh oh..."
UOPETA and myself turned to face THEROS, who was crouched in the corner of the room near a tale and chair, looking at something on the wall.
"What is it?"
THEROS stood up, and moved away from the wall, revealing a lever embedded into the side of one of the shelves... A lever...? Was this another shelter that contained secret passages and chambers? Intrigued, I moved over to it, and flicked it down. Nothing happened... There was no sounds, nothing moved... It was just for decoration it seemed... I flicked it again, and was suddenly drawn to a scraping sound behind me!
The screeching, scraping noises came from the wooden walls sliding back into place. Flicking the lever once more, I watched as the descending wall segment slide back into the ceiling and floor, exposing the full passage beyond... Convinced this place was a mockup of what I found beneath Jonas' house, I inquired as to whether any of the Lone 7 had operated in the area before.
"I doubt it... SERVERE acted as the long range scout, but it wouldn't make any sense for him to be posted here... We would have known about it if he had been..."
It just seemed so odd that another hidden passage was found by a partially lever in a room filled with books! The same hidden room had existed beneath Jonas', I mean SERVERE's outpost house. There were a series of traps and hidden switches to get to it, but I eventually made my way into a room much like this, filled with books. But within the hidden room, I found a lever to another hidden room! In there, I found the diary of SERVERE, where I read the last written words by him...
"What do you think is down there...?"
Well, judging from the construction of it, it wasn't a room... A passage that seemed to bend around to the right, but nothing from what we could see suggested about the destination. Only one way to find out... Stepping forward towards the passage, I stepped into it, going further, tentatively. We had no weapons with us, and no way to defend ourselves - taking the blowpipe with us to the cliff mine seemed a little redundant - so it was understandable that I was being cautious. Reaching the end of the passage, I turned to the right, and followed the passage around, finding a set of wooden stairs leading down... With UOPETA and THEROS right behind me, I left a little safer. At least nothing was going to creep up behind me, but that didn't stop anything attacking me from the front... Moving down the stairs, it wasn't long until we saw the end of the passage... It ended, rather abruptly, in a partially destroyed stone wall... Was that it...? Now what?
Syeonyx signing off
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