Seth listened hard. The pitch black of the tunnel made every sound louder in his ears. Blaise's breath hitched, like she was trying to breathe quietly but couldn't decide between holding her breath and breathing slowly. Owen's breath was slow and steady, Booth's he couldn't hear at all. Duvessa, he heard her moving around more than breathing.

  From the thin seam beneath the secret door, Seth could see a flickering light and was glad Booth had made them douse their own lights.

  Muffled voices came from the chamber, and Seth struggled to make out the words. They were talking softly, and he couldn't quite catch all they said. He tried using the wind to help him hear.

  "I'm telling you … …. … down here!" the innkeeper said, slurring his words. "I hung … … .. always do."

  "As drunk … … … … … left them …," said his wife. She didn't sound nearly as wasted as her husband.

  "I'm saying … … … … … lose them!" the innkeeper insisted. "I bet .. … … …. the student. Asking …. many questions. … … … … … don't need no trouble!"

  "... … … didn't take … … … old fool. … idiot ass left … … …. … … you've done before! … … … … … under the stairs …." The light flickered and dipped. "I don't see … … …."

  "That's what I'm saying! It was … … .. . I swear it! I didn't … … … … ."

  "If we don't find … … … gonna be your ass. I'm not … … … …."

  "I'll tell him … … … …. He's talking to … … … anyways, right? He can … …. then."

  Seth made a mental note to find a spell that would aid in eavesdropping. The wind couldn't hear through the door, so Seth decided to try listening without it and pressed his ear to the door. He wasn't sure if he could hear better that way, or if the couple just got louder in their arguing.

  "Hush that fool mouth, you drunk idiot! We don't talk about that ever. Not even here," the wife said sharply.

  "It's fine, it's fine, I'm just saying."

  "Well don't be saying. What the… There's a cat down here!"

  "Whah?"

  "It's Seth's familiar! I made sure he was in his room an hour ago!"

  Seth quickly felt the familiar link. Mau was just outside the hidden door, and she was feeling very amused. He couldn't help but worry they'd catch her.

  "Fool woman, you left the kitchen door open. The cat just followed you down. Get it back upstairs and into the boy's room."

  "What if the cat tells the boy about this room?"

  "It's a cat! It can't talk. Even if it's a familiar, it's still just a cat. It'll forget about this the moment it walks out of the room. Cats are stupid."

  "No, no! Bad cat! Look what it's doing! It scratched the floor all up!"

  "It's a stone floor, what can a cat do?"

  "Look at it! It left huge gouges in the floor! I bet it ruined the pattern. I don't know how we can fix that. No! Stop it, it's doing it again!"

  There were some thumps and curses and then Seth heard them going upstairs. He checked the link and Mau felt very satisfied with a touch of annoyance. She was still moving away, so she was probably giving Seth and the others a chance to escape.

  "That was the innkeeper and his wife," Seth whispered to the others. "Mau distracted them and led them away. We need to decide right now, do we go back, or do we explore this tunnel?"

  "Go back," Owen said. "I don't have my sword, and we should get the babysitters."

  "I wish you'd stop calling them babysitters," Duvessa complained. "I vote tunnel. We're here, and they could be back any second."

  "I vote tunnel," Blaise said. "We still need to find that artifact."

  "I think we should get Duvessa's guards first," Seth said.

  "I think Duvessa is right," Booth said. "We're here, let's take advantage of it while we can. Maybe the innkeeper can't open this door without his keys anyway."

  "That's three for, and two against. Off we go!" Duvessa said.

  Seth heard her walk away and then smack into a wall.

  "I need a light."

  Booth partially exposed a lightstone he made and headed down the dark tunnel. Seth and Owen both hesitated at the door. Owen finally shrugged and followed after them, and Seth trailed behind.

  The tunnel was narrow for about a hundred paces and then connected to a tunnel that was almost street sized with a ceiling that was more than twice their height.

  "Who needs a tunnel this big?" Seth asked as he looked around. People didn't waste time digging something this big unless it needed to be this big.

  "I don't reckon this part is man-made," Owen said. "Look at the walls. They ain't square. They're round, like they used a tunnel worm."

  "Does that mean this goes to the Below?" Blaise asked. "I didn't notice it sloping down at all. But if it was made by tunnel worms, it has to go down somewhere, right?"

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  "Hard to say," Owen replied. "Tunnel worms can be captured and used Outside for a little while." Outside was the common term for the surface, the space between Above and Below.

  "That's how the tunnels out of Rosia were made," Seth said. "Now that I think about it. They used big worms, too. It doesn't have to connect to Below, just because they used worms. I think it's more likely that it goes to Thurstan's place, or somewhere else."

  "So you don't think this goes into the Below," Blaise said, looking for reassurance.

  "I don't," Seth said. "Mostly because an open avenue to the Below would have critters showing up in Laureli, and that's not happening."

  "There's ogres around here somewhere. Below isn't out of the question," Booth said. He held his light high, but it didn't go far down the tunnel. It was pitch black beyond the small circle of light.

  "If people made this, then maybe they added light to it too," Duvessa said. "We should look for something to trigger the light spells."

  It didn't take them long to find light controls once they started looking. Soon there were orange lights glowing at regular intervals in the ceiling. They weren't very bright, but they did eliminate the oppressiveness of the darkness. It was still dim enough that Booth kept his lightstone aloft.

  "Do you have enough mana to keep casting those?" Seth asked Booth. "We need to be careful that we don't run out of light."

  "I've got plenty. Enough for an hour at least."

  Seth didn't think an hour was very long in a really dark tunnel.

  "Now which way?" Blaise asked. "We're not going to get lost down here, are we?"

  "We're under the town street," Owen said. "Just outside the inn. So, this a way is back towards Rosia, and that a way is Mariglade. If'n we're looking for a route to Thurstan's, it'd be down that a way."

  "That's the way then," Blaise said and headed off.

  The tunnel was smooth, hard, and felt like rock. Tunnel worms solidified the earth around them as they ate through it, making stone tubes that had a mottled look as the stones that had been in the dirt spotted the walls. It was old, and some sections of the walls had crumbled, leaving piles of dirt and stone.

  They hadn't gone far when they noticed the tunnel darkening.

  "Do the lights not go the whole way?" Booth asked, looking up to see if the lights were off, or if there weren't any more.

  "Maybe there's another spot to turn the lights on?" Seth suggested. "We've been looking for an intersection; it might be up here somewhere."

  "It's getting pretty dark, we'll need your light too, Seth," Booth said.

  "Do you hear that?" Duvessa asked. "I heard a thudding."

  "What kind of thudding?" Owen asked as he stopped to look behind them. "I don't like how dim these lights are; I can't see that far behind us."

  "Like a thoom thoom skraggle scratch thoom. You don't hear it?" Duvessa said as she stopped too.

  "I do," Booth said. "Everyone quiet."

  While most of the others looked behind them, Seth peered into the darkness ahead of them. There was more tunnel damage ahead. A pile of stones partially blocked the way forward, and Seth thought there might be a branching tunnel there.

  "There's movement back there," Booth said. He grabbed the shoulder fabric of Duvessa's coat and tugged. "We need to go."

  From down the tunnel, they could hear "Heee," and then really loud sniffing. "Ayee," followed by heavy foot steps. "Hooo, I do smell a human," the ogre said as it slowly came into view. It was looking at the floor of the tunnel, and not at them. Not yet.

  "Quick!" Seth hissed. "This way, behind the rocks."

  The others didn't question it and scrambled after him.

  "I don't have my sword," Owen whispered once they'd crouched behind the pile. "We should have brought the babysitters."

  "I don't think this is a good place to be," Duvessa whispered. "It's not dark enough."

  "No place is a good spot if it can smell us," Seth whispered, crouching behind a large chunk of boulder that had once been the tunnel wall. "It won't matter how dark it is. But it'd see us faster if we kept running. It'd see the movement."

  "What do we do? We can't kill an ogre. We don't even have weapons!" Blaise whispered harshly. "I didn't bring my spear!"

  "If it passes us, we run back to the inn. It won't fit in that little tunnel," Seth suggested as quietly as he could.

  "What if it doesn't pass us?" Blaise asked.

  "Shush all of you, it'll hear us!" Booth whispered. He gripped his little knife.

  The monster kept approaching. Its head nearly brushed the ceiling, and it had sallow, unhealthy looking skin, exacerbated by the dim orange lighting. It was bald and wrinkly with wispy hair sticking out in odd places and a big nose. It had hands the size of pot lids and feet twice as big. It was wearing clothes of a sort. It had a large leather apron it used as a half shirt, and a pair of human sized shirts were tied at its waist. It was thick and strong, and carried a long chunk of a medium sized tree.

  Seth knew one strike from that tree would outright kill any one of them.

  It lumbered towards them, sniffing as it went, then abruptly stopped. All the kids froze, terrified it had seen them.

  Seth ran through his spell repertoire. He didn't think Wind Blade would do anything more than enrage the monster. He hadn't learned Bind yet, and it was questionable if it would even work on such a large creature. Lure, maybe? It wouldn't be as effective if he cast it on a rock, but if he cast and threw the rock down the tunnel, it might distract the ogre long enough for them to slip past it.

  Casting it on something edible would be more effective, but he didn't have anything on him and there were only stones around. Seth picked up a palm sized stone and tried to clear his mind to get ready to cast, hoping Saben's power was willing to be helpful right now.

  The ogre had been walking towards them, sniffing and humming, but now it held still gazing down the tunnel into the darkness. Then it banged its tree against the tunnel wall and scratched itself. It looked from side to side, then squatted slightly and farted.

  The ogre sighed and straightened, then sniffed again. "Ugh, eww," it said, and turned around and lumbered back the way it'd come.

  The most foul stench Seth had ever encountered washed over him. Burying his face in his shirt didn't help. Duvessa had both hands over her face, and Booth was trying very hard not to gag. Blaise was practically strangling Owen trying to keep him from retching.

  Seth summoned wind to blow the stench away, careful to keep it small, but the stench was too powerful and lingered. There was no way he could cast a spell without gagging.

  The ogre didn't walk far before it started sniffing the air again. "Hee," it said, sniffing this way and that. It walked further away. "Ayee," followed by more loud sniffing.

  Seth realized the smell of the ogre fart was abruptly gone. Maybe the wind did clear it? He signaled to the others that the air was fine.

  "Did it just camouflage us with its own fart?" Blaise asked almost silently. "It's going the wrong way but thinks it can still smell us?"

  "Hooo, I do smell a human," it said as it examined the tunnel floor and kept lumbering away from them.

  "Did someone follow us out?" Duvessa asked quietly, worried. "Is it smelling someone else?"

  The five of them peeked around the debris to watch the ogre. It sniffed again and then lifted its tree club and shouted a wordless roar and charged down the tunnel. Then it stopped, banged the tree into the wall, and scratched itself. It stood still for a moment, looking down the tunnel.

  "There's no one there," Owen whispered. "Is it crazy?"

  It squatted slightly, farted, then sighed. It sniffed again. "Ugh, eww," it said and turned around, heading back towards where they were hiding.

  "No, no, no," Blaise whispered almost silently. "Go back,"

  It hadn't gone more than a couple of steps before it paused again, squatted, farted, sighed, and sniffed. "Ugh, eww," it said as it turned around again and went back the way it'd come.

  They all stared at it as it did it again.

  "What the fuck," Booth muttered.