After entering the restaurant Uriel cringed when the lady by his side asked for the VIP room. Although unlikely, he couldn't afford to be stuck with yet another expensive bill.
"Let's just go to the public space." The young student said.
"But won't it be too noisy?" The brunette asked.
"I don't mind a little noise, besides, I'm really hungry." Uriel was indeed famished, especially after being denied the opportunity to have a single bite from the luxurious dinner he was 'invited' to.
The woman nodded and soon after they were taken to their table. The public area wasn't as luxurious as the VIP room, but it was definitely more luxurious than any place Uriel had been before. At least not taking into account the make believe museum in his trait which was a lot more luxurious and rich looking than any man made structure.
"Please excuse me for not picking up the phone before, I really thought you were a saleswoman." Uriel awkwardly apologized.
"Don't apologize Mister Sage, it's only because of my incompetence that I couldn't find you before. We've been looking for you for a long while and... My! My! Now I realize I haven't even introduced myself. I'm Nika Garcia and I'm in charge of the Mapple corp. security. I've been tasked to find you and recruit you for this important expedition, but I never thought you'd be a student." Nika said, sipping on her wine every once in a while.
"I think me being a student is public record." Uriel shrugged.
"That's not it, my mission was to bring back 'Uriel Sage' the archaeologist, no one mentioned that you'd be a student. Anyway, now that the misunderstanding is clear I feel that I owe you a full explanation before continuing. How much do you know about the Mapple project?" She asked.
"I know quite a lot actually. Before 'the arrival' there were still many archaeological sites to be discovered and the Mapple corp. initiated a worldwide project to uncover every single one of them by scanning the whole world. That caused archaeology to become obsolete because there wasn't much to discover anymore."
"Yes, it was a mapping project and its intention was to uncover archaeological sites. Thanks to the new technology devised by our corporation it was suddenly possible to scan every inch of the planet without lifting a finger. Pyramids, totems, ancestral buildings, aqueducts, if some ancient culture had placed a stone on top of another, we knew. We also found something different, something that... changed our project's mission. We found that some POIs had strange structures underneath and, of course, we sent many teams to uncover their mysteries, but it was completely impossible to open the way." Nika explained.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Although Uriel knew a lot about the Mapple project, he was still taken aback by her claim. Just the possibility of hidden underground structures below ancient buildings could change history as he knew it. "Did you try opening them with explosives?" Uriel finally asked.
"We did, but that didn't work." She replied. "The material was highly resistant to anything and everything, we even attempted to nuke a POI but that... that's classified information. Anyway, apparently one of our scientists found something odd online. It was a wild theory about all of human civilization possessing a single language at some point in time, he thought it was funny and dismissed it until..."
"Until another Vlog entry was posted with some sort of evidence, am I correct?" Uriel continued her words, instinctively knowing where she was heading.
The tanned woman nodded in reply just as their food got to the table. How tasty and rich, how luxurious and expensive food was didn't matter, because Uriel gobbled it up without even noticing. All he wanted was to fill his resented belly that had been grumbling down for hours and get to the point of the conversation as soon as possible.
"Let me guess, someone found my Vlog online and now they want me to help them translate what's inside those places?" Uriel didn't know how to feel. On one hand he was in glee that someone other than bots visited his Vlog, not just that, apparently it must have been a well renowned scientist since he or she was currently hired by the Mapple corp. On the other hand, he didn't really want to participate in dangerous adventures, all he wanted to do was get enough money to finish his studies and then start researching as a freelance.
"Well, I asked if it was possible to show you drawings or pictures, but these POIs are very particular." The young woman said with a serious tone. "It's not as dangerous as most lost cities, in fact, only the way to these places is dangerous. Once inside there's not a single cryptid inside or nearby, unfortunately, these structures emit a field of disruption of their own making it impossible to take pictures or get any vehicles to its vicinity. Because of that, we really need you to come along."
"And you want to take an evolved to such a place?"
"I didn't even know you were an evolved until I finally realized you were a student, we actually thought you were just a regular human." She shrugged. "It's great that you're an evolved though, it'll make the trip a lot easier."
"Hold your horses." Said Uriel. "I still don't agree to join whatever it is you're planning, I still have college and I can't just go. I just came back from an incursion that lasted for the weekend and I almost don't make it back alive."
"Let's do this... I'll leave this piece of paper here and go to the restroom to freshen up and you can give me an answer when I come back."
Uriel watched the pretty woman leave the place with a deep frown on his face, mindlessly picking up the piece of paper and almost choked on his own saliva. The amount of money offered to him exceeded his wildest dreams, he looked at it dumbfounded trying to figure out the exact amount. It was a sum so incredible he didn't even know how to pronounce it. 'I can't let this opportunity pass.' Were Uriel's last thoughts before Mark arrived.
"Oh, I see she dropped you like a bad habit." Mark said with a nasty grin on his face.
"What are you up to now? Can't you see I'm busy?" Uriel replied.
"All I see is you sitting by yourself after your date dine and dashed you." Mark pretended to hold back his laughter.
Uriel's face went pale again at the sudden realization that he was, yet again, stuck with the bill. The only silver lining was that at least now he did manage to eat something.