Iordon Warrens

Raev paused to pray before shimmying through the next junction.  These tunnels hadn't been mapped out by anyone he knew and therefore could just as well open up into another livable set of alcoves as plummet into some long-forgotten well.  If it did lead to a gaping chasm or swift-moving current of water, there was no chance of him being recovered should he survive through a miracle.  His prayer was a utilitarian one:  Timimfryek, she-who-dwells-at-thresholds, let me live or perish swiftly.  She was often a merciful goddess, less capricious than many others in the pantheon despite the short horns she was often depicted with, but she wasn't entirely without her moods.

He exhaled and pushed his shoulders through.  There was a moment of terror when his hands could find no floor, but he fell only a few feet.  Years spent under the city like this had trained him in how to roll to take a blow, so he made out with little more than a bruised elbow.  The boy tugged the chain trailing from his belt back through the opening, pulling his glyph lamp through.  After the tinkling of the links had fallen silent and he stood up with the light over his head, he perceived faint, rhythmic sounds just barely audible between breaths.

Raev tried turning his head slowly from side to side to ascertain the direction of the sounds.  Even though the brightest setting of his lamp couldn't light the far side of this chamber, the echoes were confusing.  He briefly entertained the idea of praying to the Neindrae, they-who-whisper-secrets, but that was not to be done lightly.  Hesitating only a moment more, he decided to strike out to his right, the holier of the two directions.  The community he came from may have been driven from their homes by war and living in exile in the forgotten warrens under a foreign city, but none had strayed from the faith and for this reason he let the ancient precepts guide him.

Fortuitously, he had chosen well and presently the sound resolved into mechanical clatter as the passageway narrowed until it was just wide enough for two men abreast.  Raev was keeping a careful mental map; areas as spacious as the one he just came from were rare in this subterranean world and as long as he and his kin were unwelcome in Iordon above they would have to subsist below.  Raev himself had been too young to remember anything other than working odd jobs for the shadier businesses in the city and living in the tent city that had grown in the passages below the streets, themselves remnants from older buildings and plans now long-abandoned.

It was while plotting out his path so far that he realized where he must be.  Gathering the length of chain into his hand, he began to swing the glyph lamp.  It began to whistle as it cut through the air.  He released it and sent it soaring upward into the darkness where it illuminated a number of tiered and tremendous cogs before falling.  He dove and caught it before it could hit the ground and shatter.  He was directly below the monument of Chaete's Orrery.  He pronounced a curse and spat to his left.  This place was unclean, defiled by the jealous god that most citizens above held so dear.  Still, he thought to himself, this place could be made pure with the right rituals, even consecrated as a temple ground.  The idea of such a delicious subversion made his steps light as he scurried back to tell his community the news.