Much as Ellisaria dislikes the intimation of weakness, she dislikes being impaled on a mountainside even more. Her human form is simply more subtle, and thus better suited to evading the gronn.
Unfortunately, it is also conveniently sized to be eaten in one gulp by the mirror-faced snake (what) that comes out of literally nowhere.
At least she is alive to be indignant, even if she's no longer in Outland.
The gate opens straight into a broad and deep chasm, the bottom beyond sight, only a thin bridge spanning the width to a set of guard posts on the other side.
"Yeah. Doesn't look safe for anyone coming in. And if I was much bigger flying in here'd be awkward..."
"I suppose the dwarves didn't do much trade with the surface when they lived here."
"Or were more nervous about someone invading... Though they could've also used the other gate for trade..."
"Yeah. Opposite gate still looks big enough for us, too."
Experimentally, she hops over with a sharp beat of her wings, landing a bit precariously on the opposite platform before sticking her head through the gate.
"Looks clear!"
She shifts form once she lands. Narrow for Brisingr is distinctly cramped for her, moreso with both of them there.
Brisingr slides the rest of the way into the gate, leaving more room for Ellisaria, at least.
The hallway beyond is cavernous, and seems to run through what at least used to be an enormous market. There's still a few remnants of dropped items, though everything useful's been scavenged. Someone's left layers of graffiti first scoured and then painted into the columns and walls, a harsh angular text overlapping with assorted images - a red eye most commonly among them.
Still, the stonework's strong, the damage only superficial. It's deathly quiet, except for the scrape of Brisingr's claws on the paved road as she winds her way through the level.
"Looks kinda like the Black Speech? But with some changes. I think orcs are mostly the ones who still use that, nowadays."
She sniffs. "They've been here recently, so they aren't all dead. Doesn't smell like there's a lot of them, though."
"A moment." She focuses on the earth, seeking the hollow places around and below.
The delving of Khazad-dûm is monumental, the densely carved and inhabited parts stretching up six stories above them and seven below, spanning the full breadth of the mountain range and a not insignificant part of its length. Grand staircases transition between the levels, though this level and the one right below are fairly closely intertwined even outside of the largest passageways.
Mines criss-cross deeper into the earth, several times over far below the deepest living space. The entirety, especially the deep mines, has signs of orcish inhabitation, and a few - mostly the first and second levels below them, not the deepest - have proper villages built up in the ruins of the dwarven city. The city proper is hundreds of feet tall; the mines go down for miles -
And then there's cracks, from a few of them. Older, deeper tunnels, the rock that should have filled them simply gone, meander and spiderweb beneath the mountains and into the deepest crust. The most ambitious mine seems to have broken through the top of one unusually high one. She can't feel what made them.
And there's something wandering the lower levels, around where the mines start. Something made of fire, and corruption, and malice, pacing with heavy foot-falls.
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