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This Way to the Exit?

8/20/2017

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​Pulling the door open with his left hand while it still clutched the torch would have resulted in burns if not for the armor over his hands and forearms.
The opened door revealed a passageway, darker than any moonless night Gypsum had ever experienced. It also smelled of stale air long undisturbed. His muzzle wrinkled in  an expression of distaste.
Before entering he took one of the unlit torches from a wall sconce and tucked it into his now empty scabbard. With sword and lit torch in hand he proceeded through the passage as swiftly as caution allowed. The ceiling of the passage was high enough to accommodate him without the need to make himself shorter by bending or crouching. It was also wide enough that he and his brother could have walked abreast without either brushing the walls.
The passage descended gradually and after ten minutes Gypsum realized that he was passing under other buildings in the city. His sense of direction also told him that he was heading away from New City and toward the cliffs and mines. He would have preferred some other direction, but his preferences were of no matter. 
Besides, he was exploring an area that had not seen visitors in years—perhaps centuries. The dust on the stone floor of the passage had not been disturbed for a very long time. A glance behind him confirmed that his own travel left clear footprints and even a haze as the dust resettled. With the evidence of this tunnel being long deserted, plus the complete lack of sound or smell to indicate danger, he took the spare torch from the scabbard and resettled his sword there. The torch was much lighter.
It was over half an hour before the passageway offered any break from its monotony. At the same time the torch he carried began to sputter and die. He used it to light the extra he'd brought and he left the expired one on the floor against a wall.
His stomach reminded him again that he had not eaten in too long. He growled a wordless expression of discontent and continued forward to where a faint light source awaited.
He found that the tunnel ended in a closed door. Plus, there were also doors in the wall on each side. He had three exits to choose from.
With a shrug he chose the one on the left and attempted to push it open. He was not successful. He tried to pull, but it was obvious that the door opened only forward.  He pushed hard against it with his shoulder and it gave an inch or two. He could tell from the sounds of scraping on the other side and the smell that the door was blocked by rubble. Apparently the old building there had collapsed.
He had a moment to worry that the other two doors would be similarly blocked; he shrugged and tried the door on the right. It opened with only a little difficulty into another empty room as dark as the tunnel.
Before exploring further he closed that door and tried the one that opened in the direction he had been traveling. This one offered some promise since a very faint light shone around the imperfect seams of the door.
That one revealed a stairway, and at the top of the stairs was a source of light. He drew his sword, clutched the torch in his left hand, and climbed slowly and silently up the stairs.
What he encountered at the top surprised him a little and pleased him even more.
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Ups and Downs

8/2/2017

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As Gypsum began his careful descent of the spire he discovered a pleasant surprise: a trapdoor entrance on the roof! He had not noticed it earlier because his vision was focused upward. But looking down, he could see the square door squeezed into the small space beside the base of the spire.
There was very little room around the base of the spire, and none of it was horizontal. The trapdoor had been constructed into the slanted roof. Gypsum needed to anchor himself from sliding down the roof and off while working to open the door.
Before he risked a descent through the trapdoor, Gypsum surveyed the ground at the base of the building. It did not look good. He could see at least six citizens of Old City silently staring up at him.
There was not a friendly face in sight. Gypsum comforted himself a little by reflecting that Riotori faces did not tend to look friendly even among friends.
He shrugged and eased himself down through the door feet first.
Feldspar and the other watchers on the hill were almost shocked to see him simply vanish from the rooftop. Topaz gave a brief cry of despair as Gypsum literally dropped from sight.
That was the last they would see of him that day or night.
He found what he had hoped for, and expected. A metal ladder descended from the trapdoor. He did not for a second trust the rungs. He clutched the vertical stringers firmly with both hands at all times.
He was delightfully surprised when the rungs proved reliable all the way to the bottom. He was glad he'd kept the door open. There was no other source of light, and that source was fading with the coming of evening.
Fortune smiled on him again, and more than once. At hand at the bottom of the metal ladder was a torch in a sconce. Next to the sconce was a tinder box and flints.
Two minutes after his feet settled on the floor of the building, he had a lighted torch in his hand.
The room was sparsely furnished with chairs and a table and additional torches along the wall. And to his right as he looked into the room there was a doorway. It was not the door to the outside he'd seen when he circled the building.
He strode across the room and gripped the latch handle with his left hand. His right hand drew his sword, and he opened the door...  
 

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    The story: This serial is about the "mascot" shown at the top of these pages. There are actually two of them, identical twins, Feldspar and Gypsum.
    The people call themselves Riotori, and their planet is Kylrock. The twins have been journeying for hundreds of miles, across many hazards, in search of mates. Please visit the archives to read their whole story.



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