They walked through and found themselves on narrow stone steps leading down. The little light provided from behind them and Sully's lighter bounced off the thick, square-cut stones and cast dancing shadows in the narrow passage. Nate wondered if these stones were part of the original foundations and felt his heart race a little at the thought of being the first people down here in centuries.
"This is cosy" Nate said, and he noticed a torch in a wall sconce. He pulled it out of the sconce and held it for Sully who put his lighter to it. Thankfully it caught and the light flared and then dulled a bit, providing them a bit more light.
Torch in hand, Nate headed down the stairs with Sully close behind him. The stairs made a U-shape turn and they went deeper underground, the light providing very little illumination and Nate was careful to watch his step as they went. The last thing he needed was to stumble down the stairs into who-knows-where.
After five minutes of slow walking, the temperature suddenly dropped and the passage opened up, the narrow walls fell away to reveal a giant chamber.
"Whoa" Nate said, his voice echoing in the gloom. The air was damp, and he walked over to one of the chamber walls and ran his hand over it. It came back damp.
"Limestone" Nate said.
"Man-made?" Sully questioned.
Nate shook his head, "Nah, it has to be natural."
"Do you hear running water?" Sully asked.
Nate listened and yes, there was definitely the sound of running water. That meant they were not in a contained chamber and maybe even part of the river ran through here. And that also meant that if they weren't careful, they might take a step into the abyss.
"We need to find some more light," he said. "Keep close but let me know if you find anything."
Holding the torch up higher, they slowly moved around the chamber, careful to steer clear of the edges. They came across some broken down crates and furniture.
"Maybe this was a storage area?" Sully said, kicking over a crate that was so rotted it disintegrated. "Or a dumping ground."
They continued looking, Nate not keen to go too far into the darkness and came up with nothing. He was about to tell Sully it was time to go and try again with proper equipment when he heard a thud, then, a groan.
"Sully?" Nate wheeled around. "You ok?"
"Yeah" his friend grumbled. "Walked into this thing."
Bringing his light closer, Nate saw it was a stone pedestal, square-shaped, with a shallow basin filled with some sort of liquid. Leaning down, Nate sniffed it and was greeted with the smell of rotten eggs.
"It's oil," he said.
"Oil?"
"I wonder...Sully, stand back" Nate warned. Then he touched the fire to the basin, and it went up in a great whoosh of fire. The chamber was brighter but not enough that the light still didn't reach far enough to see the walls. It was then that Nate noticed a small channel running from the side of the basin, down and along the floor into the darkness. Along the basin where it joined the channel was a removable slot. Nate pulled it up and the fire flowed into the channel like lava. It followed the channel along the ground, burning up the oil as it went until it reached a second pedestal about 15 meters away.
It's a brazier!
Fire ran from three separate channels in the three separate directions and they watched as the fire lit up three more braziers. Soon all the braziers were lit, lighting the chamber up in a dull orange glow. The braziers were set out in a three by three evenly spaced by 15 meters plus one brazier at front and one at the back.
"Incredible" Nate whispered in awe. It was a lighting system like he had never seen before. It used the channels and oil to light all the braziers in a similar way wiring conducts electricity to turn on multiple light bulbs. "This is just..." words had escaped him.
"Yeah, it's definitely something," Sully said. "Let's spread out, see if we can find anything."
Nate wandered around the chamber, it was an oblong shape with a sharp drop off along the left side, wherever the cavern ended it was far beyond the reach of the fire light.
Around the perimeter were stacks of boxes and crates, long rotted away or destroyed. The contents within gone, destroyed by rot, rats and wet.
Near one of the braziers was a table with sheets of parchment on it. Nate looked over it. The top pages were wet and broke apart at the slightest touch. Beneath the first ten pages the pages became more solid where the water hadn't penetrated. He shuffled through them finding the ink had faded on most of the pages but here and there he could make out some numbers and illegible words in a table format.
"It's a storage area" he said out loud.
"Nate!"
Nate looked up and saw that Sully was at the far end of the chamber.
"Over here" he said.
Nate walked over where he found Sully at another opening, with another set of stairs heading down.
"Looks like there is more to it."
"I wonder how far down this goes?"
"Only one way to find out" Sully said. He asked for Nate's torch, which he handed to him, and he put it to a head-high stone channel that was attached to the wall and followed the stairs down. The fire caught the oil in the channel, and it flowed down the stairway, lighting up small iron braziers attached to the wall. He did the same on the other side and soon the tunnel was brightly lit.
They headed down the damp, rough cut steps, their feet splashing in puddles of water formed from centuries of water droplets falling through the limestone above. Eventually the stairs levels into a dark tunnel, the channels carrying the oil had broken long ago, the attached brazier lay broken on the floor.
"Here" Sully said, handing him the torch. "See if you can find somewhere to light this room. I'll wait here"
Nate took the torch and it up high, seeing if he could find another brazier to light up the tunnel. He cautiously moved forward, eyes roaming in all directions until the tunnel opened up into another dark chamber, or what he assumed was a chamber. The torchlight did little to penetrate much of the dark. He kept moving forward until he found another brazier in the centre of the room. This one had no channels running from it. Nate put the fire to the bowl of oil and the fire whooshed to life.
There was a skeleton lying next to it, it's grinning skull staring up into nothingness.
"Oh shit!" Nate exclaimed.
"What's wrong?" Sully called.
"Nothing," Nate called back. "Just found a friend." He took some deep breaths to slow his heart rate while he waited for Sully to arrive. When he did, Nate pointed to the skeleton.
"Geez, poor guy being left down here like this," he crouched next to the skeleton. "I wonder who he was?"
Heart back to normal rate, Nate looked at the skeleton and after a moment said, "Based on the clothing I'd say he was a monk," he said crouching beside him. The clothing on the skeleton was tattered but it looked like a simple brown robe.
"Martinus?" Sully asked hopefully.
Nate shrugged, "Who knows. But what I want to know is why the body would be left down here?" he said getting up. With the torch he walked around and found more braziers, lighting them as he found them giving and the chamber more light. As he did this, he discovered a bridge spanning a deep, dark chasm. The bridge was like a truss bridge, two meters wide and six meters long. It was made from rough cut boards lashed to parallel logs running the entire length and attached at both ends were attached to stumps embedded into the limestone floor. A rope railing ran the length of the bridge so that whoever was crossing could use it to steady themselves.
"Not exactly a marvel of engineering" Sully commented examining the stumps. He gave them a shake and they seemed solid enough.
"Sometimes the simplest way is also the most convenient" Nate replied.
"Well, let's get a move on. The treasure won't find itself." He took a step on to the bridge, but Nate grabbed him by the shoulder.
"Just hold on a sec, Sully. Last time I was on a centuries old bridge I almost fell to my death. This one is even older and has been sitting in these damp conditions for centuries, the wood might look ok but they could be rotten."
Sully sighed impatiently, "Then what do you want to do, Nate. Call some engineers and reinforce this thing. The treasure is waiting!"
Nate frowned, "Sully...what's going on? You are grumpier than usual."
His friend blinked, "I'm freezing my ass off and any moment now every man and his dog will be coming down here to investigate a new door that suddenly appeared in their church."
Nate bit his lip, as much as he was concerned with his friend's attitude, he was right in that it wasn't the time or the place to deal with it. They were against the clock.
"Alright" he said instead. "I'll go first, make sure it's alright and then you follow, ok?"
"Fine."
Still holding the torch in one hand, he took hold of the rope handrail and placed a tentative step on to the bridge. It wobbled and creaked but held so he took another step and another. He moved out towards the middle of the bridge, the boards were slippery and with one hand it to steady him it was slow going.
"How's it going, kid?" Sully called.
"So far, so good" he called back over his shoulder.
He took another step and the board snapped in half. He fell forward, leg caught in the gap and slammed on to the deck. The makeshift torch flew out of his hand, landing on the boards ahead of him.
"Shit!"
"Nate, you alright?"
Groaning, Nate yanked his leg out the gap and crawled forward, "Yeah, fine," he said, then added, "Just wait there."
Standing up, he picked up the torch and moved forward.
CRACK!
The sound echoed around the tunnel.
"What was that?" Sully asked.
Before he could answer, Nate felt the bridge begin to wobble violently and lurch to the side as if it was overweight on one side. More cracking sounds followed, sounding like gunshots in the cavern and he saw some of the boards in front of him start to split and fall.
"No-no-no" he yelped and darted forward. The bridge lurched and Nate was thrown against the handrail. He stumbled and picked himself up as the board beneath him started to break away. He passed it and his foot slipped on a loose board and he fell but continued moving in an awkward crawl, using feet and hands like an ungainly dog paddle.
Just as he reached the end, he felt the bridge collapse and without thought he dived and slammed into the side, half his body dangling over the side, as the bridge crashed into the chasm below.
The ground was wet but rough enough that Nate was able to get enough grip to pull himself over the lip and on to solid ground. Amazingly, he still held the torch in his hand. He didn't know how, or why, he hadn't dropped it when he did his mad scramble, but he was thankful. He didn't want to think of the alternative.
"Nate!" he could hear Sully calling. "Nate, are you there?"
"Yeah Sully. I'm here."
"Damn kid" Sully said. "You gave me a heart attack."
Nate chuckled, he had a habit of seeing the bright side of surviving dangerous falls and was usually good natured about it. "How do you think my heart feels?"
"Now what?" Sully asked.
Nate looked around, there was only one way to go. "I'll continue ahead, see if there is another way out. You head back up and see if you can find any rope or something to use as a bridge. I'll meet you back here once I'm done."
"Alright, kid. Be careful" Sully said, and he disappeared into the gloom behind him.
"Be careful" Nate muttered as he turned around and headed into the tunnel, "If only."