You continue on in silence. The rock floor seems to be sloping downwards, though you don't feel confident enough to say whether this means you're getting closer to your destination or not. Is down good? It's hard to have a good feeling about it, but you're not exactly heading anywhere a sane person would want to be.
It's not long before a wave of heat passes over you. After a moment, there's another, and then another, and then before you can even take in the change in temperature, it's at a constant, no longer coming in pulses, but surrounding you fully and completely.
You do your best to tell yourself that what it seems like you're feeling isn't actually happening. After everything you've seen that most people wouldn't believe in, it's not beyond the realms of possibility that the change in temperature isn't real.
You continue your descent, which grows steadily steeper as you move forward. Before long, you're having to lean backwards to keep your balance, your shoes almost skidding on the rock floor.
The ground has tilted downward so much that you're on the verge of sitting on the ground and sliding forward, when you see a rock wall rising up in front of you. The sight of the dead end is almost enough to send you to the floor anyway, but as your gaze sweeps the wall, the ceiling, the ground, you spot the missing portion of the floor, almost impossible to see in the flickering flames that light the tunnel.
"Going down," you murmur, more to hear your own voice—any voice—than out of a desire to make a quip. As far as you can tell, the heat that's sweeping up the tunnel in waves is coming from that hole. One way or another, it seems like you're going to find the source of it.
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