Utterly Mad

The undercity of Gulgatha. Once this dark and dangerous place was itself the overcity and the labyrinth beneath it was simply "the crypt." In those days, that which dwelled beneath had not risen up into the overcity. As Gulgatha's old avenues were covered over by brick and mortar, new buildings constructed atop the old, the darkness rose up out of the crypt to claim this new territory freshly hidden from the light. Nora "Ferret" Painterly, possibly the youngest living daughter of the house of scrolls, descended into Gulgatha's stygian undercity to complete a journey her forebears had either failed or not attempted at all; to navigate the damnation beneath and infiltrate the chapel of a malign faith. There was no ladder so ferret dropped down. To her surprise, the walkway wasn't quiet as far down as she thought and the water came up her feet only about half an inch. Not as "dry" as Lydia said it would be, but still. There was more water beneath her though, and the unnatural dark of Gulgatha's underground became obvious when she looked back towards the opening. It was as if she were looking up through thick clouds at the sun casting a sharp beam down on her, showing only that narrow shaft but no more. She spotted a lantern hanging just under the inner lip of the hatch which had been hidden from her sight by the unusual dark. The lantern was oil fed and had not suffered water damage. More over, it had a small mechanism on it's side that she could wind and when a spring inside had built up enough tension, it released and struck a spark which would light the lanterns wick. After a moment, she had it burning, and it lit the area admirably. The sudden change of ambiance around her became suddenly cold and malicious though. The sunlight had been no fault of hers, and so had not incited a reaction from whatever old things dwelled down here, but the lantern was an unnatural light brought into a realm where it did not belong. She pushed on along the walkway, pushing back the shadows only to have them close in close behind her as she went. In the distance she could hear the rushing of water and guessed that a significant amount of water was being drained off into some deeper place just as fast as it rushed in to replace what flowed away. As she moved she found sconces with torches and lanterns, she tried to light them to relieve a bit of the oppressive nature of the place, but to her horror she discovered that they snuffed out as soon as she got some distance from them. "No more of that then." She thought. It was no surprise to her when she discovered she was lost. She had followed the map, stopping at every intersection she came across to check it and make a mark on a wall, the ceiling, or a railing. This place had no respect for the map she carried though, and Twice she had come to an intersection only to find a mark she had left. Another problem was the whispering. Many days before, she had emerged from the cold desert  and into the boreal woods beyond it. On that occasion she had suddenly found herself being followed by voices, the source of which she could not discern. The whispers heard here in the undercity seemed so much less malicious, but were somehow colder. Crueler even. Ferret stopped once again to check her map and upon withdrawing it from her bag, a small, squared, wooden tube clattered to the floor. As she picked it up, she realized it was one of the boxes of incense she had taken from the aromatics shop earlier in the day and remembered something her father had told her when asked about her mothers love of the reeking stuff. "Maybe you'll understand when you're older dear. It's bit of superstition really, but once upon a time, House wives all over this world of ours would burn incense to drive away evil spirits." Ferret had never seen an "evil spirit" and in her younger age she had assumed that the incense was working. As she had gotten older though, she cast away such childish things. Or she thought she had. She opened the box, the smell was not as strong as she thought it would have been and the sticks within were not as long or sticky as those her mother bought from the merchants that came to Bright Point every summer. They were short and dry. "Gulgathan incense." She thought, touching the tip to her lanterns flame. It took a moment to ignite and when it did, it simply smoldered and released it's smokes. Her mothers incenses had always burned with a small flame at their tip. This Gulgathan incense released a great deal of smoke as well as an inoffensive smell of burning wood. A little acrid maybe, but not terrible. The darkness that pressed around her seemed to draw itself away and the feeling of that she was being watched eased. The voices though, did not fade. Ferret noticed that something new had added itself to the menacing menagerie of the undercity; the sound of something following her and as Lydia had mentioned, objects thrown from dark passages. It was one of these that, as Ferret entered a relatively dry intersection, came hurtling out of the darkness to her right and smashed into her lantern. The lantern dropped from her hand, the glass exploding outwards at the impact of what looked like a brick. Larger than most of the stuff that had come flying at her. It was knocked from her hand in a shower of broken glass and sparks, leaving Ferret alone in the darkness of Gulgatha. She scrambled for the lantern and cut herself quiet badly. The sudden feeling of malice was pressing in on her, closer and closer it came, some unseen thing in that place moving to wring the life from her. After what seemed like an age, she found it. From the feel of it, it's reservoir was still in tact and the dial still turned easily. The voices in the dark had grown quieter, Ferrets incense still produced its smokes but it seemed to matter very little. The loud snap of the spark in her lantern cut off those voices as if it were a pair of shears used to snip off a troublesome vine. "damn..." Ferret mouthed when the lantern failed to light, feeling a sudden draft at her ankles as something moved about them. Even the sound of rushing water or the drip of the ocean above her head could not be heard now. All except her frantic attempts to get the lantern lit, the undercity had gone completely silent. Some of Lydia's last words to her before she descended into the depths repeated over and over in her head now. "If everything goes completely silent, for your own sake, run." When the lantern failed to light again, Ferret panicked. She drew her sword and lashed out, cutting a wide arc in the darkness. The blade made contact with a wall and the vibration of the impact sent a shock up her arm and her sword clattered to the floor. The clash seemed so loud in her ears, and over that ringing she heard another voice in her head, that of her tutor. "Wide strikes with a weapon like that will only get you in trouble girl, it's a swort sword, not a cleaver." She pawed the unseen floor for her sword, and another voice, this one not in her own head, but rather all around her. The voices of many. "Come dearest. Come. It brings light to us. We do not want it's lights. Come and share with us. Come and drink in what we share with it." The wick of the lantern suddenly flared to life as she once again attempted to spark a light, and Ferret immediately wished it hadn't.