A little farther on, even Nikha’s abused ears picked up the noise. It was a great, hollow BANG, as of metal striking metal. It occurred rhythmically, every several seconds, and even this far away she could tell it was deafeningly loud. It was not a sound made by anything that was supposed to be in Eldergrave’s basement.

After several corkscrewing turns upward and a corresponding increase in volume, they reached a door. It was of dark, oily iron and gave off a palpable stink of hot metal. The banging noise was so loud now it was making her involuntarily blink.

“I guess we’re about to solve the mystery,” shouted Kemp over the din.

Nodding, Nikha yelled back. “Are you ready?” He gave her a thumbs-up, and with rifle in hand she yanked the door open. Immediately a solid wave of heat smacked them in the face. The noise increased, going beyond deafening to something almost physical. She nearly fell to her knees on entry, but kept her feet. After turning to make sure Kemp was alright, she surveyed the room- for a room it was, large as a warehouse with a ceiling thirty or forty feet above. Walls and floor were the same filthy iron as the door, and the only light was the sullen, ruddy glow of forge-hot metal. She thought she saw a huge door on the far end of the room, half visible through the smoke and gloom. And as for the noise, well-

“Looks like you were right!” she screamed at Kemp, though his open-mouthed expression didn’t change. He was busy staring at the trip-hammers which lined the walls, ten or more to a side. Each had a beam twenty feet long and a head the size of a wagon. They repeatedly rose far into the air before dropping with an earth-shaking crash. They were driven by great wheels that stuck partway through the walls, and were beating out huge ingots of steel into longer, flatter rectangles that made Nikha think of swords. The hammers had beams of bronze and heads of steel-faced lead. Cast into each of the latter was a skull, the bone pale against dull gray metal. It was these most of all that gave Nikha the feeling they ought to leave as soon as possible. Even missing the mandible, the craniums were tall as she was, with an extra eye-socket set above the normal two.

Kemp must have noticed them too. He finally tore his eyes off the machinery and yelled in her ear: “If these are the anvils, I don’t want to meet the smith!” Nikha nodded emphatically. In turning to face him she’d noticed that the door they’d used was in fact set within a much larger one, one sized for a person-or thing-about twenty feet tall. Wait, how does that work? The other side wasn’t a big door at all. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t even sure why she still questioned any of it. What did matter was leaving, and fast.

They ran together for the far side of the room. The air was sweltering-hot, thick with smoke and the harsh reek of hot steel; they were soaked in sweat almost immediately. Nikha put her head down and focused on keeping her feet. The floor was made of riveted plates of iron, the seams threatening to trip her up. Once, a hammer came down just as they were running past it. The noise and shock it put through the floor made her stumble, but Kemp grabbed her bandaged arm and yanked her upright. She hissed in pain but kept going.

The room had to be near a quarter mile long. They reached the other end and collapsed against the door, panting and running with sweat. Nikha wiped her forehead, her hair feeling lank and heavy where it ran down her back. Kemp didn’t look much better. Glancing away from him, she immediately noticed a problem: there was no door here- not one sized for them, at least. They’d have to get the giant one open somehow.

Kemp had come to the same realization and was craning his neck to look at the door’s handle. It was a huge steel lever, about ten feet off the ground. “Get on my shoulders,” Nikha yelled at him. “You should be able to reach it.”

“You’re lighter and I’m stronger, I think!” he screamed back. “You get on mine!” Nikha scowled, but he wasn’t wrong. Kemp took a knee so she could get on.

“You’d better not look up my skirt!” she shouted. She was wearing pants under it anyway, of course, but it would still be mortally embarrassing.

Kemp’s eyes shot wide open as he spluttered. “You-I can’t-Of course I won’t! Come on!”

Bracing her hands against the wall, Nikha took two wobbly steps up onto Kemp’s shoulders.

“Ready?” he called.

“Go!”

Grunting, he slowly stood up, with Nikha just barely keeping her balance. When he was fully upright, she reached upward and managed to get a hand around the door lever. She gave it a yank downward but it didn’t want to move. “Come on, you stupid-“ She growled at it, pulling harder. Kemp wobbled a bit beneath her feet, and she glanced at him. “Careful down there!”

Kemp managed to stabilize, his eyes firmly fixed downward. “Did you have to wear the world’s stompiest boots today?”

“Boots are-oof!-practical.” She thought she felt it move that time-but there was suddenly a noise from the other end of the room. A great, hollow clanking, as of a huge key rattling in a lock. “Blazes!”

“Something’s coming, Nikha!”

“I know! Suppose I’ll have to just-“ There was nothing else for it. She pulled herself as high up as she could, then stepped right off of Kemp and let herself drop. When her weight hit the lever it let off a crack of freed metal and turned, lowering her mostly to the ground before she slid off.

There was an answering noise from the other end of the room as its door handle was turned from the outside. Nikha scrambled upright and joined Kemp in pushing the door open with all her strength. Luckily it was indeed a push door, and their combined efforts got it creaked open enough to barely slip through. They passed into a dim radiance wholly unlike the fiery glow of the forge. The cool air was like ice-water on Nikha’s face.

“How do we close it?” said Kemp. Already he was far easier to hear.

There was no way for them to grab the door and pull it shut. “I don’t-“ She was cut off by a different sort of noise from the forge, a hollow clanking. Like boots on a metal floor-if the boots were the size of wine-casks. Kemp scrambled away from the door while Nikha backed off and raised her gun. Who knew what it could do to a giant, but maybe if she shot it in the eye-

The great steps stopped just on the other side of the door. Shadows the size of carts blocked the light streaming beneath it. There was a low grumble that might have been speech, a sound like falling rocks. BANG! The door suddenly slammed shut with a deafening clash of metal. Nikha shot about three feet into the air with a “Yeep!” and Kemp fell onto his rear. The great footsteps retreated.

“…seems he doesn’t like visitors,” Kemp muttered, still staring at the door. Nikha looked back and forth between them, then burst out laughing, bent over with her hands on her hips. Kemp stared at her, then joined in. They’d just almost died, true, but ‘almost’ was the operative word. It was either laugh or stay wound so tight she’d go mad.

Finally Nikha regained control, and Kemp grinned up at her from his spot on the ground. “We made it!”

“Thank you for your help, Kemp. We couldn’t have done it without you,” said Nikha, smiling back as she helped him up. “Or at least not without a ladder.”

He laughed. “Would a ladder have grabbed you when you tripped?”

“I don’t know, but it might have stood a little steadier-“

“-if you didn’t crush it with those big old clogs you wear. I think I’m going to bruise.” He brushed his shoulders off with a dramatic flourish.

Nikha crossed her arms and put up her chin. “I should think you’ll be bruised worse elsewhere, considering that fall you just took.” She looked down on him with a mock-haughty smirk.

“Got me there.” He shrugged, then smirked right back. “By the way, what was that noise you made when the door closed, again? Yip, or yipe, or-“

“None of them!” Nikha felt herself blushing a little. “I didn’t say anything at all.”

“No, I for sure heard something. Sounded kinda like the noise a kitten makes when it can’t find its mother, in fact-“

“I believe it’s time to get moving again, if that’s quite alright with you,” Nikha said loudly, and certainly without a hint of embarrassment.

Kemp smiled but didn’t call her out. “Give me a sip of water, and I’ll be good. She passed him a canteen and they began exploring this new tunnel. Its construction was rustic, almost ancient-looking, but it was quite spacious. The walls were of unmortared, uncut stones, like an old sheepfold. The floor was rough dirt, and the ceiling was held up by crisscrossed logs. Most astonishing were the vines that crawled over all surfaces of the tunnel: they were leafy and green despite living underground, and were studded with flowers of every shape and color. The blooms have off a soft, blue-green glow, the only source of light here. Kemp checked the pathfinder, and it was still pointing them onward.

“Beautiful…” whispered Kemp as he inspected one that looked like a deep purple lily. “We have a few of these behind the house, but…” He glanced over at Nikha, who’d joined him. “Have you ever heard of plants that glow?”

She shook her head, staring deep into the flower. It really was beautiful, its petals a vibrant violet with a rosette of white in the center. “For all we know, these aren’t plants all. They could be worms that look like plants, or some kind of net trap, or…or monster tongues or something.” She noticed Kemp giving her an odd look. “What? It’s not like anything else has been normal so far. They…they are rather pretty, though.” She turned back to the flower, noting the way the striations in its pigment seemed to change a little as it glowed-

A pair of callused fingers reached into her view and plucked the flower from its vine. “Don’t, Kemp! You’ll make it angry!”

He stood there confused, holding the bloom. “Make what angry?”

Nikha was already crouched in a shooting stance, rifle up. She waited five seconds Ten seconds. “Nothing, I suppose. Whatever awful creature’s attached to those. But perhaps they are just plants.” She sighed and slung her gun. “Why’d you do that, though?”

In reply, he handed her the lily. “Here.”

“Why?” she asked suspiciously, eyes narrowed.

“This is the first place on this whole trip that’s actually been nice, right?” He waved a hand around, and Nikha realized she agreed. It was pleasant, in its way. “I’ll bet you we won’t see somewhere like it again, so there’s something to remember it by.” He nodded at the lily in her hand.

“Hm. Thanks, Kemp.” He grinned and got walking while Nikha held up the flower. It still glowed despite being plucked. She tucked it behind her ear and jogged to catch up.

She had no idea what this place might be, but it really was the nicest one she’d seen so far. The air was dry and cool, pleasant after the heat of the forge. The soft light given off by the flowers was calming, and their fragrances mixed with the scents of water and stone. A small stream soon joined the tunnel, burbling in a zig-zag across the floor. It reminded Nikha of the long hikes which she enjoyed, of spending days out exploring, alone with nature. She wasn’t alone here, of course, but Kemp seemed content to stay quiet as well.

The tunnel twisted and turned, bearing steadily upward. In a few spots dirt had collapsed past the walls, and in others she thought she could make out worn carvings on the logs supporting the ceiling. Otherwise, their passage was calm and uneventful.

After a while, though, Kemp perked up. He kept walking, but turned his head this way and that as if listening for something. Soon Nikha could hear it too: a rhythmic thud thud thud, deep enough it was felt more in the chest than the ear. It sounded familiar.

“You don’t think we’re going in a circle, do you?” Kemp finally asked. “I saw enough’a that forge already.”

“No, this sounds different. It’s…” Her eyes lit up. “It’s the steam engine, our steam engine. Another part of the real basement!”

Kemp sighed, relieved. “Oh, thank the saints. You mean one of those things that pumps water out of a mine, right?”

Nikha was no longer surprised by the gaps in his knowledge. “Exactly. There’s lots of water in our cellars-“

“I’ve noticed.”

“-so we have the steam engine to pump them out. Oh! Tarasov might be there. Our steamfitter. Maybe he could give us a hand.”

The tunnel climbed farther, and the engine noise increased. Soon they were stepping over scattered red bricks and the tunnel was narrowing. After one final steep, skinny incline, they climbed through what turned out to be a hole in the wall of a brick-lined corridor. The engine was clearly audible, now. “This way!” Nikha took them toward its source, and after a few minutes they reached a set of huge double doors, big as those found on a barn.