Domel Arcturus
Continuing off from George, we basically started our job as we woke up in the morning. I did not know how early, but I remembered it was still dark when Itresil woke us up. Since she was a dragon, she slept near where we slept. I woke up first since she nudged me, and well, she told me to get ready.
I usually got myself ready by getting into the shower, clean myself up, and get dressed. But I did not do all of those, because who thought a wyvern would just get himself into a shower and get dressed, anyway? Of course, I secretly hated the fact that I was still naked with only my jewelries still decorating my horns, wings, and tail. It felt like I was living in a nudist community or something. Well, exiles could not be choosers, so I guess I tried living through it and see if I could bear it for at least a year. Still, being all naked made you feel so free and light, if you did not mind being embarassed by the fact that your junk was in full view of everyone (not that it was visible in the first place, anyway).
Flying with someone on my back wasn't exactly a fun experience, but I always imagined it like flying with a backpack, so it wasn't really that bad. Besides, George was rather understanding of my plights. I doubt anyone would feel that way. I was also helped by the fact that the planet's gravitational pull wasn't as strong as Vyrn, but not too weak to let me fly too high. Believe me. If you happened to be an alien capable of true flight, you would not like the planet to feel like it was pushing you rather than pulling you. I once had a nightmare of me flying too high to the sky and ended up suffocating due to leaving the planet's atmosphere.
Anyway, the planet was fine. The desert was pleasant, albeit the air was rather dry. George was a good company, as did Itresil, who talked to me while we were flying. I guessed it's around 5 hours before we reached the place.
That place was something you already knew, given that the Ursa landed nearby. It was an excavation site of a ruined building which held a single gateway. I immediately knew this gateway led to somewhere else. It did not look like a door connected to any walls, but instead it was a free-standing structure in the middle of a building, flanked by two four-legged beast I thought to be an extinct native fauna. I did not know how old that gateway was, but it was clearly not as old as I was. I bet it was around 500, maybe 600 years old, but I was not trained to identify the age of a stone gateway.
Zardes and Itresil told me that, before the discovery of my ship and myself within it, this was the project Malkar was doing. While I was recovering and training with George, Malkar had finally finished excavating the gateway after only discovering the top of the dark-colored rock. Well, that's archaeologists for you. They knew how to find things the rest of us did not even care about.
I usually did not care about this, but given that this was my job, I tried to look like I cared when Malkar talked about the history of the gateway with me. It felt like it drew a parallel with the same gateway that started everything. However, to my genuine surprise, the gateway instead opened to an area beneath the Earth's crust, called the Underworld. I was told that Earth was a hollow planet, with an entire civilization existing below the Earth's crust. They were apparently the inspiration of legends about demons. I did not know demons were real, but in the case of Earth, demons are real. Also, the pressure and the heat in the Underworld did not permit anyone with no demonic blood or hellhound blood to survive.
I really wanted to see that world. Naturally occurring hollow planets are very rare. Most hollow planets did not start as something hollow but was exploited and thus looked like it had an interior. Earth, however, had no indication of any extraterrestrial interference that created the hollow interior. Well, it might, but no record of that existed.
The Crossing Gate, as they called it, was not activated when we got there. Somehow, I was curious with the language that seemed to be so different from the language I heard they usually talk with. It was...Hordo, right? It took a while for the nano-based translator to translate it, given that it was more complex than Surface Common. Anyway, I noticed that Malkar told us that the scroll he held was in fact written in Old Hordo, which made the age of the Gate apparent. They kept talking among themselves until I noticed George walking towards the Gate and examined it intently, apparently fixated on something.
I walked towards him and said, "What's wrong?"
"I don't know. Can you see it, Arcturus?" he said.
"See what?" The Crossing Gate seemed to look rather normal for me. Well, normal for a ruin, in fact. The statues did not align, possibly due to the fact that it was knocked away by something in the past.
However, George was referring to the runes near the base of the creatures' statues, which looked like what the hellhounds called Hordo. Still, I felt that the creatures being slightly misaligned (which could look rather annoying for a perfectionist) held something within them if they were aligned, so I moved one of the creature's head. I knew the age of this Gate could cause it to crumble, so I maintain my strength while pushing it. It was heavy.
Malkar noticed what I was doing and walked towards me. I thought he would berate me for the risk of damaging the Gate. Instead, he said, "Are you trying to move the statue?"
"The two statues do not look like they were aligned," I said while straining against the rock. "Maybe if I make them face together, it'll activate."
"What makes you think so?"
"It's an old deactivated gateway made by people of the past. What do you think?"
Of course, I never for once thought it would be that easy. After they were aligned, nothing happened to the gateway. I was not surprised. Most gates needed some sort of access to prevent unauthorized used by lawbreakers. This was no different. What surprised me, however, was that the 'access' was nothing more than a missing part of the statue.
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Once again, I must commend George for his good human eyes. Somehow, he noticed the jewels that glimmered among other artifacts on a table nearby, being cleaned by a hellhound archaeologist in Malkar's team. He told Zardes about it, and both put the jewels on one of the creature's statue, which was clearly the missing element that made the statue similar to the one it was facing.
Crackles of energy started to form as the jewels glowed. With a loud booming sound, the gateway opened while sustaining a green aura. I always felt the green aura held something sinister, which was confirmed by the fact that the Crossing Gate led to the Underworld, otherwise known as the 'Gateway to Hell'.
The fact that hell existed surprised me. I am never a religious person. For me, while religion can be a beacon for hope for those who are lost, it can go out of control if a wrong person becomes the leader. That was the case for the collapse of my government as given from the ship's database. For us, Kurligos, which is a Vyrnian version of Hell, is a land of suffering and conflict, far from the halls of the righteous that was Atlipek.
I quickly knew that the hell in this world was not just real, but also dangerous. Zardes quickly told George to stand ready with him in front of the Gate, while he instructed Itresil to direct me in case the worst happened. As someone who had been involved in several off-world conflicts, I knew danger. My only problem was that I was unarmed. My claws may be sharp, but I doubted that they were sharp enough for whatever was coming. I quickly grabbed a nearby sword, which was like a dagger for my size.
There was a tense minute before a surprise came through the Crossing Gate: a ball, followed by a young grey-furred hellhound wearing tribal clothing. Zardes was the first who knew how to act as he quickly asked George to stand down and calmly ask the child what's wrong. She was as innocent as her reasonings, and it quickly convinced us that she was, indeed, a curious child who apparently went through the Crossing Gate because it was unexpectedly activated.
The black-furred hellhound offered to take the child back to his home, with Malkar in tow. I wanted to help, as did George, but as the Underworld was hot like a planet's core, we simply waited. Around half an hour later, the two walked back out. I saw satisfaction on their faces, as if they had struck gold. Of course, for someone engaged in social sciences, this was like a golden planet. The grey-furred hellhounds were called ash hounds, a different type of hellhound that lived among the ashes of the Underworld. They could not speak Common, but I could simply use a Universal Translator to understand them. Of course, that could only happen if the hellhounds were speaking with Hordo inside the shipwreck that became my base of operations on Earth for more than necessary. Like I said, it was more complex than Common.
As the day went on, it was clear that the ash hounds posed no danger, which gave us time to explore. I decided to return to the downed ship, this time downloading father's message onto a portable device for safe keeping. His message was the only link I had to the Vyrnian world that I ran from, and to family. I thought back then. Even if I returned to my home world, I had no one left. My descendants bearing the name Domel would not even believe that I was the same Domel Arcturus written in the family books instead of someone with the same name (If I was indeed written). I could convince them that I was their ancestor with a simple genetic code comparison, but I felt that they would not want an ancestor with a potentially outdated view of the system to invade their lives. So, keeping myself away was the right choice. Besides, father managed to put the family album with the message, as if for a memento.
George tagged along with me. He noticed some expression on my face and asked, "Your father seems like a nice guy."
"Father could be a bit demanding sometimes, but I know it's for the best of his son. He could also be a bit overprotective, but I knew he could not help it. He had lost a son, and he clearly did not want me to die before he did."
"I heard that message, too. Was Atropos your..."
"My older brother. He was 12 years older than me. He died while trying to land a passenger ship sabotaged by space pirates. He was shot and dying, but he managed to stay conscious until the ship landed, where he finally succumbed to his wound. I once thought that he was unlucky to be on a computer-controlled ship, and he happened to be the only one who could fly the ship. But, as I matured, I always maintained that without him, that ship would crash or drift endlessly in space. He...was a hero, not just for the Vyrnians on that ship, but also for me."
"I'm sorry," said George, sympathetic.
"I know," I said. I felt tears coming down my eyes, but I did not try to hide it. I did not try to be tough, for I knew Atropos would not like someone who tried to be strong just to maintain some sort of image.
I walked out of the ship with George, deciding that I'd honor my father and my brother's wishes to live the rest of my life in peace. I even wondered if this world had the same kind of development potential with an emerging level 4 planet. It might not be the case for a couple hundreds of years, but hey, I could always wait. Vyrnians could live up to 350 if you're healthy enough.
We returned to the Gate's site when the sun was almost out. By then, the ash hounds from beyond the Gate had come and wondered about the world beyond their own village. I had the same feeling when I saw Earth for the first time. I mean, I had seen many worlds, but not this one, so that feeling was still there.
It was a slow day, so we decided to set up camp somewhere away from the dig site and ate a rather simple dinner consisting of steak and beans. I'm omnivorous, like humans, so that was a good dinner, even if it was rather simple. The hellhounds and Itresil were still talking with the ash hounds while George and I talked about the future of my stay on this planet, though I still voiced my problems with this world's primitive state, along with my unwillingness to interfere with their progress. George disagreed with me on that point, feeling that I was already a part of Earth, and as a part of the planet, was responsible for contributing for the planet's welfare. I quickly told him that there was a rule against planets like Earth, considered to be the only way to prevent legal exploitation similar to slavery.
As George pondered about it, I heard a beeping noise. I found the source to be the device in which I saved father's message and the photo albums. I quickly realized that this was the first unexpected turn of events that led to my travels with George through the galaxy. It turned out that the device I used was a pathfinder device, specifically the one used to map topographical areas of a planet. The small handheld device could save a lot of data, including comments from whoever was using it. The reason I put my message in the device was because it was a multi-functional device that was not used solely for navigation.
It also had a built-in beacon that sent out a weak beacon signal that only work up until the atmosphere of a planet and was only intended for use to signal transport crew. However, this feature also had a downside. It was a universal signal used by many alien races, and guess what? It also includes pirates.
Just before we could react, I could see George started to fade, a sign of him being transported. He could only say my name before he disappeared before my eyes, followed by my vision getting blurry and slowly replaced by the interior of a ship.
Well, more specifically, the interior of a cell, in which we were transported. That was the time when we were transported off-world. I did not know how far we were gone from Earth, as we were immediately put to sleep by tranq gas.