You set a hand on the strange bluish metal of the gate, and feel a faint pulse run through it, a thrum like electricity or music. When you look back to the Player, her face is grim and she has produced a small, dark lantern from somewhere within her voluminous coat. She holds it out to you, the expression in her eyes hidden by the shadow of her hat. "If you want to survive, take this. I won't wait for you. You're on your own from now on."
You take the lantern, trying to quell a sudden shiver. The metal casing is black, etched with strange runes, and as your fingers close over the carrying ring a strange radiance, deeply red, begins to emanate from within. When you look up from regarding the lantern, the Player is gone.
With no other options left, you push on the gates. They swing open silently and easily, and close just as silently and easily behind you when you step in. In a brief moment of panic, you yank on the bars, trying to reopen it, but the cold metal refuses to budge. Turning your back to the Labyrinth and the living, you raise your lantern and begin the trek.
It strikes you immediately that the people of the Labyrinth keep their graveyard in much better repair than they keep their homes. The path under your feet is well-cobbled, and the first few graves you pass are elaborately set. Slim obelisks reflect the orange cloudlight from their polished sides, and weathered marble angels guard doors to what must be massive underground tombs.
As you move further into the graveyard, the scale of the tombs decreases. The path branches off into many smaller trails, all equally gravelled, so that before you realize it you find yourself somewhere off the main track, in a desolate and mostly unused part of the graveyard. The native terrain is visible here; this land is not flat, but ever so gently rolling. The grass is brown and sickly from lack of light.
Other, stranger plants crop up around the graves. Mushrooms grow in profusion, forming clumps and fairy circles over the low mounds of paupers' graves. A handful of tiny red flowers ripple faintly in the breeze, seeming to move with it; as you pause to watch, the flowers on one edge fade and crumble to dust, while new flowers bloom on the other edge only to die when the wind shifts. Over a few graves, a flower with a long, thick white stalk arches, its blossom deep purple in the lantern's red light. It catches your attention because of its peculiar lack of leaves. You consider leaving the trail to take a look at one, but only long enough to notice that when you paused, the blossom of the flower swung toward you, like some blind beast scenting prey. You quicken your steps away from it.
As the time passes, you get the creeping sensation that there is something out there in the darkness of the cemetary, watching you. This, too, quickens your steps, and before you realize it you have become completely lost. The gravel paths crisscross and wind among the low hills, and you have gone too far within the graveyard to see the gate. In fact, you can no longer distinguish between the Boneyard Wall and the great Desert Wall.
Mounting one of the low, graveless hills, you try to regain your bearings. In one direction, you can see a set of larger hills dotted at the top with what, from this distance, seem to be spikes. In another, a lone tree stands, its branches spread to shelter a cluster of rough graves. In yet another looms the most massive structure in this place, some sort of tomb complex made of pale stone. Finally, when you look behind you, a movement catches your eye. It halts as soon as you notice it, not bothering to duck into hiding. Dark and man-shaped, it seems to watch you in turn.
To the Hills To the Tree To the Tomb Approach the Creature
Back