Shawn licked a hand­ful of grav­el and spat. He held a lantern to the grit. “Mar­ble and mold,” he said, lick­ing his palette. “We’d best watch out.” He scat­tered the tiny stones. They clat­tered on the cav­ern floor.

“Aye,” replied the beard­ed Dole. He pro­duced a small cage from his hide caver’s jack­et, hand­ed it to Shawn. A thumb-sized, bat­tered toad squat­ted inside, throat flut­ter­ing. Its watery eyes shone in the lantern light. Dole pulled out a sec­ond, shook it to make sure it was still alive.

Cages extend­ed, the cavers crept onwards, watched their toads intent­ly. Their foot­steps crunched on fine grav­el and reflec­tive sliv­ers of bone.

The pas­sage walls were oblong, shiny, and grey; spot­ted with the bro­ken, tan nubs of sta­lac­tites. Often, the lev­el floor slipped sharply to one side, formed a treach­er­ous, dark slide. Splash­ing water could be heard not far below.

Shawn sniffed, slowed. “Hold up” he said. He dropped to his knees, shim­mied under a gap in the wall. Dole heard him grunt, sat­is­fied. “Come on. Fol­low” Shawn said, look­ing behind. The lantern made his eyes into flat, white disks. “But watch your step. It’s wet.”

Dole squirmed into the nook. Dewy grav­el crunched gainst his knees. Shawn thrust his lantern into the dark. Lit­tle yel­low pin­pricks glit­tered some three meters into a steep down­ward crawl­space.

Shawn turned to dole, teeth sparkling. “Know that smell any­where,” he grinned.

Dole rubbed his tired eyes, squint­ed into the dark “Don’t look too hard to access. Could be easy mon­ey, if it’s safe.”

“Aye,” said Shawn. He pulled his toad cage out from under him. With a flick of his wrist, he rolled it into the crawl­space. The lit­tle toad flailed, peeped shril­ly. Shawn kept his light on it, rapt. “Come on, big mon­ey” mut­tered Dole, face screwed up. The cage slowed, rocked, and stopped. The prospec­tors squint­ed at it. “Balls” said Shawn. Dole pound­ed his fist. Inside the thin tin bars, the toad had dis­ap­peared.

“Well, this is utter gob­shite,” said Shawn, scram­bling to rise.

“S’noth­in’ we can do about it, mate,” said Dole, scrab­bling on the wet grav­el.

“Bloody hole ain’t worth the rights.”

“There’ll be ano–”

Dole had slipped. Flat on his back, he began slid­ing into the crawl­space, con­veyed by wet grav­el. He kicked his heels against the stone. “Dole!” Shout­ed Shawn. Dole slid past the tin toad cage, saw gold flash past his head. His ears popped. The air thrummed, a sin­gle bas­so drum­beat.

Abrupt­ly, Dole hit stone. He lay still, stunned. A shrill peep sound­ed by his ear. Dole pulled him­self to an elbow. He felt about blind­ly, reach­ing in black­ness. The floor was dry, smooth, and cold. Anoth­er peep met his ears, this time far­ther away. He rum­maged in his coat, pro­duced a can­dle and lighter. Sparks snapped.

Dole gasped. Yel­low stars flashed over­head and beneath his feet, illu­mi­nat­ed bril­liant­ly. Streams and dots of gold, twin­kling in the stone. To either side of him, there was noth­ing but black­ness. He stood on an open plain of stone. Where he should have emerged from the slide, there was naught but a pil­lar of stone, so tall as to touch the gild­ed ceil­ing a hun­dred feet up.

A loud peep stopped Dole’s ogling at the gold. He looked down, saw his tiny, bat­tered toad beside its cage. Its eyes shone red in the can­dle­light. It turned and hopped softy into the dark. Dole sur­veyed the black­ness.

He shiv­ered, fol­lowed into the depths of the Under­world.

The Underworld

Beneath the Coast lies a black and track­less reach. An alien realm of end­less stone and fath­om­less cav­erns where light has no lease. This sun­less hell is known as the Under­world

No shal­low, mun­dane cave will yield pas­sage to the Under­world. Only the deep­est cav­erns and most ancient cor­ri­dors con­nect to its depths. When a per­son approach­es a con­nec­tion, known as a gate, few traces indi­cate their immi­nent pas­sage. Two chief traces are most eas­i­ly observed: First­ly, Under­world gates occur only with­in a frame, such as the inte­ri­or curve of a tun­nel. Thus, gates are invis­i­ble, but nev­er occur in a space with­out bounds. Sec­ond­ly, the depth at which gates appear is sim­i­lar to the depth where­in mar­ble is usu­al­ly found.

Delvers in the ground, be they spe­lunk­ers, tomb raiders, or prospec­tors, are wary of the Under­world. The deep­er they trek, the eas­i­er it is to idly stroll into fear­ful sub­ter­ranea.

Once a per­son enters a gate, there is no turn­ing back. This is so, as the Under­world is an incon­gru­ent real­i­ty. Phe­nom­e­na or struc­tures which exist in the World (such as a gate) are unlike­ly to exist in its sun­less coun­ter­part. Addi­tion­al­ly, dis­tance and direc­tion have lit­tle sway in the dark. If a per­son does man­age to escape the Under­world, there is no telling where in the World the may emerge.

To avoid becom­ing irrecov­er­ably lost, delvers car­ry a clever instru­ment: a caged mince toad. Mince toads are small, bug eyed, puce amphib­ians which exhib­it a spe­cial sen­si­tiv­i­ty to shifts in real­i­ty. They func­tion pre­cise­ly as a canary would in a coal mine. If the toad dis­ap­pears, the wield­er is dan­ger­ous­ly close to an Under­world gate. Mince toads are easy to breed (if frag­ile) and are a cru­cial safe­ty mea­sure when ven­tur­ing deep in the world. 

Ecology

Though the Under­world is a real­i­ty with nei­ther sur­face nor sun­light, it pos­sess­es heat and water aplen­ty, allow­ing a queer brand of life to thrive. Flo­ra and fau­na of mag­nif­i­cent scale and great hunger grow in the dark.

The Shimmeling

Great­est among fun­gi is the Shim­mel­ing, an ancient organ­ism of incon­ceiv­able scale. The Shim­mel­ing’s grey, oozy ten­drils per­vade the Under­world. They seek food with sick, slow patience, draw­ing any and all nutri­ents into the puls­ing, fleshy diges­tive tubes which make up the mold’s web-like, con­ti­nen­tal body. So pow­er­ful is the Shim­mel­ing, its ten­drils are capa­ble of pen­e­trat­ing the Coast (erro­neous­ly dubbed the Over­world), open­ing gates between worlds.

Worms

Oth­er bur­row­ing mon­sters include giant land worms: Hun­dred-foot beasts which mind­less­ly ply the stone with cir­cu­lar rows of corun­dum teeth, cre­at­ing mean­der­ing, tubu­lar mazes. Worms feed on mush­room forests (which may span miles) and on the ten­drils of the Shim­mel­ing, on which they grow fat and strong

Small species of worms also carve the Under­world. In soft stone, arm-length gnaw­ers drill holes in the sides of pas­sages, ready to spring out and bite pass­ing crea­tures. Many dozens of these worms may lie in ambush in a sin­gle tun­nel, mak­ing for a ver­i­ta­ble mine­field of worms.

Seas

The Under­world is host to an uncount­ed num­ber of sub­ter­ranean seas. Though many of these waters are naught but dark and inky leagues of bac­te­r­i­al soup, some are places of light. In cav­erns the size of coun­tries, with sta­lag­mite the width of islands, deep waters burn blue and green with bio­lu­mi­nesce. Crea­tures like beat­ing hearts swim in schools through the glow­ing slough, feed from blind, whale-like beasts whose slow thoughts pon­der the mil­len­nia.

On these black waters, there is no reck­on­ing of direc­tion. Nei­ther com­pass nor starlight exist to guide the lost. If a sailor on an under­world sea is tru­ly lost, their craft may slip from the sty­gian wash entire­ly. A twin­kling may appear where once was void. They may find them­selves sail­ing under anoth­er world’s stars. 

Inhabitants

No human civ­i­liza­tion makes its home in the under­world. The crea­tures that do are among the most wretched, eccen­tric, or devi­ous beings to exist.

Hobben

Leagues of ornate mar­ble halls, cat­a­combs, and holds lay in the unbro­ken dark. These are works pro­duced by the idle hands of hobben: Small, mole-like men of strange pur­pose. Hobs are native to the under­world. Exca­va­tion is their craft. They break the stone in search of their buried brethren. The great works and halls they craft are mere­ly the prod­uct of spare space, stone, and time. That, or a place to hold their hon­ored, sleep­ing dead.

Hobben, though unco­op­er­a­tive and equal­ly uncom­mu­nica­tive, are hos­tile only if they believe some­one aims to harm their exca­va­tion oper­a­tions or rob their tombs. In fact, giv­en alco­hol to trade, a hob may even be help­ful. Hobs are one of the few peo­ples to have knowl­edge of reli­able, sta­ble gates to and from the Oth­er­world. They may be will­ing to dis­close the loca­tion of these gates, thought they are loth to do so.

Ragwretches

Degen­er­ate fiends from the Coast have made their way to the under­world, flee­ing the bright­ness of the sun. Among them are flesh-eat­ing rag­wretch­es: Gross hybrids of crooked body and mind. A muta­tion in their cursed line caus­es the flesh of all rag­wretch­es to burn in sun­light. Many cun­ning wretch­es have fled the Over­world to pur­sue a life of free­dom in the depth­less under­world.

Naussia

Ter­ri­ble things lie hid­den in the Under­world. Fields of bones lie in halls of fath­om­less scale. Stone walk­ways loom, unsup­port­ed, above them. Above even these, hooks hang from hun­dreds of feet of black chain, still grasp­ing the des­ic­cat­ed col­lars and hips of dan­gling grues. Beyond these silent halls lie huge, bul­bous, glut­to­nous black caul­drons, caked with ancient, dried gore. Twist­ed, weird chimeras prowl these arcane and incon­ceiv­able cham­bers, fueled by the ter­ri­ble half-life of Sor­cery.

In three-meter stone sar­copha­gi sleep the mas­ters of these occult facil­i­ties: Naus­sians, great Sor­cer­ers of an age long past. They lie, still draw­ing slow, ammo­nia-laced breath through their beaked helms, in a deep and pon­der­ous slum­ber.

Their sleep is near­ly at an end. Many have already awok­en and lit their black caul­drons anew. The Naus­sians will, after mil­len­nia of sleep, emerge from their Under­world fast­ness and seize the world of Human­i­ty; the world to which they used to belong.

Author’s Note

This has been the start­ing place for many tales. Since this arti­cle, the hobben, the shim­mel­ing, and rag­men have each earned their own words. More to come.