Conal looked around at the utterance, slightly puzzled. "Did you cut yourself on it?" He walked across to examine the bars, but couldn't see any sign of blood. He ran his fingertips lightly over the surface of it ... it felt rough, but not enough to draw blood.<br/><br/>"I can't feel any particularly sharp edges on it." he said. "It's just the old gate, to keep people from wandering down into the passage, and disturbing things. It's been here as long as I can remember." He looked at the gate, a large black iron wrought guard, and something in the back of his mind clicked.<br/><br/>"Iron." he said softly, almost to himself, before looking at the women. "The gate is made of iron. That must be why it hurt you."<em>I guess there's truth in those old stories after all.</em><br/><br/>He blinked as a raindrop splashed almost on his eye. "Listen, this weather is going to turn foul, and we really ought to get going. I'm not sure you'll enjoy being in my car, but you'll enjoy it a lot less if you're soaked to the skin. We will be at my place in under an hour, we can get dried off, get a hot shower and some food."<br/><br/>He looked up into the sky at the approaching rainclouds and grimaced slightly. "We should really move, or we'll get soaked."