The uninterrupted gray stones had to have held stories unknown to its travellers. The dingy air and eerie blue light from Anders' staff made the small space cramp down on the trio as they progressed down the path. So far, they had not encountered anything at all: no doors, turn-offs, and certainly no other living entities. It was strange to Benjamin: pursuit down a corridor such as this, despite its twists and turns, was bound to end badly. He couldn't help but wonder who had designed the corridor, and why they hadn't made it more complex.
For more than an hour, Anders and Yunia trailed Benjamin down the unlit corridor. They lived in a sphere of opaque light with weightened darkness above and around them. Silence rang in the hollow corridors carrying promises of oblivion. This far underground it was dry and cool and the air seem stale. Corrosion showed on the pitted stones of the walls and arched ceiling; this place was old, almost ancient, and seemed as though it had not been entered by the living in uncountable years.
Then, it came to an abrupt stop at a vertical shaft. The trio looked at one another, but didn't break the silence. Rivers of dark stains ran down the shaft and pooled at the bottom, running back off where they had came and out of sight. When he looked up Hawke could not see the beginning of the shaft; the sphere of light illuminating the area ended just above their heads. Benji stepped back, uneasy under the yawning chasm. The mages had no such problem, and looked up with confused and curious faces.
"I do not remember any kind of drop in the plans. Do you, Kitten?" Yunia broke the silence with a whisper. The use of Anders' code name normally made Hawke laugh, but he was too uneasy to muster the reaction. Navigating a drop, and a straight drop at that, was not something someone would want to do when they're running from their enemies. Any other of the noted possible uses of the tunnels wouldn't work well getting passed the drop either, unless the magister had planned to drown the whole of Darktown. Benjiman shook his head.
"No, I don't. And I can't think why it would be here." 'Kitten' responded from behind his mask.
"The only way to go is up," Hawke said helpfully, his arms falling to his sides in a huff. He knew the other two wouldn't make it far up the wall so it was automatically him who had to ascend. He made sure his belt was tightly secured before starting to climb. The stones of the structure had been placed by talented hands, but time had eroded the seams and Hawke found enough purchase in the cracks to haul himself skyward. He moved slowly, the precariously small holds making him cautious. As he made it to the edge of the sphere of light, Anders lifted his staff, the ball trailing behind and below Hawke to light his passage. The drop was short, about fifteen feet, and Benjamin soon found himself looking up at what looked like the bottom of a sealed grate.
The ceiling above him held a large, circular portal engraved with the image of a bleeding heart in a clenched hand, blood dribbling down the fist's gnarled fingers. The grate was supported by several sliding bar locks. The hinges of the door were also on this side. The ceiling was shaped like a square, following the structure of the shaft it capped. The circular portal was centered with the eight locking bars equidistant around the edge. Knowing it was a terrible idea, Benji reached out and tried to open the lock nearest him. He hesitated before lightly brushing his fingertips against the metal. He instantly jerked them back and to his mouth with a hissing breath; the metal was scaldingly hot to the touch. Figuring that yelling down to his companions was a bad idea, as the sound would probably echo, Hawke climbed down to discuss the door, this time going slower thanks to his sore fingers.
As he hopped down off the wall, the two crowded close. "There's a door up there on the ceiling. It's locked on this side, but it's got some sort of magic on it. When I touched it," Anders face contorted at that "It burned the shit outta me." He held up his fingers, still bright red. The two mages inspected it with matching frowns.
"It must be a powerful incantation if you're still in pain from such little contact," the elf said in a whisper. Anders touched his fingertips to Hawke's and Benjamin felt a cooling sensation as the mage healed the small injury. "Anders, do you think we should risk trying to dispell it?"
"No, I think that's an awful idea," he muttered as he pulled his hand away. At Benjamin's curious look, he added, "There are spells that can react to the dispelling of its host spell. A spell as strong as that, to last through eons… I don't know if I want to find out what kind of blowback that spell can harbor." Anders looked up at the door he couldn't see, apprehension clear on his face. He shook himself out of it and finished by saying, "I'll just have to freeze your fingers."
"Will that even work? It sounds too easy," Benjamin asked incredulously, not even thinking about the obvious flaw of that plan.
"Well, chances are there's no incantation to see if the door opened in general." Yunia said with a shrug. "It safer than trying to dispell it. There's less of a chance of backlash this way. But Hawke should take your staff and use that to pry open the locks." Before Hawke could ask, she continued, "Anders can cast the spell through his staff. Just don't accidently freeze the door, or you won't be able to open it. Or, it could melt immediately."
Benjamin was almost amused as the elf drawled on while Anders fastened his staff to the rogue's belt. "Whenever you need me to cast the spell just call down. We walked this entire hall, there's no one with us." Hawke didn't know if that was a safe assumption.
Hawke turned to the wall again, and this time it took less time for him to scale the wall. When he saw the grate and its macabre image he shivered, a feeling of dread welling in his chest as he looked a second time. The rivulets of blood flowing down the hand glistened maliciously in the harsh blue light. He looked closer as new trails traced slowly down the image's wizened hand, stretching his neck to make sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him. Down fell a droplet and Hawke gasped and sputtered, head snapping down. He shifted his weight and brought a hand to his cheek where the droplet had landed. His sensitive fingers shakily caressed the dry skin. He felt nothing, and when he looked at his hand he saw nothing. He looked up. The grate was all monotonous gray, the lines of blood as stiff and solid as the rest.
For a moment Hawke sat suspended with wide blue eyes, staring up at the grate with his breaths coming in quivering pants. He felt his face again before grasping at Anders' staff, his fingers feeling as if he had dragged them through some invisible, disgusting grime. He tried to shake his sudden unease with a deep breath as he brought the staff to bear. He tried to speak but his mouth was dry. He had to wet his lips before he managed to call down, "I'm ready, Anders."
Nothing could be seen below, but Hawke felt the breath of magic as the mage below conjured. The staff grew colder in his hand and frost formed on the metal topper in the form of crystals spreading across the silver surface in a labyrinth of complex shapes. A soft crackling accompanied the sight and a cold fog started to float around the top of the staff. Benjamin watched the cloud roll up and sizzle when it pooled around one of the enchanted locking bars. He tightened his grip on the wall and the staff, figuring that the immediate response to chilled air was a precursor to an incipient violent reaction to the frosty staff. He reached with the staff to the locking bar closest to him. There was almost two feet between Hawke and the ceiling.
The first bar had Benjamin holding the staff awkwardly straight up. He positioned the staff at the end of the bar without touching the portal. After a last calming breath, Hawke pressed with the staff against the end of the bar. A loud hiss of hot steam came from the contact, and as he pulled the staff toward the wall water began to cascade down the pole. The light was diffused inside the steam and formed into an almost opaque blue cloud. The grate, after so long a time without use, did not want to budge. After a moment of struggle, Hawke fell forward into the wall as the bar slid into place. He took a moment to steady himself . He heard soft laughter from the abyss below him: Anders and Yunia must have seen his fumble.
The top of the staff, now resting on the wall where Benjamin's force had pushed it, was no longer crystallized. It still felt cold to the touch, and the rivulets that had come down when the thin sheet of ice had melted were already refreezing. The enchantment was still placed upon the staff. Hawke snorted - at least he wouldn't have to call down after every lock. He hefted the cold staff in his hands a few times as a nervous motion before reaching out to the next locking bar. Still in an awkward position, Benjamin pried apart the ones closest to him first. Each in turn was more stuck than the last, and by the time two more of the latches stood open the suspended rogue had to call down to Anders to re-enchant his staff. With sore fingers, he carefully maneuvered the staff into his other hand to alleviate the pressure on his fingertips. He roughly shoved the next four locking bars out of place, this time throwing as much of his weight as he could into it while clinging to the wall. With his hand and arm now doused with water, and his armor glistening with dew from the steam that billowed from the connecting enchantments, Benjamin switched what hand held the staff once more. With one last heave, Hawke threw himself against the last locking bar directly across from him.
The last bar unexpectedly slid, as smooth as water through a channel, back into the unlocked position. Hawke fell forward, the staff slipping from his grasp as he flailed to catch the wall before him. Laughter echoed from below once more but he could barely hear it over the pounding of his heart. The sound ricocheted. The laughter surrounded him, from the walls and the ceiling and the chasm below him. Bridged from one side to another in a moist cloud Hawke scurried his hands up toward the portal. The circular threshold stood open, yawning into an abysmal darkness deeper by tenfold then that which he face below. An inexplicable terror enveloped him as he grabbed feebly at the lip of the portal. The screeching laughter wheezed as Hawke's own gulping breaths made his lips tremble. His sore fingers found purchase on the unknown ground of whatever lied above, and he hauled himself upwards. His legs kicked spastically at the empty air below him as the rogue heaved one last time, throwing himself into the impenetrable darkness that loomed above.
The small sphere of light illuminated the door with its gruesome image, looking menacing with shadows that danced in ethereal wind, and only the brief edges around the opening. But a moment later, the light receded, leaving Hawke looking forward into absolute darkness. Benjamin heard the laughter from before, but now it raged in a cacophony of emphatic screeches and fearsome howling coming from all around. Benjamin clamped his hands over his ears, but it did nothing to stifle the sound. Cold air, like a spirit's soft exhalation, flowed to the opened door, caressing past the rogue as he trembled in wake of the noise. The darkness, so complete, was unlike anything the man had experienced before. A feeling of dread slid down his throat and into his stomach like ice. The soft breaths of air, gentle before, began to whip around, whipping against the man with enough gusto to force him to step back toward the portal. The moisture on his arms bit into his flesh as if it had been magically frozen, the cold radiating into his bone marrow.
Something was in here. Something Hawke did not want to meet.
Breathing in gulps, arms tight against his body as he held his ears and trembled, Hawke would've rather fallen down the shaft he had just climbed then face whatever entity was causing this barrage of sound. He feet sought the channel, his steps quickening as hopelessness settled in.