Koruk quickly shifted Moktark away from the opening of the shaft, fearing that the imps would throw stones or spears down at them. Nothing fell after them. There was only silence, and darkness.

  A square patch of moonlight directly below the shaft was the only illumination. Koruk and Moktark huddled in the darkness for awhile, on guard for attack, but nothing came. Slowly the adrenaline began to subside, and a weariness crept over them.

  “I think I twisted my ankle.” Moktark said. He barked in pain as he tried to move his leg. “Where’s Semthak and Oben?”

  “I’m here!” Oben replied from somewhere in the dark room.

  “Semthak’s down. He’s still alive.” Koruk said. “I checked his pulse. I don’t know how bad he is.”

  “This is bad.” Moktark said softly. “Where the hell are we? What is this place?”

  “I don’t know. Oben, tell me you have the lamp!” Koruk said.

  “I maybe. I do!” Oben said, rustling around in his pack which thankfully Koruk had had the foresight to throw down after him. He brought over a lamp. The handle had broken off, but it was otherwise intact. Koruk sighed in relief.

  With shaking hands he managed to kindle a small fire, rolling the firestick between his hands quickly until the tinder began to smoke. He blew it into flame, and used it to ignite the wick of the lamp, illuminating the surroundings.

  The flickering light revealed a large square room, hewn out of the same monolithic obsidian blocks that seemed to form the rest of the pyramid. A series of deep channels were cut into the floor and ceiling, forming an angular geometric pattern that seemed to focus around the shaft they had fallen through. The chamber had four triangular doors leading out of it, one set into each wall. The light from the lamp did not penetrate the pitch blackness beyond their yawning apertures.

  Koruk looked Moktark over, and winced. The big orc was in bad shape. His ankle appeared to be broken, and he was covered in bruises and cuts from the battle above. Although none of them seemed to be fatal in of themselves, Moktark was losing a lot of blood and wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry on that leg.

  Koruk ripped his robes into bandages, and did his best to tightly wrap Moktark’s wounds and stop or at least slow the bleeding. Using a piece of the spear shaft that had saved their lives, he made a simple splint for the broken ankle, and wrapped it tight to Moktark’s leg.

  “I think I managed to stop the bleeding.” Koruk said. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m not a healer...”

  Moktark clapped him on the shoulder and smiled wearily. He started laughing, but it choked off as he winced in pain.

  “It’s funny, you know.” Moktark said, cradling his sides. “We got a healer over there, but he’s decided to take a nap.”

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  “It doesn’t seem funny where I’m standing.”

  “You did fine little brother. I’ll live. I’ve been through worse spots than this.”

  Koruk doubted it.

  “What we do?” Oben asked.

  “I’ll stay here, and guard the old man. I’m not going anywhere anyways for awhile.” Moktark said, wincing as he readjusted. “Give me my weapon and prop me up.”

  Gingerly, Koruk helped Moktark sit up, and propped him up using a rucksack. Moktark cradled his war bat against his chest and seemed to mentally psyche himself up. Koruk noticed that several of the obsidian blades were missing from the weapon, and there was a long crack running through the wood.

  “Go little brother. I’ll keep him safe and watch your backs. Go find what we came here for.”

  What we came here for.

  “What did we come to this place for?” Koruk whispered to himself. It seemed so foolish now. He thought finding the temple would be the end of the quest he supposed, that coming here would just somehow reveal all and they could return home. It seemed that the quest wasn’t quite over yet.

  Although what he was looking for now, he had no idea.

  “Come on Oben. Pick a door and let’s see if we can find a way out of here.” Koruk said.

  As they disappeared through a door with the lamp, the entry hall, if it could be considered that, returned to darkness.

  Moktark sighed, and closed his eyes.

  Oben and Koruk found themselves in a long twisting corridor just wide enough for two to walk abreast that didn’t seem to lead in any definite direction. The smooth obsidian walls sloped inwards disorientatingly, culminating in a peaked ceiling. On and on they walked. They found no stairs or doors branching out, although the path did seem to gradually be sloping downwards. Deeper into the pyramid. The geometry of the walls did weird things to the echoes of their footsteps as they plodded along, and it combined with the flickering light to lend an even more otherworldly feeling to the strange structure.

  Koruk gritted his teeth. Somewhere in the back of his head he could almost feel a sort of… fuzziness. As if there was a mosquito landing on him that he couldn’t swat away. Get ahold of yourself, he thought.

  He lost track of how long they walked down the corridor. It turned at seemingly random intervals, left and right, but always led downwards. Something about it bothered him. A feeling that something wasn’t quite right. It was like…

  “We were here. Before.” Oben said. Koruk halted, and looked at him as if he had just said something insane. Which he had.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Left three, right four, left three, right four. The way it… repeats? It is the same again.” Oben said, struggling for words.

  “… What?”

  Oben shrugged, and leaned up against a wall. He looked deep in thought.

  “Leave thing on ground.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Leave thing. If come again, we see again, yes?”

  Koruk rubbed his eyes. He felt like he was developing a migraine.

  “You’re saying we’ve been here before? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  Oben slowly nodded, scratching his bare chin.

  “How… no. We’ve been going downhill the whole way. At least, I think we have…” Koruk said. “There hasn’t been any branching paths either. That doesn’t make any sense.”

  Oben shrugged.

  “Is trick.”

  Koruk sighed, and rummaged through his backpack for something to drop. This is stupid, he thought. He selected a few pieces of fruit, dates he think that imp had called them, and chewed on them. He spat the seeds out onto the ground.

  Oben nodded, looking thoughtful as he pushed the seeds into a little pile in the centre of the corridor. Then he set off again downwards.

  Three turns left.

  Four turns right.

  Three turns left.

  Four turns right.

  The pattern repeated itself four times. And then Oben halted, and pointed at the ground.

  In the flickering light, the seeds were in a little pile at their feet.