He found his second carving a couple of minutes later, it sat on another pillar at just above waist height, it was very similar to the first one in fact he only noticed the difference when he held up his copy next to the new one. Carefully he noted down the new carving next to the original one. Gar looked behind him looking for where the previous carving was only to realise if he got down to eye level with the carving he could see the previous one and despite the fact he had been weaving back and forth to travel between the two carvings there was actually a clear straight path between the two. Getting down on his knees so he was at the appropriate height Gar started looking forwards trying to find the next carving, it didn’t take long to spot it.
He moved forwards following the carvings noting them down as he did. It took about ten carvings noted down before Gar started to recognise the patterns in them. They were some sort of rudimentary writing or pictographic language. Most of the carvings had been slightly different from the others with very few being the same. From what he could tell the top half of the carving indicated the direction he had come from and the bottom half would indicate the direction he needed to go to the next carving.
Gar was able to start moving quicker through the cave as there was always a straight path between the carvings and while he couldn’t read them he could at least follow enough to find the right direction. He was of course still looking out for any more carvings that he may have missed. Over the next fifteen minutes Gar felt he had covered more distance than in the previous hour, he suspected he had gotten lost in amongst the stalagmites without even realising it. With clear straight paths marked by the carvings he could get back on track.
A while later and he found another section to the carving, he had one section indicating where he had just came from and another indicating the way forwards but between them was a third section pointing to somewhere behind him and off to his right. Looking and yes there was another carving. It seemed that there were several different paths through the stalagmites and they were converging. On what he didn’t know, with a bit of luck he would find out.
He continued on noting down any new carvings he came to. As he went several more paths seemed to converge onto his and the paths even seemed to be getting wider. Which didn’t make sense why would the stalagmites be further apart? It was upon thinking about this that he used observe to look more closely at the floor as he went. He noticed signs of where stalagmites would have been or where very small ones where forming. It was as if someone had moved them out the way.
He came to a point where five paths converged except the carvings weren’t on a stalagmite instead it was a perfectly cylindrical pillar all one piece of solid stone perfectly merged with the floor. It must have been carved out of a stalagmite except someone had gone to great trouble with it as he could not see a single tool mark. There was a ring round the pillar at the same height as the other carvings that were left bare except for the directional carvings. Above and below that was completely covered in what Gar could only assume to be decorative carvings.
He continued following the marked path, only the carvings were all on pillars the same as the first from then on. Gar was now eager to see what was at the end of this path some form of people had made this path and that was all he had been looking for since he arrived in this world. He passed twenty-three pillars before he found where they ended. It was a large smooth stone wall shaped directly from the rock with a stone door set right in the middle of it more of the decorative carving round the frame.
Gar approached it slowly watching for any dangers and half expecting some sort of official or guard to appear to either question him or let him through. No such person appeared, no people at all appeared as Gar walked right up to the door. It was a large door, oddly proportioned, it was a single door only slightly taller than he was and the same if not more wide. Not knowing what else to do Gar knocked on the door it hurt his knuckles and made a dull thudding sound that echoed in the cave. Gar waited for a response, a couple of minutes later and no response had come so he uses the butt of his spear to knock again but harder. Gar was still waiting five minutes later. Feeling he had been polite but figured his situation warranted a bit of rudeness especially if whoever was here wasn’t even going to hear him out. He pushed the door expecting it to be locked or at least heavy, so he almost fell through when it swung open light as a feather.
Regaining his balance Gar let the door swing right open as he just looked inside. Beyond the door was completely different to the cave he was in, it was a room long and rectangular all right angles and straight lines. While it was the same stone as was around him none of it on the other side was natural, it was precise and sculpted. Gar stepped through as the badgers followed behind, the door swung shut behind him. He turned to look at it the wall looked almost identical to its other side clean stone with the single door and its decorated frame. There were brackets carved into the door and frame to hold a bar to lock it shut, the bar was not in site.
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Gar looked back around, while the wall behind him may have been smooth bare stone the rest of the walls where not they were covered in carvings. Gar wanted to move closer to have a look but he was still in an unknown place and the owners still hadn’t shown themselves. Down the left side where three arches with two down the right and the only other door was set in the middle at the far end. Gar decided he would check each of the arches then place a badger at each door to warn him before he let himself investigate the carvings.
Gar moved to the first arch on his right. The arch was twice as wide as he was but Gar needed to duck low to be able to see through. Inside there where what Gar would guess to be stone benches and tables carved straight from the floor, with what could be a cooking area over in one corner. He would investigate further later the main thing was that there was nothing moving or living there. The next room on the right seemed to have been some sort of storage area it was full of stone racks and shelves, Gar had to take a few steps in to be sure but again it was empty.
The first room on the left hand side was difficult to tell what it was supposed to be from the door way. All he could see was a corridor straight in front of him and a sub dividing wall coming from the left. He crept forwards into the room until he could peer around the dividing wall, it was empty. It was a space about two meters wide before there was another dividing wall. Along the back there was an alcove carved into the rock fairly low to the floor and not as wide as the little room. There were also pegs along the far wall ready to hang things on. Continuing slowly down there where more identical little areas. Gar still couldn’t work out what their purpose was. The middle arch led to a room that was only divided into two with each of the sections having a stone desk, stool and even a stone bed. At least that is what Gar suspected the items to be as the proportions of things all seemed off to Gar too low and too wide for what he was used to. The final arch led to a room that was a mirror image of the first room on that side and again empty. In fact there was nothing in the entire place that hadn’t been carved directly out of the rock.
It had an eerie almost ghostly feeling to the place. Gar was pretty certain that this place had been made by some race that wasn’t human, or gargoyles for that matter things just weren’t sized right for their proportions. Whatever race had made it, it also seemed they had abandoned it and taken everything that they could with them. With the area cleared Gar was happy to start looking a bit more closely at the carvings on the wall.
He stationed B1 and B2 at each of the doors to warn him if anything entered, then he took a closer look starting with the first section of wall on the left. There where carvings from floor to ceiling and unlike the repeating patterns of the pillars there where actual figures and full scenes depicted, very mundane things the same group digging then shaping and building. It was only when he recognised the doorways did he realise it was the building of the place he was in. The people in the carvings looked human-ish it was only when one was depicted going through the door that he could get a sense of scale to realise that the people where much shorter and wider than humans. With those proportions human like features and long beards Gar started referring to them as dwarves even if it was only in his mind.
The story went on to show how two groups would live and work in the rooms with at least one of the groups remaining on site at all times acting as guards securing the place against monsters and checking any people that came through. While one group was guarding the other would go out to mine and bring back resources, carving the pillars and marking the paths as they went. Below each scene was a more complete form of the writing he had seen on the pillars, perhaps it wasn’t rudimentary merely a form of short hand used when marking the way Gar could have spent hours examining every part of it. He would have liked to copy all the writing down and try to figure out its meaning but he didn’t have enough space on the skin to add the writing and keep adding to his map and at that moment the map was much more important.
As much as he could have kept looking at the carvings there was still more to explore and see. He had no idea what was beyond the other door the only clue he had was, that was where more dwarves come from and returned to in the carvings. Gar was excited for what he would find. He prepared himself standing a couple of meters back and slightly off to one side of the door three badgers in front of him and B2 right next to the door. B2 moved slowly forwards and nudged the door open.
The first thing Gar noticed was the light he could see the entire area all lit up. It wasn’t bright but between the light and his dark vision he could see everything clearly. With nothing having jumped out at him having opened the door Gar moved through it to take it all in. He was in a crevasse several hundred meters long and easily a hundred or more meters from top to bottom. He was stood on a walkway at one end about half way up. The walkway extended along both sides of the crevasse with rooms and buildings carved directly into the rock behind it. There were more walkways both above and below him lots more.
