"It's honey." There is only a thin layer left, almost dry and sticking to the pottery shards, with sugar that has the texture of fine sand particles. It has been here for a long time, but it will not be more than half a year.
"A mark? Who left it?"
"I think so. Probably no one will come here to make honey tea."
An exciting discovery. Although it is different from what was said at the beginning, it also well confirms the guess. I can feel the change in everyone's mentality. It is like a halfway progress bar appears during the long wait, showing that the previous efforts are not in vain.
, and there is a target waiting for them behind.
Green's performance was not so obvious, but his short and disorderly breathing revealed his inner changes, and he finally let out a long sigh of relief.
The mystery that had been bothering him for months finally made substantial progress, and the elusive shadow revealed a corner that could be traced. This made him feel a lot better, and his attitude also changed, waiting for Kraft to look through it carefully.
The piece of pottery came closer and asked:
"Is this the professor you were talking about?"
"Not sure, but very likely." On the contrary, Kraft did not feel that things were becoming clear.
The obscure guidance, the broken honey jar, and this... rock crevice in front of you. It is a zigzag electric shock-like crack. There are jagged square shadows in the depths where the light does not reach. Those who see it can't help but think of those things.
The tooth rows with different jaw heights are embedded in the wall, and inserted into the quarrying cave with neat cut patterns.
This makes people realize that it is an artificial creation, and instinctively feel that it is as old and dead as the bones, buried at a depth that usually will not see the light of day again.
The expansion of the quarry has touched this underground space. It seems that the discoverer has no intention of exploring and even gave up mining in this direction.
The pile of rocks next to the half-finished stone chamber door shows that they had blocked this place, but after it was abandoned, it was dug up for the purpose of burying the dead.
The burial person hastily placed the body and funerary objects on the ground, as if out of fear of digging a stone niche under the gaze of the crack, fearing that the knocking sound would spread into the dark and empty space on the other side.
"I'll go over first, and Wardin will follow you in second. The others will wait for my instructions." Green hung the lantern back on his waist, pulled out his sword, and after estimating the width of the gap, he put it back into its sheath and chose the spare dagger.
"Why don't we get ready? How long will we go down?" Seeing that the priest had already stepped onto the rock crevice, inhaling and tightening his abdomen to dig in, Craft thought it was better to be safe.
"It's a bit far from the ground here. If something unexpected happens and it's hard to deal with, why don't you consider sorting out the route first and making some preparations before going in?"
Green's hand holding on to the raised stone paused for a moment and continued his actions without adopting this suggestion. "No, we must do it as soon as possible. If the pagans are active around here, they will probably notice that we have been here and miss this time."
, there may not be a chance to catch them next time.”
"Besides, are you really worried that we can't deal with the cockroaches in the corner?" He pointed to the weapons on the professor's body. Probably no one could handle the two of them joining forces in the dark.
"Be careful." Kraft poured a small amount of water from the kettle to clean his fingers, put on gloves, and followed Wadding, waiting for Green to report the situation on the other side.
The lantern advanced through the crack, illuminating the undulating inner side of the rugged area. After a swaying and bumping, it stabilized and was lifted up, illuminating the masonry at the end, with dark, greasy reflections returning to the smooth areas.
The light source turned in a circle, and after a moment of silence, Green's voice came from the other side, "Come here, no problem."
Kraft followed Wadine through the gap and almost missed the half-height drop. His feet slipped and he staggered. He grabbed a hand on the wall and found that it was also covered in slippery moisture.
Standing still and looking around, the lighting of the lights is enough for people to see clearly the environment they are in. There is a tunnel for two people to walk side by side.
The side walls of green and black square bricks rise from the closely spliced ground, and close into a round arch top at the top of the head. A thin layer of water flows slowly under the feet, soaking the sand and dirt accumulated between the stone gaps.
Kraft had already made a guess, but he still wanted to confirm: "What is this place?"
"Sewer." Green put down his arm, and the light was close to the water, illuminating the turbidity in the water. "We are in a sewer. Fortunately, there have been no heavy rains recently."
"Is it built so deep to facilitate the drainage of hell?" The large scale and exquisite craftsmanship can still be explained, but such a deep sewer is probably not easy to accumulate with soil, and the buried remains can be explained.
Brother Vardin shrugged and said, "If possible, I would be happy to add some fuel to the heads of those guys who deserve to go to hell."
"Now the question is, do we go down or do we go up, or... apart?"
Green said nothing, but looked at Kraft, hoping that he could continue to provide clues to guide the search direction.
The latter only shook his head helplessly. It was not easy to get to this point according to the instructions left by Kalman. No matter how capable the professor was, it was impossible to provide full navigation services in the sewer.
"The decision is yours, Father. I don't know anything about these underground thoroughfares called sewers."
After much consideration, Green decided to separate two people to return to the ground to report the news, while the rest searched downwards.
"Is there any reason? I didn't see you flip the coin."
"I don't think we went very deep down." He glanced back, and the water flowed from the endless tunnel behind him into the equally endless depths below. "It's probably less than... from the ground.
The church is four stories high.”
"In the past, there were quite a few people who were interested in these passages, including a few in the church. The bishop also thought about cleaning them thoroughly. In the end, the relevant records were piled on the bookshelves that no one cares about."
"It's not like they haven't walked to this depth. Some of them have also seen some reservoirs, loops and other places, but they have never written about seeing these things. So I think... it shouldn't be enough.
Deep, unless that symbol is unique to this place, or it can only be seen at a deeper level."
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! It sounds reasonable. In order to hunt down the heretics escaping in the sewers, Green has indeed worked hard. At this time, he should listen to professional opinions.
Kraft followed suit and followed downwards. Several Inquisition monks lit torches to make the space brighter, making it easier to see the surface of the stone bricks on the way down and search for possible traces of carvings.
However, the entire tunnel seems to be built for complete functionality without any inscriptions.
The water layer swirled downward among the mounds of sediment, exuding a putrid smell brought from the ground, but it was not heavy. Perhaps the flow of the Temu River and groundwater also merged somewhere, diluting the ingredients.
.
Every time you put your feet down, there will be a faint sound of water splashing, and the soles of the shoes will sink into the soft dirt carried down by the water flow. These soft muddy substances are very shallow and have a chance to survive when the water flow is not turbulent.
Even with the lingering unpleasant smell, this section of the road is much easier to walk than in the tomb. To put it bluntly, it is a better environment than more than 90% of the roads on the ground. At least it has hard pavement and natural water flow for cleaning.
Some shadows of caves on the side walls caught Kraft's attention. At first, he thought they would be troublesome forks, but after getting closer, he found that they were just recessed hollow niches, and the corners were filled with sediments rich in black humus.
.
"By the way, are there any animals here? Rats, bugs and the like."
"What do they eat?"
"It's probably the stuff that washed down from above. I think there's quite a lot of it."
"That would be too harsh." Even the older mushrooms don't seem to want to grow in this environment.
A slight tinnitus-like background sound gradually became clearer as it went down, and intensified into a rumble-like noise coming from the front, covering up the footsteps of the team.
When the continuous sound like water increased to the point where they needed to adjust the volume of their conversation, they finally realized what it was - it was water, falling from a height in large quantities, making a shocking sound when it hit the liquid surface.
The slope is getting bigger, and the water flow is becoming more and more rapid, as if being attracted, it rushes forward, faintly pushing the footsteps to slide along the slope.
The masonry tunnel terminated in front, and the turbulent flow rushed out of the entrance, collapsing and dissolving into the suddenly expanding dark space. The ground below the ground was sunk step by step like stone steps in a theater, falling in the direction of the loud noise.
On both sides of the flat lay were the same tunnel exits as the one they walked out of. The water bodies merged into a waterfall in the sharp and wide grooves on the steps, and poured down on the unseen cliff in the center of the site.
The team stood there for a moment, their breaths suffocating.
Kraft lit the torch and walked around the edge of the huge space. Kupp hurriedly followed, and found that the place where he landed was extremely slippery, and moss grew in the dirt, opening the cracks in the stone and spreading to all sides.
The grooves that cut off the rock are distributed irregularly, and the cross-section is triangular and wedge-shaped. It does not seem to be intentionally cut and constructed, but the edges are too sharp and vary in size. They extend arbitrarily in the site, like a giant knife and ax cracking open grease.
It is as wide as a ditch and often blocks the way, so you need to be careful not to slip and cross it carefully.
After walking dozens of steps and passing through a row of cave entrances, the wall turned at an obtuse angle that seemed familiar to him and continued to extend into the darkness. This gave him an ominous guess and accelerated his detour.
The light of the torch shrank into a small cluster in the field of vision, gradually getting further away, and returned from the other side to the team waiting at the entrance of the cave.
Not only did the outline of the edges dispel the breathless retreat from the unknown space approaching, on the contrary, every step away from the light source exploring the edges made the atmosphere colder and silent.
Even when they saw the torch returning, they instinctively opened their eyes to observe the face, as if they subconsciously believed that the vast darkness would swallow those who penetrated deeply and transform them into something else.
"Have you discovered anything?" Green stepped forward to break the stiff atmosphere. He increasingly felt that Kraft had expected this.
Kraft did not explain, but raised the torch in his hand and threw it towards the center of the field. The flames passed through the sky and illuminated the glottis that was roaring and swallowing endless water, revealing its full picture.
The hexagonal deep well is like an inverted tower, radiating countless ravines that tear through the stone steps.