With the hatch firmly shut the heroes find themselves in a small square room with round tunnels leading off in 4 directions. They stop, rest and bind their wounds and as they do this Kel teleports away again. They wait for a little while but realise that he is not coming back soon. By this stage they are hungry, thristy and tired - it is quite some time since they last ate or slept. But they head off through the tunnels and a huge number of mostly identical rooms. Some only have two or three tunnels, some are dead ends and some have tunnels leading down. Many of them are dangerous with panels ripped off the walls or dangerous numenera. However they do find a lot of useful cyphers and a source of water. They have a run in with steel spiders and then a cleaning machine which flays the skin off Chip's back as they flee. They then find a massive shaft leading deep into the sphere with lots of tunnels leading from it. At this point Buster teleports in (that damned malfunctioning teleporter) and joins them. They explore further and come across someone else exploring the tunnel. This someone is Shoak who is a runner within the sphere, finding food, water and numenera for his settlement above the surface. He tells them that he has recently dicovered a shaft going down that is unexplored, but the smell coming from it makes him wary of going by himself. The group trust Shoak and follow him down the massive shaft. This leads though a grate and into a massive chamber with thousands of portals leading to different worlds. However none of these worlds appear habitable. Shoak leads them to a lift shaft at the base of a massive pillar in the centre of the room. The doors have recently been wrenched forcibly open and from below a stench of rotted meat, terror and 'other' eminates. Buster decides to climb down the shaft and is attacked by a creature from nightmares and he and Nes defeat it. The group pass through the elevator at the bottom, through a security entrance and to another lift shaft. From here on the floor and walls are covered in some sort of thick black slime. The shaft leads back up to a trapdoor leading (presumably) to the surface, and down past many levels. The group go down and explore finding a large number of numenera but also plenty of danger. Shoak is killed by a giant simian creature in a room of collected specimans and Kel is badly hurt when he sets off a trap. On the bottom level there is a locked door. As they are examining the door, the slime forms psuedopods and starts to attack. The group realise that they are unlikely to defeat this creature, manage to unlock the door and stumble into another large chamber. This is the power source for the entire pocket universe they are in. A singularity floats in the middle of the gravity free chamber surrounded by a bronze coloured device holding the singularity in place. It is protected by a forcefield of some kind. Kel floats to the centre of the chamber and examines the device. He is able to discover that this is the energy source, but also that the weird energy this device creates is what holds the pocket universe together. The group realise that they are unlikely to get back past the black slime, and that they do not want to stay in the hell that this universe is. They decide to disable the device in the guess that when the energy holding this universe in place is stopped they will be returned to the ninth world. It takes some doing, and Kel gets massively injured in his attempts, but eventually they are able disable the frame. The singularity shrinks into a point infinitely small and disappears. Suddenly gravity returns, but off centre. There are massive smashing sounds and the screech of metal. Kel (who was floating by the singularity) plummets to the bottom of the chamber, and then lies still in a crumpled heap. In amongst the sounds of stressed metal they see the slime slowly flowing into the chamber. Then the lights die....
