Darius paced around his small hovel. For a while after returning home, he'd worked on one of the neighbor's spears, but too many swirling thoughts made it impossible to focus.
Ever since leaving that strange cave, he'd reviewed his exploration in his head, wondering whether he might've missed something. He was confident he'd been thorough. He'd canvassed the tunnels as well as he was able, shining his light into crevices, searching for more passages like the one he'd found, but he'd found only miner's marks. He was pretty sure the tunnel had no other outlets. The only thing left to explore was the other side of the passage.
That raised another concern.
How deep did the cavern go? For all Darius knew, it might take more than a day's travel to search fully. In the past, he had learned the intricacies of each cave, timing his journeys to get back before daybreak and avoid risk. Even though he was older, he was familiar enough to get back in time.
But this new passage might contain anything.
The idea of waiting yet another day was unbearable.
Stroking his chin, Darius looked at the torches he kept on the table. Caution fought with risk. He was an old man, with how many years left? For too long, he had searched fruitlessly, bringing back nothing but questions.
And now he had a lead that he couldn't ignore.
Perhaps it was time to take a bigger risk.
Reaching for a bin underneath the table, he pulled out more torches and laid them on the table next to the others, and then he readied more food.
He wasn't leaving until he found something.