Stretching to the greater portion of my wingspan and the full extent of my height, I managed to embrace my companion's thigh.

"I'd thought you dead!"

"Well I knew you'd make it, Perry. Luck of the small folk's nothing to scoff at."

There was no time to refute this superstition. I commenced a breathless account of my journey up to that point, bursting with explosions and beasts and hours of desolate wandering, the specifics of which I shall spare you. Murin, for his part, listened with due attentiveness through to its end, then seated himself upon the altar.

"So, where do you suppose we are?"

I took some time to scan the room which I had previously disregarded in favour of my friend's shaded form. It was clear that whoever carved the chamber had done so with great care and skill, though I could not tell whether it had been built from stones or hewn straight into the subterranean rock. There was, of course, the altar, which betrayed some religious function, and the intricate stonework suggested this place had once been of great import. A more thorough visual investigation revealed the silhouettes of several doors around the room's edge, blended almost completely into the carvings on its walls and matted thickly with foliage.

"I must confess I am entirely stumped. Wherever it is, though, it seems somehow rather important."

Murin had clearly conducted his own assessment of our surroundings.

"It's eerie alright. I wonder where all these go...?"

He strode confidently over to one of the doors and, tearing away its curtain of vines, gave it a shove, sending a quake through the stone which clouded the aperture's edges with shed dust. I winced as it scraped laboriously open with a most objectionable rasping sound. My friend, in encore to the din, let out a low whistle, and I hurried over to determine the object of his response. Through the door was a sizeable antechamber filled with cobwebbed wooden racks, upon which rested rows of something unexpected: dozens, perhaps hundreds, of weapons. Though the ruin in which they were sealed must be centuries old at the least, not a blade, handle, or haft bore any marks of time. Indeed, seen under the dim light spilling in from behind me, they seemed to suffuse the space with their own faint grey-green aura. Murin had, in the intervening time, entered the chamber and begun perusing the arsenal, and so I pursued him to offer counsel.

"Please, Murin, before you grab hold of one..."

I trailed off to concentrate on fumbling through my surviving pockets, eventually seizing upon the target of my search. With a confident flourish, I produced a small vial.

"Desiccated blackroot! I knew I had some on me... Now, while blackroot is of course as mundane a tuber as one might find in the Wyne basin, it has a few tricks up its sleeve."

Though he remained in considerate silence as I carefully tapped a dash of powder into my hand, on reflection I could infer from Murin's air that he did not consider vegetables capable of harbouring tricks or, indeed, sleeves.

"What your average farmer has long forgotten," I continued, "is that blackroot has not always grown in the basin. It was, in fact, a product of direct divine intervention, countless centuries ago when the need was very great. And, as such, when properly prepared, an inkling of that residual divinity can be brought to the surface."

Murin leaned in slightly to inspect the decidedly unremarkable-looking powder.

"If these weapons carry a curse... we should see a slight reaction, as it fights the powder's blessing."

With that, I gently blew the blackroot from my palm onto the head of a nearby handaxe. It glittered slightly in the air for a moment - before flashing into a shower of brilliant sparks which knocked me from my feet in shock. My friend kindly bore me back upright.

"Was that what you were expecting?" he inquired.

"Not remotely! These objects are not cursed by any kind of sorcery. They are, in fact, possessed of a singular divine fervour... it should be safe to touch their handles, although I cannot speak for the blades."

After taking a moment to browse, Murin grasped the haft of a long-bladed spear and pulled it from its berth. It sung a soft note as he twirled it through the air around him in experiment, and its head traced sweeping ribbons behind it in a dim grey-green afterglow. Murin brought it to a stop and grinned.

"That is quite a spear. Whoever all these were made for, they must have been held in high esteem."

He shot me a conspiratorial look.

"...Do you think anyone would mind if we took one?"

"While it may be safe to assume this place has been thoroughly abandoned, whoever built it could well have left more behind than simple swords and spears."

"Ah, Perry, but there is nothing simple about them."

Murin spent a few seconds in calculation.

"If anything nasty comes for us, I'll look after you, alright?"

I was not entirely won over by this assurance, but having recently witnessed my friend's actions aboard the carrack, I held sufficient confidence in him to acquiesce.

"Very well... though please do be careful, regardless."

The pair of us processed back into the larger chamber, where I discovered the beam of light which had previously cast almost a full circle upon the altar at my arrival now transcribed a little more than one-half of one. Confronted with a cursory inspection, it appeared to be a form of sundial, although by my own judgement a full six hours could not conceivably have passed over the course of our brief subterranean expedition. Surmising that whichever ancient mechanism produced this light from above must have fallen out of calibration over time, I sought peer review of my findings.

"Murin, what time do you suppose it is?"

"Couldn't say. Two hours past noon, maybe?"

"It's only, I think this sundial mustn't be functioning properly."

We inspected the altar's illuminated face in concert, although this time I noted a slight progression in its shape. It seemed as though the light was very gradually shrinking in scale, until, before the both of us, it suddenly snapped across the last mote of distance to form a perfect semi-circle. A thin plume of powder fell from the ceiling. Beneath our feet, the ground began to emanate a deep and mighty hum. All the tiny particles of detritus coating the floor began to skip and jump across its surface like dust on the skin of a drum. From below the rumbling rose a sound that was not so much heard through our ears as felt through our very cores, a rhythmic thudding which emanated upwards as though it were a ringing echo from the very foundations of the world.

As Murin and I turned to look at one another, the room lurched downwards and for a second there was no floor beneath our feet. No sooner had we made impact than the ground below us began to toss, in mimicry of the all-too-familiar sensation of a ship's mercurial deck during a storm. It was all the pair of us could do to remain on our feet, Murin having planted his hands squarely upon the altar, and me clinging onto his boot. Dust and earth cascaded downwards from above, lending us thin greyish mantles, as the chamber continued to shudder and sway around us. Eventually, after a small count of minutes, the rumbling vanished as abruptly as it had began. The clouds of dancing dust settled down into fresh slumber.

"I suggest we leave," Murin put forth with characteristic aptness.

"Yes, please, let's."

At this, we proceeded with haste out into the winding entrance-tunnel and began to traverse its length - which, at the time, I recall feeling much greater than it had upon my entry into the structure. Nonetheless, it was a distance quickly crossed, although at its end we found our way blocked by an intimidating stone door.

"Must've been shaken closed," shrugged Murin.

He gave it a spirited push and, like the others before it, the door ground ear-splittingly ajar. Light spilled in through the growing aperture, and, bizarrely, sound. The troll shoved the door entirely open, and we stepped out, blinking, into the midst of a crowded marketplace.