Garek Enkdal - the City of Ten Thousand Blades
The congestion around the gate swiftly clears as the guards move out into the clearing in front of the Black Gates, then down the main path through the city as they try to get away, though the route is full of Orcs and other creatures of the Underdark and their progress is slowed then stopped as most of those they encounter seem more minded to pick a fight than to heed the guard's warnings.
At the fore, Brugar elects to follow Malgrom's example and turns away from the main path, instead following the wall of the immense cavern, keeping it on his left as he hurries along. The Dwarf still has to push, but with his axe held firmly in hand, and backed up both by Hamin's grim countenance and Yetta's borrowed appearance, you manage a good pace, with no more than half-voiced and swiftly dropped objections to your passage.
Perhaps three hundred paces curving East to South and you pass a dark opening with stairs winding yet deeper, down which filthy Orcs toil hauling buckets of ore, the same distance again and a bit more brings you to an encampment of soldiers, sited before another narrow tunnel that leads a short distance to an underground waterway. These Orcs and Orogs do not challenge you, either because of the 'Drow Priestess' in your company or else because they are preoccupied at the sudden, if slow rising of the waters as it creeps back up the tunnel.
Five hundred paces more and you pass by another tunnel, the stench of fish guts unavoidable, though those Orcs nearby do not seem to notice it. Your path turns again, now angling back towards the West and six hundred paces further on you meet the tunnel whereby you first entered this immense cavern, your approach very much slowed by the tide of creatures spilling out of it, though Brugar manages to force an opening, though you are all, save for Yetta, bumped and jostled as you progress, though not questioned at either the outer or inner gates as you laboriously pass through the two smaller caverns, a hundred paces bringing you through the first, and half that again at the second, though here the light ranges from poor to none and the Dwarf and the one-eyed warrior are forced to guide Yetta and Alasha'an.
Hard as it was to travel down these tunnels, the journey back up them is harder yet, between the curses and buffeting for the maimed and defeated, a tide of creatures that seems to have grown if anything, and the many, many rough and crumbling steps you must climb, and even the Dwarf is winded by the time you gain the final cavern. Another hundred and fifty paces, though truth be told you've long stopped counting and after a fraught but thankfully short trek up the narrow ledge, head back into the darkened tunnels, this last twisting and turning as you find yourself scraped raw where flesh meets the rough stone walls as you push against the oncoming mass of those returning to the lands below.
Finally the light improves and shortly thereafter you cross once more over the stone bridge that spans a wide chasm, leaving the rough tone behind you as you tread now on stone flags, the walls fashioned from dressed blocks, and up carved stone steps, though none of it seems familiar, for you did not linger long when you passed through on your way down into Garek Enkdal. Though the way is yet obvious, marked still by the flow of creatures heading the other way.
You are heading South now, down a long corridor, dimly but sufficiently lit. The hurt and maimed come towards you as you battle against the flow, then reach a side passage to the East, the first of three such that Hamin can see, all adding to the tide of misery.
Do you prefer to continue on, or take any of the three side passages (the nearest of those has the fewest travellers) ?