Chapter 225 King City Sewer
"It's honey." Only a thin layer remained, almost dry and sticking to the pottery shards, precipitating sugar that had the texture of fine sand particles. It's been here a long time, but not more than half a year.
"A mark? Who left it?"
"I think so. Probably no one will come here to make honey tea."
Exciting discovery. Although it is different from what was said at the beginning, it also well confirms the guess. I can feel the change in everyone's mentality. It is like a halfway progress bar appears during the long wait, showing that what I did before is not in vain, and there is a goal. Wait for them in the back.
Green's performance was not so obvious, but his short and disordered breathing revealed his inner changes, and he finally let out a long sigh of relief.
The mystery that has been puzzling for months has finally made substantial progress, and the elusive shadow has revealed a corner that can be traced. This made him feel a lot better, and his attitude also changed. He waited for Kraft to look through the pottery piece carefully and approached to ask:
"Is that the professor you were talking about?"
"Not sure, but very possible." On the contrary, Kraft did not feel that things were becoming clear.
The obscure guidance, the broken honey jar, and the rock crevice in front of you. It is a zigzag electric shock-like crack. There are jagged square shadows in the depths where the light does not reach. Those who see it can't help but think of those jaws embedded in the wall. The tooth rows with different heights are inserted into the quarrying cave with neat cut patterns.
This makes people realize that it is an artificial creation, and instinctively feel that it is something as old and dead as bones, buried at a depth that usually will not be seen again.
The expansion of the quarry has touched this underground space. It seems that the discoverer has no intention of exploring and even gave up mining in this direction.
The pile of rocks next to the half-finished stone chamber door shows that they had blocked this place, but after it was abandoned, it was dug up for the purpose of burying the dead.
The burial person hastily placed the body and funerary objects on the ground, as if out of fear of carving a stone niche under the gaze of the crack, fearing that the knocking sound would be transmitted into the dark and empty space on the other side.
"I'll go over first, Vadin, you'll be the second to follow. The others will wait for my instructions." Green hung the lantern back on his waist, pulled out his sword, and after estimating the width of the gap, he put it back into its sheath and chose the spare dagger.
"Why don't we get ready? How long will we go down?" Seeing that the priest had already stepped onto the rock crevice, inhaling and tightening his abdomen to dig in, Craft thought it was better to be safe.
"It's a bit far from the ground here. If something unexpected happens and it's hard to deal with, why not consider sorting out the route first and making some preparations before going in?"
Green's hand holding on to the raised stone paused for a moment, and continued his actions without adopting this suggestion. "No, we must do it as soon as possible. If the pagans are active around here, they will probably notice that we have been here and miss this time." , there may not be a chance to catch them next time.”
"Besides, are you really worried that we can't deal with the cockroaches in the corner?" He pointed to the weapon on the professor's body. Probably no one can handle the two joining forces in the dark.
"Be careful." Kraft poured a small amount of water from the kettle to clean his fingers, put on gloves, and followed Wadine, waiting for Green to report the situation on the other side.
The lantern advanced through the crack, illuminating the rugged inside. After a swaying bump, it stabilized, was lifted, and illuminated the masonry at the end. The smooth part folded back into a dark, greasy reflection.
The light source turned in a circle, and after a moment of silence, Green's voice came from the opposite side, "Come here, no problem."
Kraft followed Wadine through the gap and almost missed the half-height drop. His feet slipped and he staggered. He held on to the wall and found that it was also covered in slippery moisture.
Standing still and looking around, the lights were bright enough for people to see clearly the environment they were in. There was a tunnel for two people to walk side by side.
The side walls of green and black square bricks rise from the closely spliced ground, and close to the top of the arch at the top of the head. A thin layer of water flows slowly under the feet, soaking the sand and dirt accumulated between the stone gaps.
Kraft had already made a guess, but he still wanted to confirm: "Where is this place?"
"Sewer." Green put down his arm, and the light was close to the water, illuminating the turbidity in the water. "We are in a sewer. Fortunately, there have been no heavy rains recently."
"Is it built so deep to facilitate drainage to hell?" The large scale and exquisite craftsmanship can still be explained, but such a deep sewer is probably not easily explained by the accumulation of soil and buried remains.
Brother Vardin shrugged and said: "If possible, I am happy to add some fuel to the heads of those guys who deserve to go to hell."
"Now the question is, shall we go down or up, or apart?"
Green said nothing, but looked at Kraft, hoping that he could continue to provide clues to guide the search direction.
The latter only shook his head helplessly. It is not easy to get to this point according to the instructions left by Kalman. No matter how capable the professor is, it is impossible to provide full navigation services in the sewer.
"The decision is yours, Father. I don't know anything about these underground thoroughfares called sewers."
After much consideration, Green decided to separate two people and return to the ground to report the news, while the rest searched downwards. "Is there any reason? I didn't see you flipping the coin."
"I don't think we went very deep down." He glanced back, and the water flowed from the endless tunnel behind him into the equally endless depths below. "It's probably less than the fourth floor of the church from the ground."
"In the past, there were not many people who were interested in these passages, including a few in the church. Some bishops thought of cleaning them thoroughly. In the end, the relevant records were piled on the bookshelves that no one cares about."
"It's not like they haven't walked to this depth. Some of them have also seen some reservoirs, loops and other places, but they have never written about seeing these things. So I think...it shouldn't be deep enough, unless that kind of Symbols are found only in this place, or they can only be seen in deeper places.”
It sounds reasonable. In order to hunt down the heretics escaping in the sewers, Green has indeed made great efforts. At this time, he should listen to the opinions of professionals.
Craft followed suit and followed downwards. Several Inquisition monks lit torches to make the space brighter, making it easier to see the surface of the stone bricks on the way down and search for possible traces of carvings.
However, the entire tunnel seems to be built purely for functionality, without any inscriptions or carvings.
The water layer swirled downward among the mounds of sediment, exuding a putrid smell brought from the ground, but it was not heavy. Perhaps the flow of water from the Teme River and groundwater also merged somewhere, diluting the composition.
Every time you put your foot down, there will be a faint sound of water splashing, and the soles of the shoes will sink into the soft dirt carried down by the water flow. These soft muddy substances are very shallow and have a chance to survive when the water flow is not turbulent.
Even with the lingering unpleasant smell, this section of the road is much easier to walk than in the tomb. To put it bluntly, it is a better environment than more than 90% of the roads on the ground. At least it has hard pavement and natural water flow for cleaning.
Some shadows of caves on the side walls caught Kraft's attention. At first, he thought they would be a headache, but after getting closer, he found that they were just recessed hollow niches, and the corners were filled with sediments rich in black humus. .
"By the way, will there be animals here? Rats, bugs and the like."
"What do they eat?"
"It's the stuff that washed down from above. I think there's quite a lot of it."
"That's too harsh." Even larger mushrooms don't want to grow in this environment.
A slight tinnitus-like background sound gradually became clearer as they descended, and intensified into a rumble-like noise coming from the front, covering up the footsteps of the team.
When the sound of continuous water increased to the point where they needed to adjust the volume of their conversation, they finally realized what it was - it was water, the sound of water falling in large quantities from high places and hitting the liquid surface.
The slope is getting bigger, and the water flow is becoming more and more turbulent, as if it is being attracted and rushing forward, faintly pushing the footsteps to slide along the slope.
The masonry tunnel terminated in front, and the turbulent flow rushed out of the hole, collapsing and dissolving into the suddenly expanding dark space. The ground below the ground was sunken step by step like stone steps in a theater, falling in the direction of the loud noise.
On both sides of the flat lay were the same tunnel exits as the ones they walked out of. The water bodies merged into waterfalls in the sharp and wide grooves on the steps, and poured down on the unseen cliff in the center of the site.
The team stood there for a moment, their breaths suffocating.
Craft lit a torch and walked around the edge of the vast space. Kupu hurriedly followed and found that the place where he landed was extremely slippery, and moss grew in the dirt, opening the cracks in the stone and spreading to all sides.
The grooves that cut off the rock are distributed irregularly, and the cross-section is triangular wedge-shaped. It does not seem to be intentionally cut and built, but the edges are too sharp and vary in size. They extend arbitrarily in the site, like a giant axe splitting grease.
It is as wide as a ditch and often blocks the way, so you need to be careful not to slip and cross it carefully.
After walking dozens of steps and passing through the rows of holes, the wall turned at a familiar obtuse angle and continued to extend into the darkness. This gave him a bad guess and accelerated his detour.
The light of the torch shrank into a small cluster in the field of vision, gradually getting farther and farther, and returned from the other side to the team waiting at the entrance of the cave.
Not only does the outline of the edges not dispel the breathless retreat from the unknown space approaching, on the contrary, every step away from the light source exploring the edges makes the atmosphere colder and silent.
Even when they saw the torch returning, they instinctively opened their eyes to observe the face, as if subconsciously thinking that the vast darkness would swallow those who penetrated deeply and transform them into something else.
"Did you find anything?" Green stepped forward to break the stiff atmosphere. He increasingly felt that Kraft had expected this.
Kraft did not explain. He raised the torch in his hand and threw it towards the center of the field. The moment the fire passed by, it illuminated the glottis that was roaring and swallowing endless water, revealing its full picture.
The hexagonal deep well is like an inverted tower, radiating countless ravines that tear through the stone steps.
(End of chapter)