Chapter 27: Cranosith (1/5)
Now within the confinement of the maleficent tunnel, the crew was greeted by a putrid smell of unknown origin. The odor was so overpowering that they had to fashion a new set of makeshift nose masks to cover their noses, even though these only made breathing more difficult inside the tunnel, which already lacked fresh air.
Even with the nose masks on, they could not completely evade the strange stench. It was far worse than the smell at the feared Bridge of the South, of course, excluding its hallucinating effect.
Some of the soldiers even began to puke non-stop, delaying the journey a little bit.
It took a tremendous amount of willpower for Alister to stop himself from throwing up as well. He could only wonder what—and where—the smell was coming from.
Alister knew the scent of rotten corpses, having grown up in the trenches where people died regularly from starvation and crime. But he could swear that this smell was a hundred times worse than that—even sewage doesn’t smell this bad.
"Hmm, what are these symbols?"
Halting and waiting for the two soldiers to finish vomiting, Alister feasted his eyes on the walls of the tunnel, where certain strange engravings could be seen.
They consisted of scratches and sharp slashes that twisted into symbols and drawings—details that made the hero wonder. It was believed that only abnormalities existed within the Mountain of Skulls, so the engravings on the walls couldn’t have been made by a human being.
At a quick glance, they appeared like nothing but scratches and claw marks, upon closer examination, they were far from ordinary.