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With the sound of muffled complaints still ringing in your ears, you cautiously raise your head above the edge of your cover and peer out into the gloom. It doesn’t seem like he’s going to be finished cleaning the shrine any time soon, especially if he’s alone. That leaves you with a decision to take – but in a choice between waiting in place and taking action, you’ll always opt for the latter. If you press deeper into the Undercity, you might be able to find another way out. Even if you don’t, you might still stumble across something interesting. Just not TOO interesting.
After pressing on through a deep pall of darkness, you slowly emerge into another ruddy red glow as more and more red paper lanterns appear. At one point you stop and examine one of them, noting the slow burning candle held within. The Tomoe must move through this area quite frequently, you reason, replacing the candles as needed. All the more reason not to let down your guard.
A little further on, you come across an oddity – a relatively intact building sealed with a locked door. Considering that this entire place is buried well beneath the Tomoe’s capital city, you wonder at the need to keep it locked. Just who are they trying to keep out?
You spent a moment prowling around the locked building to see if there’s any other way in, or even a gap in the walls that you might peek through, but the seal is complete and thorough. Without the key to the lock, you won’t be getting inside. With a shrug, you move on. Only a short distance away, you spot a promising building. It’s hard to say what exactly draws you to this particular ruin, but it feels more “alive” than all the others, as if it was still in regular use. The door is ajar, and you invite yourself in after carefully listening for any signs of movement.
To your relief, the room is lit with a normal gas lantern – after seeing so much red, the muted yellow light feels like golden sunlight. A wooden desk sits beneath the lantern, the modern style clashing wildly with the ancient stone walls surrounding it. You sit, eyes drawn to the journal left open on the desk. The latest entry was made just today, or perhaps yesterday. It’s hard, sometimes, to know how much time has passed in the Demesne.
“By the will of our Master, we have made steady progress through the Labyrinth. Though, I fear we may still be too slow,” you read aloud in a low voice, peering at the cramped, spidery handwriting, “The church knows that something is afoot, though they know not what. They are beginning to agitate against us, as they always do. Their voices are a whisper now, but it is only a matter of time before they become a roar. Our family will survive, as it always does, but the work may be irreversibly damaged.”
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