Krafft's Anomaly Notes

Chapter 107 Gray (thanks to the leader of "Two-dimensional is my family")

William didn't expect to come here for the second time so soon.

It may be that after months of torment, the time has finally turned.Not long after parting, he met a local villager who offered to lead the way down.

In consideration of not wanting to be delayed because of Kraft's attitude, there may be other reasons for the anxiety of being unable to enter the treasure house, but I can't think of so many at the moment.As if his feet moved by themselves, he stepped over the mountains and rocks again like inertia, lit a torch at the entrance of the mine, and went straight into it.

When he realized that he was a little too impatient, he had already stood at the end of the mining area again, and the old man with a slightly stooped figure was walking in front.

Shaking the flame of the torch in his hand, William stopped here, subtly thinking about whether what he did was unreasonable, but found nothing.The sailors behind stopped together, waiting for the captain's order.

Hearing the sound of footsteps stop, the old man turned his skinny neck with protruding bony spines, twisted half of his body, and aimed at them the clear dot of the cloudy eyeballs sunken in the shriveled eye sockets.The barrel-shaped chest with well-defined ribs stretched out the loose clothes, and one could see the same deep depression as other local old men. The loose skin in the front of the neck sank, which inexplicably reminded William of the broken sail being entangled on the broken mast by strong wind.

Considering his age and physical condition, this old man should not have been able to continue to work long ago. He is not very familiar with this new mine that has only been in use for a few years.However, an astonishing force supported this seemingly precarious body, and he climbed up the mountain path that was difficult for young sailors without stopping, and took every step accurately in the cave where the light and shadow intersected.

"What's the matter? Don't want to part with two silver coins?" His voice was a bit harsh, like the sharp part of an iron pick slicing across the surface of a mineral crystal, the sour tone seemed to be ridiculing, or it might just be that the throat was eroded by dust in the difficult breathing .

This feeling made William very uncomfortable. The age of the guide made him hard to believe that he had worked here, but he had never tripped over any uneven ground along the way. May be experienced.

"Did you really mine here? I heard that this mine has only been used for a few years."

"No." The rickety old man cracked his mouth, and the mouth with few teeth left seemed hollow. When William and the others felt that they had been fooled, he continued, "Because I didn't come here for those stones, but I promise to be better than anyone else." Everyone understands it, including below.”

He raised the torch with wrinkled hands, and the half-extinguished burning material loosened and fell, and the sparks traveled on the black carbon flakes, "Come on, I know where you want to go, where those people will not take you."

The light of the underused torch dimmed, but the old man did not intend to replace it. He crossed the deepest trace of human beings here - a small groove where the torch was placed, and went to a deeper and more primitive part, as if he didn't care about what was behind him. people.

Several people looked at each other and followed him before he walked away.

The sound of footsteps echoed in the deep red mine tunnel, and the slope became steeper as it went deeper, leading into the interior of the mountain, to the point where it was necessary to pay attention to a stable footing so as not to lose balance.And the old man walked on the ground like a flat foot, and his speed never slowed down.

As William and the sailors struggled to keep up with him, there was little energy left to notice that the reds were fading rather than deepening with depth.When the second torch was lit, they suddenly realized that the time for descending had already exceeded the time from the foot of the mountain to the entrance of the cave. They left the stratum where the red iron ore was distributed and walked in the passage of cooling colors.

Not only the red, but also the annoying yellow dust that accompanied them everywhere for many days is also fading.The gray and pale dry rock squeezed out from the cave wall and dominated the main color of the gullies and low mountains.

The old man put down the crude torch, the flame on it was completely extinguished, and the entangled burning materials dissipated, leaving only the bare stick.

He didn't prepare for the second one from the beginning, and he walked straight forward after it went out. William followed closely, trying to help him light the way ahead, and then found that there was no need for it.

The hunched figure stood outside the circle of light, half-body poking into the darkness, but his steps were more steady than those illuminated by torches, and every step was solid.It seems that there are stairs specially laid for him in the mine tunnel here, step by step, keeping the distance just enough for him to see, but at any time he will be lost, and if he takes a slow step, he will lose his sight.

It may be that the clothes on his body are a little thin, but when the gray and white began to seep into the cave wall, William felt a soaking coldness.It doesn't mean moisture, but this kind of coldness can't be blocked by clothes like ice water, and the wetness seems to turn the cloth into an accomplice of low temperature, taking heat away from the body bit by bit.

Like a torch's journey, they left the southern hills and came to.
They couldn't tell where it was. Even though the Iceberg had arrived at many ports between the center of the kingdom and the ice field, William had never seen this kind of cave. It belonged here alone, under the southern hills covered by thick dust and yellow rock. A heterochromatic gray-white rock formation that is more barren than barren.

It appeared for the first time in the form of mildew, like when checking the food storage in the cargo hold, you touched a cabinet door that was not locked last time, and hard biscuits and bacon grew pinpoint white spots.An inexperienced sloppy sailor would simply close the locker, but an experienced sailor knows that when you find the first cluster, it means that the depths below the surface are quite different.

Downwards, the gray and white flooded, crowding out the yellow rocks at the feet, sides and overhead, fighting for more area.It is not like the iron ore is integrated into the mountain and disseminated, but the oil and water samples are layered with clear boundaries.

With a sense of déjà vu, William traced back to the weirdest and most alien part of his not-so-distant memory. They had just experienced a very similar scene last night—walking a long, dark road, standing at the yellow-and-white boundary. colored rocks.But he didn't have much time to stop and think, and the old man didn't have any intention of stopping to rest. William could hear his chest pulling like a bellows, and he took a deep breath.

The pace was brought faster and faster, walking on the yellow and white ground, this transition was extremely short, it felt like it was left behind in just a short while, and completely entered the gray and white rock formation.

William pinched his nose, feeling that he was getting smaller. He followed the wormhole through the strange-smelling skin, looking for intact meat in the lower layer, but fell into the long white mildew. There was nothing he wanted here, and some kind of The dry and spoiled texture looks like loose gray-white skeletons that have been exposed to the sun for many days. The surface is covered with dust, and there are vaguely striped creatures drilling into the top, opening holes that can be entered.

He was distracted, and in the urgent follow, William didn't understand how he had such rich associations, which originated from memories, and the rocks with different colors at the end of the mountain road were symbolic, especially on specific occasions. It is clear and guides thinking in that direction. In the off-white part, there are long links that are neither snakes nor insects.

"Old Gorry! You are Old Gorey!" William shouted forward.

At the edge of the halo, an old and thin face turned darkly, opening its toothless jaw, the firelight illuminated the mouth and the bottomless cave behind him, and the ischemic mucous membrane was as gray as a rock wall.A horn-like echo sounded from his throat, or from somewhere deeper in the cave, somewhere white and empty, vibrations conducted by the rock wall and the cold current from nowhere, approaching and amplifying to the point of unsteadiness, shaking Fall gravel rock dust, put out torches.

The vibrations were meandering and long, coming from some sort of gigantic body pushing through the rock formations.

(End of this chapter)