The corridor leading to the lower levels was different from the rest of the mine.
The stone here was older and darker, slick with moisture that dripped from the ceiling in slow and steady drops, each one landing on my forehead like a cold finger tapping my skin.
Green torches were fewer and farther between, their sickly light struggling to reach the corners where the shadows gathered like hungry things. The air was heavy, thick with a sweet, cloying smell that clung to the back of my throat and made my stomach turn.
Then I realized what it was.
Rot.
Old and deep, soaked into the stone itself, layered over years of death. It was the scent of bodies left too long in the dark, of blood that had dried and been rewetted and dried again—the smell of something that had been alive once and was now nothing but meat.
