Chapter 33: Above the Abyss

　　"Got an idea?"　　"No." Mr. Egg shook his head. "No wonder. No wonder something felt off to me from the start."　　"What felt off?"　　"The altar!" Mr. Egg walked a full circle around the human-skin displays, nodded as if confirming something, and turned back. "This altar has no offering table! No place to put sacrificial items!"　　Oh, right! His words made it click. The structure before us was essentially a large platform. It had no table, no recessed area. Where would the offerings even go?　　"Hinson, when you said 'spill blood' earlier, did you mean a blood sacrifice?"　　"Yes!"　　"Then that makes even less sense!" Mr. Egg said seriously. "Bon tradition blood sacrifices require a blood pool. This place doesn't have a blood pool, not even a blood channel!"　　"A blood channel? You mean this?" Young Master Feng had swept the dust away from a red line inlaid in the center of the altar, coughing a few more times despite himself.　　"Hiss… but that's not a channel either?" I followed the line with my eyes. It ran from the center of the altar to its outer edge, then continued down the side of the altar's outer wall. Looking down, the end of the line connected to a downward-pointing, inverted triangular symbol, like an arrow pointing to the ground.　　Mr. Egg leaned over to look and whispered, "What if this arrow marks the location of the blood pool?"　　"It must!" Seeing a glimmer of hope for survival, I was so excited I couldn't be bothered with the rope. I jumped directly from the five-meter-high platform! The impact jarred my legs numb and sent a shock through my knees! By the time the other two had shimmied down the rope, I was still sitting on the ground, completely unable to stand.　　"Youth! Haste makes waste!" Mr. Egg quipped, helping me to my feet.　　I ignored the sharp pain in my knees. Dropping to the ground at the base of the altar, right under the triangular mark, I began feeling my way upward inch by inch. My fingers finally foun