Everything indicated that our voyage onward must continue through the enormous gate that now faced us, closed and mute. There was a gaping cavity where the handle should have been and our only clues to its destruction were the scattered tracks that revealed the passing of a large monster.

There was no other way around, and our only remaining solution was to attempt tracking the beast, while hoping wildly that it took the handle merely to entertain itself.

A peculiar writing above the doorway puzzled us for a moment. It told the story of a group of people that came “with the mountain”. Nothing more could be inferred and so we moved on, but the layers of questions continued to amass.