Chapter 39: Under the Mountain II
After recovering their strength, they explored the rest of the level and eventually found what looked like the remnants of an elevator, basically a hole in the ground. Kou pointed the exploration torch down the shaft “Looks pretty deep but the next level seems to be open. I would say we try our luck with the climbing gear.” They used climbing equipment to let down a rope and descended one level, Marcus first. After he gave the okay they helped the scientist down and started their exploration on the second level.
The second level was more or less identical with the first. They saw signs of goblin activity and once three of the rats jumped them from a side corridor and cut Achara’s arm. They resolved the situation quickly but had to move slower from then on. If it had been a scientist, somebody might have lost an arm or a life. Finally after three hours “EUREKA!” Janette exclaimed and stopped in front of a larger door. It was obviously heavily reinforced and more than twice the size of the normal doors. Somebody, or something had done superficial damage to it. Scratches, small dents and even something like a burn mark could be seen on the surface of the door.
“Pretty sure that room has not been looted. But I doubt we can get into it either.” Kou said and Marcus agreed. This door looked like nothing short of a large, industrial plasma welder or drill could force this open. “We will have to mark it on the map for future expeditions with heavy equipment.” Kou said and they moved on.
“One moment.” Malcolm was still at the door and inspected it. Marcus was surprised because Malcolm was the biologist and not specialized in engineering or physics. “Any idea?” Marcus said and Malcolm nodded. “We don’t have to destroy the whole door right? We only need to access or destroy the lock.”, “Yeah, ONLY.” Janette said with a smile. “How about acid?” Malcolm said and a light bulb appeared over the heads of the team.
The idea was simple enough, the execution took another 4 hours. They went back up to the cave, Malcolm dissected one of the dead centipedes to gain the acid gland and went back down again. On their way they were ambushed two more times by small groups of goblins but they were far better prepared and obliterated them. Finally at the door, Malcolm worked together with Kou who had some basic knowledge about security devices and they removed the outer armor above the lock and finally the lock itself. With a lot of physical work the ancient door finally opened. At the last moment Janette said a prayer and rubbed her hands together. “Dear great spirit in the sky this girl needs a kick ass new alien gun! Make it sooooo!”
The inside of the room was very much a vault. Rows of shelves, half disintegrated, held remnants of weapons and armor. What remained of the treasure was rust, dust and sometime the outline of an object that crumbled once you touch it. They walked through the rows of shelves and their enthusiasm quickly faded. Janette was the one who found something like a special strongbox in the back. In it’s days it must have been an impressive piece of hardware but time had broken even this alien object. The door had fallen off and dust fell out of it, but Janette rummage in it either way. “Achara, I think it is your birthday.” she said and pulled something out of the ruined strongbox. She held it in the light and everybody could see a transparent block of an unknown material and it was a sword. “Is this for real?” Marcus asked and helped Janette to put it on the ground carefully, it was surprisingly heavy. The sword inside had average length for a human sword, a black blade with two edges and a sharp point, the grip was made of a black, soft looking material. They looked for a way to open the transparent shell as Janette just pulled on the upper part and it easily separated into two parts and revealed the blade.
Everybody watched as Achara lifted the weapon with shaky hands out of the transparent protective shell. “It is heavy!” she shouted suddenly and slowly put her hand on the grip. The grip deformed and adapted to her hand fitting perfectly. Achara gave it a few swings and then inspected the edge.
“It is super thin but it weighs, I don’t know 10 or 12 kg. I have no idea what it is made off.” she said and Marcus gasped. Average one handed swords weigh maybe 0,8 to 1 kg. “That would heavily indicate it was made for a class holder with enough strength crests. Given the size no normal humanoid would be able to fight with this.” Kou said and watched Achara swing the weapon. “I agree. I can use it but it’s actually too heavy for me to use it like my normal swords, I need to invest into strength.” Achara said and suddenly looked shocked. “What am I saying! This must be a super rare weapon and worth millions! I can never pay you for it. We will have to sell it and split the rewards.”
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Marcus looked to the other class holders and saw the same expression in their faces. “Keep it.” they said together. “But don’t use it in training against me. I’m sure it would cut through me like butter.” Marcus added with a smile. Achara was over the moon and everybody agreed to give loot to who needs it the most. “Need over greed.” Everybody knows that Janette said and Marcus agreed. At least in a friendly group, this was the best policy. “Do you think it is enchanted?” Carmen looked at it and made some photos for documentation. It was possible but hard to know without an Artificer evaluating it or a hell of a lot of practical testing.
After this uplifting event they settled down for the night and chose the vault as an easy to defend room to rest. Malcolm was the hero of the day and everybody cheered for him with stale water and half warm chicken soup. He had a red face and awkwardly ate some dried apples. Marcus watched him and recalled that the scientists for these kind of missions were all top people in their fields. Compared to them, he and the team were stupid grunts.
The rest went by without any problems and they continued the exploration. They had another day’s worth of provisions after that they would have to return to the bus and restock for another dive.
Hallways, corridors and trash rooms, the alien bunker continued to be mainly uninteresting and empty. Still, the find of the armory and the “Black Blade” as it has been named already, gave them hope that there was more to find. They exhausted the second level and with several hours to go decided to give the third level a try. They quickly found that this level had collapsed in many places and progress was slow until they ignored their left hand rule and followed the largest corridor down to a massive hall. The hall was at ten meter high and twenty in diameter and at its end was another vault door but it was at least 5 meter high and ten meter long. It was a sliding door and for better or worse stood open by a meter.
As they carefully passed the door, Marcus saw that it was at least one meter thick. Behind the door was a huge room, larger than anything they had seen so far. It felt more like a cathedral with its high ceiling and massive pillars supporting the ceiling. Like most rooms it was huge but empty. “What do you think this was?” Achara asked Carmen and she shook her head. “Hard to say, another vault, a religious place, a sanctuary, we will-”. “Hey guys, look at this!” Janette called and everybody came running. Her light illuminated a wall and the giant painting on it. The painting was heavily eroded but you could still make out details. Carmen and Bianca’s eyes turned big as saucers and they started to document and analyze the painting. After the first, they found a dozen more paintings at the walls. Different depictions, symbols, signs, it was heaven for the scientists.
Marcus watched the scientists work “I can not help but feel like this looks different compared to the rest of what we have seen. The paintings look nearly primitive, not something fitting the technology we have seen before.” Marcus said and Carmen stopped her work for a moment. “We can not be sure yet but these paintings are much much younger than the rest of the ruins. The fact that the paintings are even here shows that they are maybe 10000 years old.”
Marcus looked at the several meter high painting and considered the implications. Somebody came here much later, as this was already a ruin and made the effort to paint all of this. Why? To leave a message that could endure the times? This place had stood the test of time for 100k years, did they try to ensure the paintings would survive as long as possible or were they hiding them? Deciphering them would take up most of the time of the next dive too, he expected. At least the goblins had stopped harassing them.
Marcus walked along the walls and joined Janette who looked at one of the paintings. “I don’t know about alien art and such, but I know an apocalypse when I see one.” She said and Marcus looked at the wall. Rows and rows of stick figures lay at the bottom of the painting with scribbles that could very well be a destroyed city or civilization above it. At the top of the painting was something like a dark cloud with two red eyes or orbs inside of it. The painter had put a lot of effort into the red orbs, while most color in the painting had fully vanished you could still tell the color of the eyes. It was hard to know what the paintings meant, the missing order, the language and the decay all worked against them. But Janette was right, this was definitely biblical end of the world stuff.
Marcus pulled himself away from the depressing sight and made his way to their backpacks to take a drink. He had nearly reached his bag as the blood in his veins froze.
He dared not breath or move and out of the corner of his eye he observed the ten meter long giant centipede slowly crawling over the ceiling. Marcus slowly reached with his hand to his com and the head of the monster turned slightly. “Ceiling.” was all he said.
