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You do a <span class="mu-b"> {'TECT ZAPZAP} </span> while in the Tunnel Hub, testing each one of the tunnels in turn. You don't find anything specific, just that there's a faint <span class="mu-b"> ping </span> ahead. The thing detected might be close and big, or far and strong; you can't make it out. A quarter Time later (~10min) the spell fizzles.
You get to building a Shrine to Seafood. You got the formula pat: a cardboard box or small fruit crate, a candle, a flattish clay shard or flat stone for a bowl, and an Act-Him Figgy. You pray at it, get your zappies topped up, and you're off.
°°°
Time stops having any meaning when you're deep enough: the unchanging world gives you nothing to tell time with, except maybe your own hunger and thirst.
At least there's nothing else to worry about: you haven't heard the faintest sound for hours apart from your own footsteps and bodily gurgles.
>success +0
The air's gone thinner too. Not enough to choke you, but you notice. Like a stale burp from someone starving.
The range of your Dark-Peek has shortened too. Not expected. You allus thought you could see in the dark; turns out you needed at least reflected starlight. You can still see 20steps ahead, so you leave off lighting a candle on your head. You don't want to get sudden dark-blindness if something blows the candle out, like a fight.
Gotten chilly too, like a beer cellar. Colder, mebbe: there's ice dust growing on parts of the ceiling. You throw on a padded quilt armor with the skirt tucked up; you'll throw it off fast if you need to. And tie some rags on your soles; even tuffy gobby feet don't stay comfy on cold rock.
Good thing you got plenty swiggz and no one to share with. Keeps you hotted up.
You've gotten a taste for Gnoll Glenn, the nice five-sided brown bottle with a tall old timey label, and the glass stopper with a snarling mutt on it. Tastes posh. No.
°°°
The chambers you get to branch less as you go, and usually get bigger.
Some of them have traces of dry mulch away from the "path" of the chamber, the straight line between entrances. You dig a little into the crispy ice-dusted surface. The soil's very black under there. Smells...you don't know. You keep thinking it's scabs, but it don't taste like scabs. Tastes grotty, like Toe Cheese' feet used to smell.
>success +7
>ooooo
>whazzis
Your hand-trowel taps and cracks something hard; the soil over it caves into the sudden cavity. You pray at the edges of the thing, starting with the chipped part.
>corrr
>datza nugget dattiz
It's a skull of something. Rhea, you fink; pretty smol. Shouldn't be Gobbo: the jaw hinges too narrow. Lower jaw in pieces; closegrown teeth, but sorty jaggy. There's a chippy layer of skin still onna, and raisins of what might be eyeballz n brainz inside.
But the fingz growing on top isn't hair. Theyz freshy fungi. Okay not fresh, juzt sorty alive, just very dry, like old toast left forgotten. Just enough moosh in it to tell it's not wood.
