Three ramps downwards, now along a footbridge over the abyss, in front of her a staircase that nestled close to the rock face and led steeply downwards, deeper, deeper, ever deeper. Blood vessels of stone and iron; living blood of the Undercity - Droplets of humans and dwarves and felines. The farther down she went into the beating heart, the closer together the houses grew. Cut into the rock; like mushrooms on the bark of a tree they hung over the abyss; or grew like trees from the darkness of the same. Down here there were almost no more torches to keep the ever-night at bay.

At last Giræsea found herself in a wide, shallow cave, the ceiling so low, she could touch it if she stretched out her arm. The inhabitants of the Undercity had set up a market here and so she made her way through the tides of the crowd, let herself be carried by them, swam with them– She didn’t find her rhythm. She surrendered to the tides and was washed from stall to stall, past bakers, potters, fine-smiths, mushroom farmers; She was surprised to find things she had thought she wouldn’t see so far beneath the surface. Why exactly she thought there wouldn’t be any bread, she couldn’t tell. Cages with live chickens, sheets of fabric, herbs, salves, potions. Two men in bright costumes played their instruments and dances, a child clapping in front of them. She put down a half crown for the baker and took a honey biscuit. She had now been following this labyrinth through the underworld for almost three hours, she had earned it. Sunshine in a flaky crust, if otherwise she got nothing but night. It was a reach for the baker to be able to help her, but what was there to lose: So she asked him if he had seen the man she was looking for. She described what she knew of him: a human, not that tall, blond hair, he had a beard and a tattoo on the back of his left hand. Of course the baker hadn’t seen him. She thanked him anyway and went on.

When she had finally reached the other end of the cave, a small flight of stairs awaited her, walled on both sides by stone, and she followed it. It smelt of soot and piss and she wished she was back at the market.

Again Giræsea reached a chasm. Again she couldn’t see the floor at its depths and she made the decision to not fall down there. Along the wall was a ledge, just wide enough to be called a road and she followed it. At the next fork in the tunnel she again followed her instincts: left. Where exactly she had to go was hard to tell. She had somewhat of a rough direction and it pointed down: farther, deeper, towards the deep roots. So when she found a ladder that let her skip two levels she took it instead of following the road. The deeper she went, the more she lost her sense for how deep she already was. Stone melted into stone melted into stone.

Far into the stone again, away from gorges and bridges, she passed a chamber, a garden; the workers inside busy harvesting mushrooms. The fruiting bodies in the baskets on their back glowed an eerie blue and gave the cave a surreal quality. Thorgest had told her about them, the mushroom gardens of the Cities in the Stone, but this was the first one she ever saw for herself. Their fruits formed the basis for all aspects of life down here: They could be eaten, fed, to then eat what ate the mushrooms, or you could use them as a substitution for torches.

Giræsea guessed that she was now fifteen or twenty levels deep into the stone; half a miracle that this tangle could even be separated into levels. The base of the city came ever closer. In return she had lost any feeling for how long her descent had already gone on. Without natural light she had no other points of reference. No matter how often she went down into the Cities in the Stone, she would never get used to it.

Ever downward. Over stairs, ramps, ladders, walkways, tunnels. Until she finally made that last step through a hewn archway and then stood ‘neath open, black sky. Above her naught but the darkness; night without moons, without stars. In front of her lay a village of ordinary houses of layered stone, with roofs, and behind it - she could hardly believe it - a lake. On it she saw vessels without sails and fisherfolk casting their nets. Close to the shore, hunched over figures stood and seemed to collect something. The murky blue light was ever present and so she could see almost to the other shore of the lake. It filled almost the entire plain, up to the wall where it disappeared into a crevice.

So then– Where to now? Where was this Tivone temple? She had no better idea, so she sought her way in between the houses towards the lake. A dwarven goddess of sea and stream must surely have her temple at that enormous, unmissable body of water.

Despite all the people she could see around, it was quiet as only a cave could be quiet. The stone and darkness swallowed steps, words, the rustle of fabric, the babbling of water; only if you got close enough, you became a part of this small reality somewhere in the ever-night. This deep beneath the earth, the darkness was a something, it had substance; the air was thick with it; you breathed it, heavy and wet. Giræsea never felt comfortable in it. She needed the sky above her, she needed distance, not the black, that spread inside her with every breath and slowly filled her chest and belly, and the space behind her eyes and would only let her breath again when she was back on the surface.

Only as she got closer did the sounds of the fish market begin to envelop her; the voices, the impact of a knife on wood, the jingling of coins, a barrel being rolled across the stony floor. And as she made her first steps between the stalls, the sounds of the harbour began to interweave with them. The sounds and the smells and the taste of the air. Salty. Fish, nets, wet rope. With it the smell of smoke and fire, of fat, of food. She made her way between the - almost exclusively - dwarves. She had no idea where she actually had to go, as she finally admitted to herself. So when her stomach started to grumble, she decided she had done well enough on the first leg of her day and that a break was in order, so she followed the smell of food until she found - between all the raw fish and mushrooms and plants harvested from the lake - a stall with a brazier full of glowing coals and a griddle on top. Atop it lay fish with charred skin which the dwarf behind the stall pulled off when she deemed it right and the sprinkled spices over it. When one of the fish was ready, she placed it on a greenish flatbread, cut it into rough pieces, added various vegetables that Giræsea didn't all recognise, rolled up the flatbread and then put it back on the grill. Then she handed one of the other flatbreads off the griddle to a dwarf, receiving a couple of coins in return. She worked fast and she worked concentrated. “Next! Yea?” The next dwarf indicated with raised fingers that he’ld take two. Then the cook pointed at Giræsea and she raised one finger. The dwarf nodded.

“Would you show me the way to the Tivone temple?”, Giræsea asked, as she traded half a silver crown for her lunch - was it lunch time?

“You’re not from around here, are you?” She gestured at Giræsea with her tongs. “The armor and all that.” Giræsea nodded. “On the other side of Loch Denhín. That cave over there, that’s the temple…” The cook bent down towards Giræsea, close enough so she could count the hair of her beard and the wrinkles in her face, and added in a way so no evil spirits could hear: “And there the souls are carried by Her water down to the underworld.” Oh wonderful, the gate to the underworld.

Giræsea thanked her for the flatbread and for the information and would have liked to give her another halfcrown but her purse was already getting lighter as is. She looked for a quiet jetty by the harbour, sat down and looked out over the lake, as she ate. What ever had led him to that Tivone temple? For the gate to the underworld to be down here? That was no explanation. Their goddess was no goddess of the dead. She could ask him when she had found him. It was useless to worry about it now. They had been lucky enough to find even this lead. She let her thoughts be carried away and watched the boats.

The lake - Loch Denhín - seemed the quiet centre of the world - static. All along the walls of the cave there was construction, digging, tunnels and houses driven into the stone, stone and brick layered to buildings, to towers growing high into the darkness, connected by walkways and bridges, with each other and the roads along the walls. The perpetual growth of a city already gargantuan; inexorable transformation. The lake in contrast lay still, without wind to whip its surface into waves. A plane mirror.

When she was done, she followed the shoreline. At first she had made the mistake of walking too close to the water and had stepped into the muck awash everywhere. It smelt disgustingly musty and she wondered for how long she would be carrying that with her now. The children of the Undercity on the other hand didn’t seem to be perturbed by it. They ran, they leapt, they stomped, and laughed when the mud splashed. Laughed even louder, when it hit someone. After half an hour she thought it might have been a better decision to pay for passage across the lake instead of walking along the shore. Then she remembered her financial situation.