Moving slowly, they entered the cave. The walls were smooth and rounded around them, but irregular - as if a giant gopher had been chewing through stone. There were no other features, and no sign of any bats or cave-dwelling animals.
"Anything moving?" asked Guybrush. They were sounding out the dimensions of the caves around them, using a computer projection rather than their actual surroundings to navigate. If anything nearby were moving, they'd pick it up in a second.
Of course, nothing was. Wally didn't even have to speak. He sat and watched the data stream in.
"Well, I'm going a bit faster then," said Guybrush. "Can't stand this slow creeping in business." He pushed the throttle forward. Immediately the cavern walls around them, glowing red from Boss Hog's external lighting, blurred as they jumped forward. Guybrush felt his pulse pick up as adrenaline entered his system.
Still, he felt uneasy. It wasn't so much that they might be entering a trap - and it was a most unusually baited one, should that be the case. No, this was just somewhere where they shouldn't be. They were trespassing.
They flew on, and on. It seemed to Guybrush that they'd been flying through this tunnel for more than a quarter of an hour. Down through this monotonous, randomly twisting, uniform tunnel. It seemed to Guybrush he could feel the oppressive weight of all the stone above them. How far underground were they?
More minutes passed. "We've flown fifty miles!" exclaimed Wally.
"WHAT?"
Before Wally could reply, they heard stirring noises behind them.
Elaine stood up, one hand rubbing her head. "Ohhh... ow that hurts."
"You're all right!" said Wally and Guybrush.
"I think so," said Elaine. "My head feels like someone's driven a spike through it, and my back's all sore. What on earth did you leave me on that metal floor for?"
"We couldn't risk leaving you alone," said Guybrush. "We didn't know what they'd done to you."
"Well, you could at least have dragged a mattress in here or something," said Elaine.
"Err..." said Wally.
"Look, I think this can wait for another time," said Guybrush.
Elaine looked up. She saw the tunnel around them. "You flew into the tunnel?" she said.
"Yeah," said Guybrush. "Like flying around inside a giant hose. You wouldn't have any idea how long this thing is, would you?"
"I think," said Elaine slowly, "this is a very bad idea..."
Before she managed to get to the end of her sentence, though, the tunnel walls suddenly vanished.
Boss Hog burst into a huge circular ampitheatre whose walls - indeed, it seemed the very air - glowed with a light blue phospherence. They were pulled up short by the sheer scale of the place. It was as if someone had built the Coliseum entirely underground. Other tunnel mouths opened on the ampitheatre: their dark circular holes dotted the roof and walls in a honeycomb lattice.
And yet, there was only one thing here.
One thing, repeated more times than any of them could count.
Portal stones. Covering the whole floor. Even in this rarified blue atmosphere, Guybrush recognised their size and red ochre hue immediately. And yet, seeing them in this new context, another interpretation occurred to him.
"They look like eggs," said Guybrush.
Elaine grabbed his shoulder. "They are."
There was no warning.
At that instant a giant monkey materialised in the air right before them.