"Everyone knows this place is a warren," Enoch said as he held the lantern out before them. "Abandoned mines old Nibiru left behind, used as catacombs as the first enclave of Astrologists settled the mountain."

He gestured at the walls of the passage, human bones stacked like bricks, rows of skulls inset like decorations. The lamplight was dim but steady, never reaching far into the empty eyes that gazed placidly upon the corridor.

"Careful, though," the young scholar added as he stepped over shards of green bottleglass. "Some of the students come down here to... carouse. Usually just the first few levels. Nobody wants to try and find their way out of a maze of tunnels after they've been drinking half the night."

Sumira stepped around the broken glass, not noticing the hand Enoch offered her as she hiked up the hem of her skirts. Bundled against her chest, the grub trilled in ammusement. "An expert in carousals now?"

Enoch huffed but didn't answer.

They passed a round chamber that served as a junction, then continued into a passage that spiraled downward. The floor had been paved in small cobbles, but was so worn down over centuries that it was smooth and slightly dipped in the center. For a while they walked in silence, a quiet so deep that their own breathing seemed thunderous. But as the passage twisted in a new direction and opened out into another chamber, they could hear a voice, thin and rasping, though they couldn't make out the words.

Dim light showed beyond a narrow archway. Enoch paused but Sumira brushed past, giving him a questioning look over her shoulder. He sighed but followed at her heels.

Beyond the archeway they found another chamber, circular, with a ceiling so high it vanished into blackness. The center of the room was a recessed circle, possibly an old fire pit, but around it were four figures. Three were skeletons, posed in a deep squat of sorts, knees against their shoulders, empty skulls gazing into the center of the room.

The fourth figure was nearly skeletal as well, but dressed in threadbare cloth; plain, unbelted robes from a bygone era, smudged with lampblack. He had an iron pole, leaned upright against the crook of his neck and shoulder, a large lantern dangling from its hooked end.

It was from this ragged figure the muttering voice came. In the middle of the recessed circle was a scattering of knucklebones. There were tracks in the ashes from where the man had scraped up bones as he played his lonesome game.

"Right, yes, good, trying for Toad in the Hole now, are we, Vargas? Best get a good toss, eh? Right you are, right you are-- EH?! Children?!"

The ragged man was upright in a flash, his lantern swingling wildly on its pole. He wheeled to face them, pointing a gnarled finger. "EH?!" he rasped again. "What are ye doing here? Get ye back the way ye came, idiot babes!"

Sumira stepped back, a protective hand over the grub she carried. Enoch stepped forward, though, his chest coming up against her back. "What are we-- What are you doing here? We must be a mile deep!"

"A mile deep in shite, ye are, ye gormless cabbage!" The ragged man jabbed his pointing finger at them again for emphasis. In the lamplight his eyes looked milked over, wild and nearly blind. "Ye best turn around and go afore ye smother in it, stupid little milksop and yer little lass! Thinking to impress her? Nobody's going to be impressed when ye're bloody devoured! Ye hear me? DEVOURED! Body and soul! Brains and eyes and guts and all! Even yer bones! Sometimes it gets bold, ye know! Comes up for to snack on the BONES, it's how Edgar lost his leg!" The frantic old man gestured to one of the skeletons, which was indeed missing a leg.

Sumira looked past the man and his lantern. At the other side of the chamber, stacked bones gave way to old brick gave way to bare rock, and a narrow, irregular fissure of utter blackness. Blocking the way was a gate of wrought iron, held shut with heavy chain. Where the iron gate looked as ancient as the catacombs, the chain looked very strong, and very new.

"What is... it?"

"The HYDRA. The DEVOUERER! Of SOULS!" The old man scurried towards the gate, pulling at it until the chains rattled, as if to test that it would hold. "Of SOULS and BONES and BRAINS and... and all that isn't darkness. Its only friend, the dark is. Whatever ye came here for, ye cannot venture deeper. Beyond this place? Darkness alone, and the devouring mouths what keep it sacred."