They wandered slowly and cautiously into the dark halls. They went forward in single file. Grithstane first, followed closely by Bion, then Frockle, and then Goldenfield with the Sword, and then Whistler was last. Thick blackness soon drew around them, and the illumination of their lanterns created a circle of faint light only a few feet around them. The silence was at once oppressive, and their own footsteps seemed loud in their ears. They heard clearly the shuffle of every foot, and the slightest clink of metal armour. Frockle was very nervous. He looked about constantly, squinting hard with a furrowed brow, trying in vain to pierce the darkness.

Their first passage had a very low ceiling, but it did not take long at all for the roof to bend upward into echoes of darkness. After only several minutes' walk, they began to notice many small broken stones that littered the floor in front of them. What were just a few rocks at first suddenly became very many-- thickly covering the smooth floor, rising steeply up into the shadows. They proceeded to walk further, treading across these crumbled rocks and boulders, piled up and covered with dust and leaves. Spanning from wall to wall, this landslide barred their way, rising up above to the unseen heights and fading into utter blackness.

"The pass is blocked," said Grithstane over his shoulder. He struck at the boulders with the end of his staff. "Purposefully blocked up, I would say, by our enemies. To what extent I cannot tell. It was not this way when last I entered this place."