The demon-eyed adventurer stepped through into a wider chamber carved clean from the cliff and reinforced with timber braces driven deep into the stone. The ceiling sat low enough to press sound downward and keep it there.
A single lantern burned on a hook near the far wall, its flame steady and unremarkable.
Men sat along the stone.
They were not guards, but workers. Dust-caked clothes clung to thin frames, bare feet pressed flat to the packed dirt. Their wrists were rubbed raw where rope had worn through skin, healed badly, then been bound again.
They shared the same posture, backs against the wall, heads angled forward, eyes unfocused. Their breathing layered the room, shallow and uneven, as if they had learned to keep it quiet.
None of them spoke or looked up.
A second lantern burned deeper inside the chamber, half-hidden behind a support beam. Its light shifted once as a shadow crossed it, then held.
He adjusted his angle and moved.
