| 390 With no indication as to which may be the best way to go you take the centre passage and move forward. It is a gloomy, damp tunnel lit only by a series of small lamps that sit neatly in recesses cut into the solid rock of the tunnel walls. In this pallid light you follow the lanterns downwards and make your way carefully, deep into the bowels of the old mine. For a good ten minutes you follow the twisting path, avoiding a number of small rockfalls and finding a large amount of discarded mining equipment and tools. At some point this mine must have been quite a significant enterprise, judging by the size and depth of the excavations a rich source of ore must have once followed the general direction of these shafts. No longer though, this mine has been long abandoned and its ore gone. If you had the time you could search the area surrounding the mine entrance and you would probably find the foundations of a number of buildings, miner's quarters, supply warehouses and the like. It would have taken a considerable settlement to support a mine as large as this. No doubt all have since been consumed by the grasslands. Shortly you come to a junction between the tunnel you are following and a further tunnel that runs from the left and then descends even further below ground to the right. Looking out into this new tunnel you find the noises much louder to the right, the smoke thicker and more pungent. To the left the tunnel disappears into the gloom, only a vague line of lanterns showing the tunnel veers left and then ascends back towards the surface.
| If you wish to follow the smoke and noise down the right tunnel turn to section 368. If you have had enough of these tunnels and wish to return to the surface turn to section 397.
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