Marceline closed her fingers around the key, hiding the glow inside her hand. She looked around and saw there was only one door in this room aside from the one she came up from.
She quickly walked towards the door. It was an ordinary wooden door, with no marking of any kind. She grabbed the handle and pulled. It opened with a slight creak, but little effort. On the other side of the door was an elevator. The metal gate was open. She could hear a faint mechanical whirring noise coming from somewhere nearby.
She glanced back into the room, looking down at the wolf pelt.
She acknowledged the wolf’s contribution: “Thanks, old friend. See you soon.”
She closed the door behind her and began walking towards the open elevator.
Inside the elevator, there was only a single lever. It was positioned at a 45 degree angle to the right, in line with an old dusty “T”. The opposite side had a large “D” on it.
She shrugged and pulled the metal gate towards her. It clicked into place.
She pushed the lever towards the “D”. As the lever moved, she could hear gears rotating within the elevator. She could feel the chunk of the gear as it moved towards the other side.
As it reached the “D” it clicked into place.
The elevator shifted upwards briefly, then began descending downwards. It moved past the entryway and now all she could see was the stone inside of the shaft the elevator was sitting in. Every 30 seconds or so, a window rushed past, allowing a very brief view of the outside.
It had stopped raining.
She could tell by the passing windows that she was approaching the ground level. After a few minutes, she passed a window that was at ground level, but the elevator kept going.
The elevator became pitch black as it passed the ground level. It was maintaining the same speed…or at least it seemed to. There was no indication how deep the elevator went.
Marceline was thumbing the key in her pocket. She pulled it out, the yellow/green glow illuminated the interior of the elevator.
After a few minutes, the elevator’s descent began to slow. It slowed down even more as the opening to the bottom floor began to appear in front of it. The entryway grew longer as the elevator found its resting place, at the bottom of the shaft. Something clicked, and the door opened.
Through the entryway, Marceline could see a short hallway with a wooden door at the end. The only light was coming from the key that she was still holding in her hand.
Water was dripping from the ceiling in slow scattered patterns, but the floor was completely dry. She slowly walked towards the door at the end of the hall. The key jutted out in front of her to provide light.
As she reached the door, she could finally get a good glimpse of the whole thing. There was no handle of any kind. There was a piece of metal about 6 inches high and 3 inches wide at waist level. In the center of it was a very small hole.
Slowly, she brought the key down to the hole and gently inserted it. As she did so, the metal around the hole began to metal like lava oozing down a hillside. The remnants of the key and the metal plate dripped down onto the floor and began to harden again. Eventually, all that was left was a fist sized hole in the door and a ball of steaming metal on the ground.
Marceline pushed against the door with her hand. It was heavy, but opened easily.
“I don’t know who is taking care of all the hinges in this place, but they’re not getting paid enough,” she muttered to herself.
The ball of metal clanged as she kicked it away from the door. After watching it come to a rest on the other side of the hallway, she stepped into the room on the other side of the door.
