003 - Delve 1 - Beyond the Door

With some encouragement from the heroes, the little boat began to slowly move through the water toward the exit from the cavern on the eastern side and into a long tunnel.

The water very quickly grew much deeper in the tunnel beyond the cavern where they fought the bats. The ceiling was close overhead—they could reach up and touch it with their hands—but the pole would no longer touch the bottom. The deeper water slowed the current down considerably, and the heroes had to paddle to keep up their usual speed. The tunnel remained its current width of about fifteen feet throughout.

After about five minutes of rowing through a dark and winding tunnel, the ceiling above dropped significantly to the point where the heroes would have to duck down into the bottom of the boat to keep their heads from hitting the rock. If they wanted to keep going, the heroes would have to sit in the bottom of the boat, lower their heads, and drift along virtually blind until the tunnel opened up again....if it opened up again.

Rowing and pushing the boat against the current made going back a good bit slower. They passed back through the cavern where they fought the bats and into the tunnel beyond. They rowed their way to the split in the tunnel. Going into the mountain, they had taken the right fork in the tunnel. The left tunnel had meandered gently off to the left. Now they were at a kind of "T" in the tunnel. They could go left to head back to the stinking lake, or they could go right down that left-hand passage they passed on their way in.

The water flowed more quickly though this passage, because the tunnel was a good bit shallower. Vinny could easily touch the bottom with his pole. The walls of the tunnel kept their even spacing, about thirty feet apart. The ceiling was also about that high above the water.



After almost fifteen minutes of rowing and floating, the young heroes began to see a faint light up ahead. About sixty feet in front of them the tunnel opened up into cavern that was faintly lit with more of the glowing mushrooms.

THUNK!

Out of nowhere an small black arrow flew out of the darkness form up ahead and stuck itself into the bow of the boat.

FSSSSSST!

Another arrow whizzed by Ishmee's ear. Up ahead in the cavern, on either side of the entrance, high up on the rocks, the young heroes could see four sets of glowing red eyes and the shadowy shapes of four small heads. They were under attack!