Darkbank Tunnel - Part 4

The investigators made their way to the canal depot on the outskirts of Shubford, hoping to finally track down the elusive superintendent, Gregory Longthorpe. Instead, they found only his clerk, Simon Jones, who greeted them with tired eyes and a worried expression. Simon revealed that Longthorpe had not been seen at the depot for several days, though he had apparently been spotted at the hotel looking for the party just the day before. The group left a message arranging a dinner meeting at seven o'clock that evening, and Simon promised to stop by Longthorpe's home after work to pass it along. Back at their lodgings, the party spread out Teddy's notebook and pored over his rough diagrams — a series of concentric circles marking what appeared to be epicenters of strange geological and supernatural activity in the area. The sketches were imprecise and seemed to be drawn from second-hand rumors rather than direct observation, but the investigators were able to identify three distinct points of interest: one near the boat lift, one near the one somewhere in the open ground between Shubford and the mine, and a third more distant. John carefully studied the diagrams alongside his own sense of the local geography, confident he could translate the rough sketches into real-world locations. With Teddy's notebook tucked away, the party set off for the library. The library held a wealth of local history, and the investigators worked their way through several volumes with great focus. A book called Ghosts and Frights of the Shubford District contained centuries-old tales of aquatic and subterranean creatures said to dwell in underground rivers and caverns beneath the hills — stories that predated the construction of the mine by generations. Another volume, the Darkbank Mining Disasters from 1898, documented the accidents and eventual closure of the mine and included accounts of miners stumbling upon a subterranean lake deep within the earth. The party also consulted a large survey map kept behind glass, using a pair of dividers to carefully measure distances and triangulate the real-world positions of the epicentres Teddy had marked. By the time they left, John was confident he could lead them to at least one of the sites. The first site turned out to be a stretch of open grassland and thick shrubbery outside of town, unremarkable at first glance. Reverend Grainger took to poking through the undergrowth with a broken branch, and after some time, a small section of ground gave way beneath him, collapsing inward by a foot or two. The earth around the collapse was laced with thin fissures radiating outward like a spider's web, as though something beneath had shifted and settled. The ground was too rocky and compacted to dig through with bare hands, so the party marked the spot with a stick and returned to town to gather proper tools. Armed with shovels and a mattock, the party set out again the following afternoon — only to spend an embarrassing stretch of time wandering the shrubbery in search of their own marker. After losing most of the afternoon to fruitless searching, they finally stumbled upon the stick hidden just behind a tree, exactly where they had left it. They dug a pit roughly sixty to seventy centimeters deep before striking solid rock, its surface threaded with small cracks suggesting recent movement. Attempts to break through with the mattock and pickaxe yielded only chips and jarred arms, and the party reluctantly concluded that whatever lay beneath was not accessible by digging alone. With evening approaching, they packed up and headed back to town. That evening, Stanley Grift called a public meeting and took the stage with the air of a man who considered himself the natural authority of the region. He announced that the body of James Carter had been found in the mine and declared the Darkbank tunnel at risk of imminent collapse, citing the recent tremors as evidence of dangerous internal instability. He stated that warning signs and barricades would be erected the very next morning, and that both the police and the canal superintendent, Longthorpe, were in full agreement with his plan. The investigators listened with growing suspicion, noting that Longthorpe had been missing for days and that Grift stood to benefit enormously from the canal's closure, as it eliminated a direct competitor to his quarry business. After the meeting, Alfie approached Grift directly and asked about Longthorpe's whereabouts. Grift dismissed the concern with breezy confidence, claiming he had seen Longthorpe quite recently and that there was no cause for alarm. When sarcastically complimented on his stirring speech, Grift tossed a single penny to Alfie with a patronizing smile before wandering off into the crowd. The party exchanged glances, their distrust of the man deepening considerably. Back at the pub, the investigators consulted with Trubshaw, the innkeeper, about the possibility of borrowing a boat and a ladder to explore the mine before it was sealed. Trubshaw warned them firmly that the mine was unstable and refused to assist with what he clearly considered a reckless plan. With the shops closed for the night and time running short, the party settled in at the bar, listening to the locals grumble about unemployment at the quarries and mutter darkly about the mine being cursed. They learned that Grift lived at an estate called Shubford Grange with his wife, Lavinia, and that the townspeople, while resentful of his authority, seemed resigned to his dominance over the region. The next morning, the party returned to the depot and found Simon Jones looking even more haggard than before. He told them he had visited Longthorpe's home and found him very ill, expecting him back at work by Friday. When pressed about Grift's claim that Longthorpe had sent James Carter into the mine, Simon became visibly uncomfortable, deflecting the question and insisting they speak to Grift directly. He refused to provide Longthorpe's home address, citing the man's need for rest, and the party left with little more than they had arrived with. A visit to the police station proved similarly frustrating. Inspector Morris was out conducting interviews, and the desk sergeant politely but firmly declined to share details of the ongoing investigation into Carter's death. The party raised the question of whether the police had actually approved Grift's plan to seal the tunnel, and the sergeant admitted that Grift rarely discussed anything with him personally. They left a message for Inspector Morris to contact them at the pub and stepped back out into the grey morning air. With the mine set to be sealed by morning, the party purchased a ten-foot wooden ladder from the general dealer and strapped it to the roof of their rental car using rope threaded through the open windows. Their driver, Jeff Harris, had been away from home since Sunday and negotiated an arrangement to drop them off each evening and return the next morning, a compromise the party readily accepted. They drove out to the mine site, forced open the locked door after some difficulty, and stepped into the darkness within. Navigating the mine proved to be a humbling experience. The tunnels wound and branched in every direction, and despite John's careful use of Teddy's maps and Alfie's diligent chalk markings on the walls, the party found themselves backtracking repeatedly through the dark. After a great deal of wrong turns and frustrated retracing of steps, they finally located the boat lift — the same section of tunnel where they had found James Carter's body just days before. The area was now in total darkness, with both ends of the tunnel collapsed and no light filtering in from either direction. Using the ten-foot ladder, the party spanned a gap in the tunnel and climbed up to a hand-cut section on the far side. Alfie was secured with a rope and sent ahead to explore while the others held the ladder steady. The tunnel quickly changed character as he moved deeper — the walls felt older, rougher, and the floor grew increasingly wet and slimy as the passage sloped downward at a steep angle. The sound of dripping and trickling water echoed from somewhere ahead in the darkness. Alfie pressed on for several hundred meters, splashing through shallow water, with a vague sense that the tunnel was curving in the direction of the town itself. Then, on the walls around him, he noticed something extraordinary: ancient cave paintings depicting humanoid figures with large, webbed hands, hunting animals that he did not recognize. The images were crude but unmistakable, and they carried the weight of something very old — far older than the mine, older perhaps than the town above. He stood in the dark for a long moment, then turned and made his way back to the others. When Alfie described what he had seen, the party fell into quiet discussion. The cave paintings suggested that the grey ones — the creatures whispered about in the old folklore books — had once lived above ground, perhaps driven underground by humans centuries ago and retreating ever deeper into the earth. The ancient tunnel system, running beneath the canal and possibly beneath the town itself, may have been their domain long before any mine was ever dug. With no more ground to cover that day, the party made their way back through the chalked tunnels and emerged into the evening air, exhausted and thoughtful. That night, as the investigators sat down to dinner at the pub, a figure stumbled through the door and made straight for their table. It was Gregory Longthorpe — and he was very, very drunk. His eyes were wide and his hands unsteady, and he insisted, with the urgency of a man who had been carrying something too heavy for too long, that he had things on his mind he desperately needed to share. Whatever he knew, it had clearly been eating at him — and the party leaned in to listen.