The image was stuttering, afflicted no doubt by the weak form of the magic. It was there--it was enough to give him answer to his question--but it was
flickering from scene to scene. A Valkhound hauling a chain, a collared Meadow Deer at the other end. Leaned back, kicking bawling, as it was dragged
A small herd of Wooly Deer, mismatched limb counts and various hair lengths, rushing across the grass. The rubble was gone.
A wheelbarrow, more like a giant cart nearly ten feet high, hauling out the butchered remains of what must have been twenty creatures.
Anubis has discovered The Abattoire.
@Anubis
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This post contains potentially sensitive material:
It was difficult to tell what had once been inside the rooms to the left and right. They were quite large, with very broad openings; perhaps pens for individual groups of beasts. The rooms on the left had their entryways nearly obscured, regardless, by enormous piles of rubble and partially crashed-down ceilings: good hiding places, should it come to that, but difficult to pass through.
The two rooms at the bottom, however, were a little clearer in their purpose. Most of the lower left side of the room was taken up by one vast, long room with a very large entrance that had long since crumbled. This room held long, flat stone tables along its length, not very high off the ground, with a long gutter sloping down and to the east between them. Shackles hung along the ceiling, still and eerily dark. One or two still held chains that dangled down, black hooks at their ends, but most had fallen away over the centuries: rusted into dust, or missing altogether.
Perhaps it was the shackles, or long-ago spilled blood, but this whole room smelled of iron: and the runnel down the center was still stained black.
This room led into the next, which in turn opened into the rubble that had partially blocked the Abattoire's door. This room held stone shelves carved from the same stone used for the walls: part and parcel of the room itself. Piles of dust and stone were hints of other things, organic things--perhaps wood or the like--that had been piled here, and rotted away many years ago. It seemed like a massive storage room--or it had been, once upon a time.
@Anubis
There were cells here, left side; the right was flat wall, the barrier between Anubis and the Abattoir. Rubble lay ahead. First a few piles--nothing scrabbling paws couldn't get over--and then a near complete blockage, where much of the tunnel had collapsed in.
Should Anubis slip past, he might notice something strange just beyond: gouges in the stone here. Worn by time, still. But parallel, and extending up to the collapsed chunk of wall, and along it. Strange.
Just beyond, to the left, was yet another narrow passageway. This one was dark, silent, and filled with dust. The scents of fresher air, of water, and sounds of flowing drips came from forward, but ahead was another mass of rubble, one that would take time and great effor tto get through (or around). Just before it, yet another corridor--this one wider--led off to the right. It was dark, as were the others, with nothing in particular strange to it.
@Anubis
Anubis did not get so lucky as to get the precise moment, over thousands of years, that this gouges had been scratched.
But for the clever, there were hints.
It was dark. Pitch black. There was no light to see by. Voices spoke behind him, soft and worried. 'Do you think they can get past this..?'
'Let's not stay to find out.'
The receding sound of talons as the voices departed snapped sharp on smooth stone.
@Anubis
This corridor had no doors.
It stretched, something distinctly eerie about it: dark and close, straight and narrow, no features to it whatsoever.
And when he reached its end... nothing.
Open space, flaring out: vulnerability to the unseen in all directions. Stepping from the corridor into that sudden pitch black, open space would leave dirt and dust, rather than rock, underfoot.
But there was nothing to be seen. The walls fell away; he could follow them if he wished. They were curved, but barely so, suggesting a huge area. The shadows, however, were blinding in their depth, and the tiny fungus Anubis carried would here avail him nothing.
There was no air flow; only stagnancy and dust, and an ancient, animal smell.
Anubis has discovered the entrance to The Pit.
@Anubis