After the fall my head was reeling. I had to shake off the fuzz, the bleary feeling, before I could push a beam off of myself and feel myself over for serious injuries. My tailbone hurt something fierce and at first I thought it was broken. I had twisted, but not sprained, one of my ankles. I was waist-deep in water sitting down, and shin-deep standing up. The cave bed beneath the water seemed to be a mixure of thick, sloppy mud and small broken rocks.
I could see Gunth wan't moving, and when I made it over to him I saw why. Poor bastard, another head injury. He might not be waking up from this one. I reached over to touch him when I heard shouts from above.
"Hey Cap, you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm just low on hits. Gunth is rolling to stabilise though." I don't know what that means.
"Shit, you have any heal ranks?"
"I'll try. Do you have any rope?"
"Yeah, hang on."
While Tallow dug around for rope up above, I went ahead and looked over Gunther. I guess that was my "heal ranks". I bandaged up his head, tried to slap him awake but no use. I propped him up on the beam so he wouldn't slip under the water and drown. As I did that I felt something brush against my hand.
"Shit!" I hissed.
"What's that?" Tallow has sharp ears.
"We're in water down here. There's something else in it too."
"Like big?"
"I dunno. Can you get us a light down here?"
"Hang on." I heard some mumbling. "Look, Captain, all we have is Grens' lantern. Didn't you have one?"
I checked my pack. I did have one stowed somewhere. We hadn't brought it out earlier because one was enough. I dug around and found it, but it was broken. Pretty badly too. If that pack saved my life I'm grateful, but I sure wish I had my lantern. I shared the bad news with Grens.
"Alright, look. We're gonna lower it down. Use the light to tie Gunth and we'll haul him up."
"You two strong enough for that?"
"Shit. Well, tie him up, then climb up, then we'll all lift him."
"Right, send 'er down."
The lantern appeared over the hole far above me, and now instead of just a pale glow I could see more detail up there. It looked like Tallow was at the edge of the hole guiding the lantern, and Grens must have been behind him somewhere feeding the rope. It came slowly, but I'd rather have that than another broken lantern.
As the light descended Tallow faded into shadow, but I could see more of my own surroundings. I stood on some rubble from the ceiling collapse, trying to stay out of the water as I looked. We were in a tall, round room; we must have fallen at least 30 feet. To one side--directly beneath that shrine, if I had my bearings--was a cave opening. It looked natural and I couldn't see anything but darkness down there.
I could see plenty of this room, however. There were lots of little dark fish in the water, none much bigger than my hand. That made me feel better but I didn't step into the water again just yet. There was a definite current to the water, little ripples running toward the cave opening. The water was cold and fresh, probably fed by springs below as well as trickles from above.
The walls of the room were something else. Pitted, totally riddled with holes. At least, about halfway up they were. The top had none and the bottom had a few, and the biggest holes were all crowded into a band halfway up the wall. The band went all the way around, and it worried me.
"Hey Tallow, there might be critters living in that wall."
The lantern stopped, and swung back and forth just above the band of holes. "You still want a light?"
I chewed my lip. Gods, what other choice did we have? "Yeah, just lower it quickly. I'll let you know when it's almost down."
Well, it never got there. No sooner did the lantern resume its descent than something lashed out of one of the holes. It was no animal I've ever seen, maybe not an animal at all. It looked more like a vine or stem of some kind, but with fierce agility. Damn thing whipped out at the dangling lantern, a grey-green tentacle with a scythe-like tip. It severed the rope and dropped the lantern into free fall. I couldn't hope to get across to the wall in time to catch it. The lantern went out on the way down, from the rush of air, and I heard a splash when it hit bottom. I thought I saw a glimpse of a second vine lashing out of another hole near the first one, but it could've been a shadow. Now we were in complete darkness again, with an unknown number of an unknown species of predators in the walls above us. And they knew we were here.
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