Amity walked out of the mine-shaft, having had no luck in finding either of the missing girls.
“Raleigh! I didn’t find either of them!”
Raleigh didn’t respond. Amity walked to the hall he was in, only to find that a small section of the floor was missing. It looked maybe 5 and a half feet long, just enough to fit a person through if laid flat. When she looked through the hole, she saw a platform descending. It was seemingly free standing, from Amity’s perspective it was moving downwards itself without any support. She gauged the distance to the platform, a solid few feet. She thought about jumping to it, but before she decided, she noticed a symbol on the platform. It was a circle with a design in it, similar to the glyphs but significantly less complex in design, just a few lines. She decided not to jump onto the platform, just walking by the hole for the time being.
Amity walked to the end of the hall, only noting a few small trails in the sandy floor that abruptly stopped at the very end of the hall. A slight buzzing sound caught her attention, turning herself backwards to spot a dinged up metallic ball, sandy and scratched. The ball tried to ram itself into Amity, but she stepped over it. It turned back, but she moved away. This repeated for a good few seconds, fruitless efforts made by the robot to trip up Amity, and her simply stepping over or around it. She leaned over and picked it up, but once it made it to about face level, it tried to run into Amity yet again.
Amity grabbed her nose and dropped the orb, which went back to trying to force Amity over. She managed to step over it, before grabbing into her pocket and removing her hand from her nose. Amity felt a slight draft blow from behind her, and harnessed it into a stronger breeze. Just before the orb ran into her foot, she used the wind to launch it away, directly into the wall. She walked away from the robot, now given up on attacking Amity, and attempted to reach the man hall again. Just as the light from the hall was in sight, though, she felt something unusual with her footing.
Amity stepped into the hole. She reached to catch her fall, but she simply avoided face planting. Amity managed to barely catch the lip of the wall with her fingertips, but she quickly realized that she wouldn’t be able to get up again. Looking down, she noted the platform had stalled not too far down from where she had seen it earlier. Amity breathed, readied herself, and let herself fall.
She hit the ground with her toes, bending her knees and using her hands to absorb the impact.
“Holy crap.”
Amity inspected the platform. The design from earlier was still there (not like it could’ve moved.) She brushed some dust away from it and made out a few words written above the symbol.
“The Broken Divine? What the…”
Before she could finish her sentence, she felt someone hit the platform a few times. She didn’t see anyone around her, but she noticed a small handle with a latch keeping whatever it was for closed. She unlatched it and pulled it open, only to see Himiko laying there, sans hat, with red eyes.
“Amity! Thank gosh, please help me out of this thing!”
“Himiko? What are you doing in here? Where’s your hat?”
“I’m not sure, but I’d rather be alive without it than dead with it, so please help!”
Amity looked around for a way to unlock the strange thing that confined Himiko, before finally finding a small latch placed beneath a rock, probably meant to hide it. She undid it and stood on the very edge as Himiko got the lid of it up so she could stand.
“Holy crap, Amity, thank you! I thought I would like, die!”
Amity blushed and hugged her back.
“How… did you get down here?” Himiko said as she looked up, over the walls.
“I jumped, it’s actually pretty easy to not die when you jump.”
“Oh, dang. Real question is, how do we get up again?”
“Hmm… That’s… an actual issue. I’m not sure.”
Amity thought for a second, then noticed a small screw holding a little panel into whatever this contraption was. She grabbed a multi-tool from her bag, although it had rusted after years of being in a river before Amity picked it up when she had gone fishing just a few months ago. She struggled and strained to pull it open, then pulled out the screwdriver tool. The near ruined multi-tool managed to make it just far enough to allow her to undo the screw manually, before the screwdriver snapped off, taking the rest of the tool with it.
“Aw man, my thing broke.”
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“Rest in pieces, weird river multi-tool. 1608 probably to 2022.” Himiko saluted, pretending to cry.
They both laughed, put it back into the bag for a proper burial (digging it into the sand) later, then removed the screw. Behind the panel were a few small buttons, an exposed circuit board, and a few small rocks that had seemingly fallen in. Amity read the tiny text beneath each button, finding the one that would go upwards. She pressed the third button, and immediately felt the platform start crawling up again.
“That was… easier than I thought it would be.”
Amity put the panel back in and waited for the platform to reach the top, then stepped off with Himiko. A familiar orb robot climbed on some bricks stacked along the wall to get just over the taller of the two, then rolled off and dealt a pretty severe blow. Amity fell over, and the robot rolled off before Himiko could do anything.
“Shi- Amity! Amity, are you okay?”
…
“Amity!! Oh no, no no no nonononononono…”
Himiko shook the unconscious girl, but all that served to do was reveal a shining purple liquid dripping from Amity’s head. She stood up and tried to pull her, but it didn’t work. She decided to sit down and look at the injured girl’s head that was still leaking the strange fluid, which she determined to be blood, since it was coming from a pretty bad injury. It was covered in hair, but she could part it and get an okay look. Amity’s head rested in Himiko’s lap as she examined the injury, making sure no dust or debris had gotten into it. She felt a shifting, and heard a voice.
“Nghhhh… Wha-”
Amity opened her eyes and immediately felt the stinging pain pulse through her head. She tried to sit up, feeling her head, but Himiko forced her to stay laid down.
“Don’t sit right now. You took a pretty hard blow, something fell on your head.”
She took a second to respond, eventually asking
“Am I bleeding?”
“Yeah, not too badly but there’s a bit of blood.”
Amity felt her face, getting a bit of the unusual blood on her hand.
“Wait… What’s this crap?”
“Well, I think it’s your blood…”
“I have purple blood now?? That’s like, sick as hell.”
Himiko shifted Amity off her lap, where Amity hadn’t yet realized she was, and stood up.
“Do you know where Raleigh and Katie are?”
“No, actually. I was looking for them, but I never found them.”
Amity sat herself up and began rifling through her bag for some gauze, fixing her head before standing back up. She nearly immediately lost her balance, tripping and falling directly onto Himiko, who managed to catch her.
“Shoot- Amity, are you ok?”
“Ow… yeah I’m fine… Sorry.”
“It’s all good! We should probably walk slowly, though.”
Himiko grabbed Amity’s hand, eliciting a blush, and began to walk out of the mine hallway. They made it just to the exit, when they saw someone new. Seemingly in his 20s or 30s, the man promptly stood up and walked over to the girls.
“Hello. I am Cornet. One of you is Amity, yes?”
The man adjusted his suit and straightened his tie while waiting for the response.
“Um, yes. I’m Amity, she’s Himiko.”
“Ah, Himiko? Weren’t you… never mind. This is probably a question for my team.” he grumbled. “Anyway, hello! I have been sent down to retrieve your little posse and bring you to the local castle.”
“The.. castle? We’ve only seen ruins, is there an actual royalty here?”
“Why yes there is! I’ll tell you about them on your way there. For now, let’s get going.”
The man turned away, but Amity and Himiko remained still.
“Hold on, we’re still looking for our friends! They went down these hallways and pretty much vanished!”
“Vanished…? Oh, dear. Did you happen to see a strange symbol? I think it has the letters ‘TBD’ over it, usually?”
“‘TBD’? I think so… I’ve seen ‘The Broken Divine’, but that’s not quite ‘TBD’.”
“Ah, this is a recent base. Come along, we have to make this quick.”
Cornet went behind the girls, guiding them back to the platform. He wiped away some of the sand covering it and pulled open a small panel. The key-chain in his pocket had a small key, which he used to unlock a small keyhole within the platform.
A series of buttons above the lock lit up, and he guided the girls onto the platform again.
“Be careful, hold tight.”
He pressed two buttons together, sending out a beep before nearly instantly propelling the platform down. They stood for maybe 30 seconds at this unusual speed before halting to the sight of a small door.
“What are your friends names, again?”
“Uh, Raleigh, and Katie.”
“I will have them out shortly. Remain here.”
He went inside, and they heard yelling spread throughout the room as he threw open and closed doors, speeding to a holding room.
“Hello. Are you two Raleigh and Katie?”
“I… who’s asking?”
“I am Cornet. Your friends are here to get you. Come with me.”
He unlocked the door to the room they had been seated in, and brought them out.
“Do you know, like, what the entire deal is with this?”
“I’ll explain in a second. We have to get out of here first.” He tried to make it clear this was somewhat urgent.
They acknowledged the man’s urgency and stayed in silence as they made their way to the platform. He adjusted his suit before opening the door and getting everyone on. With the same demeanor, he got the platform to go up, just before a large object hit the bottom.
“Close shave.”
They all made it out to the hall, covered the platform in rocks and sand, and walked out.
Cornet began as they reached the elevator; “Those people are part of something called The Broken Divine. They believe that a Human is destined to come every hundred years, and it is their duty to capture and… “release” it.”
There was a pause, then he continued.
“Release doesn’t mean setting you free. It means setting your soul and body free. The last time they managed to release someone was a few hundred cycles ago, near the end of the Human Age.”
“What was the Human Age?”
“Basically,” he stepped out of the elevator, “It was a period where humans came to and from this land often. I believe it was what you call the 1850s? Anyway, near the end of the decade, they used the blood of a human to seal off all gateways. There was only one left uncovered, which was because it was broken.”
He pointed to the spot where they entered, sand still stained a vibrant yellow.
“It used to be there. You hooked onto it, which as far as we knew was impossible. So, the royal family has invited you to a dinner! We have a gift for you, too.”
They all nodded, and spent the rest of their walk trying to guess what it could be.