210TH DAY OF THE 472ND YEAR OF CIVILIZATION
I awoke early, the sun not even fully over the horizon. My excitement seemed to charge the air around me, even making my morning tube of protein paste taste like something one might actually eat voluntarily. This site could be the most intriguing archaeological discovery of this century — maybe ever — and I could sense it even before I began to descend. I took with me only a small pack, containing some food and water, a few sheets of paper for sketches, some tools, and a lamp.
After just a few minutes of climbing, the material of the walls shifted from concrete to natural stone — I’m not geologist, but I believe it to be salt rock of some kind — braced with countless metal bolts and covered in mesh. The steps were lined with heavily rusted metal. It took me just over an hour to reach the bottom. I estimate it to be almost 400 bodies deep (around 730 Ancient “meters”). The floor at the bottom was dusty under my feet, and the walls of the tunnel I found myself in seemed rough-hewn, with even more large metal bolts protruding from the ceiling and walls. Right at the base of the tube I found a sturdy-looking metal box which appeared to have been dropped from the top of the shaft. It contained a single sheet of fragile paper covered in handwritten Ancient. I could not translate most of it (I’m out of practice in reading Ancient handwriting), but I have transcribed it below for further study:
> The flare came without warning, we didn’t have time to seal the tunnel. It doesn’t look good for the human race. I don’t know what’s happening in the wider world, but here at the site everything that could conduct electricity has gone down. Steven and I found the lid for the top of the shaft and are going to try and attach it somehow. We have no power, and it’ll be night soon. We weren’t ready for this. The site isn’t secure. To whoever’s reading this LEAVE NOW. Who knows what’s happened since I wrote this. There could’ve been another leak in one of the storage rooms. LEAVE NOW. This place is not a place of honor. Nothing valued is here. The danger is still present in your time as it was in ours.
I’m sure Dr. Rubrick back at the university will be able to translate it when I return.
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The tunnel extended in what I believe was a peri-sunward direction (it was hard to tell after such a long climb). After following it for just a few dozen bodies I noticed a large metal door — partially encased in salt rock — in the wall to my left. Some sort of liquid seemed to be leaking out from under it, partially soaking my shoes. It was hard to determine what exactly the liquid was, as the salt in the ground made it smell primarily of salt, and I didn’t have a chemical analysis kit. The door seemed too sturdy to pry open, so I continued down the tunnel. I passed many more doors, each spaced roughly fifty bodies apart, on both sides of the tunnel. When I at last reached the end, I discovered a small opening where another door should’ve been. It seemed that the salt rock had grown to fill what had once been a larger doorway. On the other side of the opening was a large room, similar in construction to the tunnel. The room housed ten or so large (1.5 bodies wide, slightly less than 2 bodies tall) domed metal containers. My determination was that whatever valuable items this facility was designed to protect would be stored in these.
I immediately got to work attempting to pry open the containers. The metal shell was thinner than I had initially feared (merely a tenth of a hand thick) and surrendered quickly to my small cutting torch. Under the shell was a thick layer of foam (relatively easy to dislodge with a shovel) and another thin layer of metal. Beyond this seemed to be several interior containers, which would be hard to remove through the small hole I had created. I spent the next several hours widening it to be a full body tall. This revealed that the inner containers were midsized metal barrels, heavy for their size. With substantial effort I managed to get one out through the hole and onto the floor of the room. I pried the lid off with great excitement, only to find that the barrel was full of nothing but dirt. I clawed through it, hoping to find something buried within, but it was truly just dirt. Investigation of two of the other barrels in the container revealed more dirt. “Why would the Ancients go through so much trouble to secure barrels full of useless soil?” I wondered aloud to the empty room. Tired and covered in salt and dirt, I decided to leave that question to the research archeologists and return to the surface.
The climb out took longer — nearly three hours — and it was dark by the time I returned to my tent. I’ll start the hike back to base camp tomorrow.