"Yes. Let's try it. I see no other options..." Adykon replied.
The party headed for the temple, having to take the long route through Hekaga's hard stone streets in order to avoid crowded intersections where guards were often found. Eventually they reached the temple Eternion had once worked at.
There was a series of tunnels underneath the temple alright, including some new crypts that were being added. WHY they stopped work was another issue. The king of the city had ordered them to stop work, but never gave a good reason. This was because the new tunnels were getting close to the royal escape tunnel whose very existence was kept a state secret.
In the event of a revolution or a major riot, the royals had the option of heading from the city to their fortress in the nearby mountains. The fortress itself was huge, well-built, and on high ground. The only way up to it overland was up a narrow, twisting path that had to be crossed in a single file. It was difficult to approach if one was wanted there, and nearly impregnable if the defenders of the castle didn't want one to approach. While attacks by air, using magic, or an attack that could bore through the mountains or somehow get a large force up there could knock the fortress out of commission, this was a daunting prospect. Without a siege to starve the defenders out, it was very hard to take it.
But it was also very hard to supply a fortress located on a mountain, far from food and water; in order to get the latter, the architects had to construct an aqueduct by tunneling under the mountains to an aquifer, then move the water to the palace itself. Bringing in food was even harder; it largely had to be moved by tunnel. Located about 15 kilometers from the city itself, the tunnel has to be just as long. At the end of the tunnel that was under the fortress, the supplies were taken up by a lift that was operated by a chain and pulley. In order to keep it well-supplied, it took three caravans a week worth of goods, sometimes more. The other end of the tunnel which received the supplies was underneath the city's great temple, where it was assumed the supplies were going, as that structure itself required many supplies of its own.
The particular temple which Eternion had once worked at was not far from the much larger great temple, so the tunnel ran close to its underground section. No one in the party or the temple they were went to actually knew any of this, but they would find out soon enough...
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