In the Southeast corner of the Old Continent a group of archaeologists sat around an ancient map in the middle of a large tent. A tall blond man in his mid fifties, a short grey haired man of over eighty and a red haired woman in her thirties discussed the ancient topography of the land they currently stand on and how much it differed from the time of the map.
“This entire area is at least 5 metres higher than the time this map was in use, we need to dig much deeper to find anything like foundations and basements.”
“She's right, old man, we simply aren’t digging deep enough to find anything. If we want anything out of this we need to start looking further down.”
“Fine, I’ll tell my team to take the gate square and go to 6 metres.”
“My team will take the back of the castle, the barracks and the storage buildings.”
“I guess that leaves me with the main keep and castle grounds. Hmph, leaving all the hard work to the woman.”
“Hard work you say? I say we're being gentlemen and leaving the best parts for you young lady.”
“The best parts? You get the area with possible remains of battles and battle camps, he gets the storage buildings and barracks which are most likely to house the weapons and armour and I get the living quarters which will most likely have furniture and daily items. How, exactly am I getting the best parts?”
“Calm down, we most likely won’t find anything. From what I’ve read, the explosion my ancestors saw from our family home on the North coast nearly 100 thousand years ago originated from this area of the continent. The aftermath was so bad the residual heat made the area uninhabitable until just a few years ago when the temperature dropped to this sweltering heat which is barely survivable.”
“That kind of explosion would most likely take anything but the deepest foundations with it. That is why I’m saying you're getting the best parts. The foundations of the walls and the main keep are likely the only things left in this area.”
“Then why bother with anything but the keep. Let’s divide it between us and start digging. It would be a lot faster that way.”
“That is true. I suppose Anton can take the barracks and storage buildings, since they are likely to have underground areas while you and I take half the keep each.”
“Hey, wait, old man, why are you with her while I’m so far away?”
“Because I am more interested in the structure and layout of this castle, rather than the valuable items one could uncover while digging.”
After the short argument each called for their team leaders and told them of the new plan. Less than 2 hours later all of the equipment was moved to the new dig sites and all preparations were completed.
“Lets get this show on the road!”
Anton shouted from his perch on the digger as the giant engine roared to life. Pressing some buttons and pulling the joystick towards himself the huge scoop tore through the earthy soil, leaving a 5 metre wide and 2 metre deep dich. Following his lead, the rest of the teams began digging and removing layer after layer of soil from the new dig sites.
In the following 10 hours, a gigantic square of earth was removed to a depth of 5.5 metres. At this depth some of the digger operators began to notice what looked like the foundations of buildings.
“We got some more over here!”
“Label it 23!”
“Got it!”
“More here on this side!”
“Throw down a 31!”
“On it!”
“This should be the last one! The corner is empty so I don’t think we'll find anything else past this one!”
“Good job! Give it a 58 and we're done!”
“Will do!”
After all the uncovered foundations were marked in order of finding them, the 3 head archaeologists were informed.
Back in the tent the 3 sat around the map again. When the message that all markers have been placed down arrived the old man tapped a finger on the table. The holographic display blurred and came back with 58 red dots on it. Each red dot lined up near perfectly with the buildings on the old map.
Tapping the red dots to connect them, the old man created outlines of each building.
“We have an L shaped storage building here. A rectangular barracks there. Another L shaped storage building. Maybe a stables here. A T shaped building here. Probably more storage. And 3 more L shaped building. And the final 12 in a huge cross shape must be the castell keep itself.”
Once all the dots were connected the trio looked at the distribution of digging space. The old man looked at the map and nodded to himself.
“Anton will get the 7 smaller buildings, you take the front of the keep and I’ll take the back half.”
“Sounds good. Lets get to work.”
The teams split and under the directions of the 3, the whole area was excavated an extra half a metre. The digging crew in heavy, yellow and black construction power suits cleared the areas around and inside the foundations to an even deeper level to get a clear look at the inside.
After 35 hours of careful clearing and finding nothing at all one of the teams at the front of the keep found a hole in the ground with crude stone steps leading deeper down.
“What do you think it is?”
“Either a private wine cellar, a dungeon or a safe room. I’ve seen a few similar castells, all more recent than this ancient thing, and all of them had one or all of those.”
“Look at the steps, too crude to be a wine cellar. If it were a wine cellar the steps would be smooth to avoid tripping and dropping a bottle. This is either a dungeon or a safe room.”
“The old man is right Anton. No one would have stairs like this leading to a wine cellar. Too much chance to trip and drop a bottle. I'd say its a safe room since it's at the front of the keep.”
“Get someone trained into a construction suit and 2 guards in mill spec suits to check what's down there. We never know. Better safe than sorry.”
“Let my personal guard go. He is a weapon specialist and carries all his weapons on him at all times.”
“Good idea little girl, my guard is a heavy weapon specialist. The two of them should be able to take care of anything that could be down there.”
“Hey, Anton, don’t you always take that walking slab of meat you call a guard with you? He here somewhere? We could use him in a construction suit now.”
“Yes, he’s here. I’ll go call him over.”
As the 3 personal guards got ready for the trip down, the old man shined a laser down the hole.
“Impressive, 100 metres deep.”
“That must have been very difficult to do nearly 100 thousand years ago.”
“It would seem, whoever this castell belonged to was not simple at all.”
The 3 guards met up at the stairs. Anton's guard was clad in a huge construction power suit. 2.5 metres tall and strong enough to lift 10 tons, the construction suit was perfect for digging and clearing rubble.
Felicia's guard wore a military power suit suited for fast and agile movements. 1.5 metres tall with advanced stabilisers, cloaking abilities and locking arm and shoulder joints to aid snipers, the suit was designed for stealth.
Ferdinand's guard wore a heavy military power suit. With ground anchors at the ankles, a shield generator on the back and able to lift up to 5 tons, the heavy suit was a heavy weapon specialists wet dream. With the suit a single human could effectively use any weapon up to a tank's main gun.
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Both the military suits were covered in overlapping and interlocking armour plates while the construction suit was uncovered and unarmoured save for the cage above the operators head to act as a helmet.
As the guards began to descend down the stairs the old man, Ferdinand realised how tall the passage really was. The construction suit had no problem going down the stairs without having to bend down.
At the bottom of the stairs a 15 metre tall doorway blocked by a fallen pillar greeted the guards.
Felicia's guard jumped up to the top of the doorway and tried to squeeze through the gap between the top of the doorway and the top of the pillar to no avail.
“The suit is too big to fit through. You'll have to lift it out of the way.”
Anton's guard moved to the centre of the door way, bending down to the floor to slide his hands under the pillar. Engaging the suit's power assist, he pulled up with all his might. The pillar shifted slightly and some dust fell from it before the suit issued an overloading alert.
“It weighs more than 10, somewhere around 12 or 13 tons. I cant do it alone, we'll have to lift it together.”
“I’ve had enough. Move. I’m blowing this thing to pieces.”
The weapon specialist pulled a large anti-material rifle out of his storage crystal and without further warning pulled the trigger.
BOOOM
The 40mm armour piercing shell slammed into the face of the pillar and exploded into tiny pieces, leaving a small dent and some scratches on the pillar.
“Was...not...expecting that.”
“Your telling me? That thing could go through both our power suits one after the other 4 times over at this distance.”
“I have 1 gun bigger than that but if this is any indication, that one wont do much better than this one.”
“I guess the only thing we can do is lift it now.”
Both the construction and heavy suit stood side by side at the door way ready to lift the pillar. Just then the com link of the specialist's suit opened.
“What was that ungodly noise?”
“We are currently at the bottom of the stairs. There is a door way, but it is blocked by a fallen pillar. It is too heavy for the construction suit alone so I thought I would shoot it to break it apart.”
“If it's a pillar why don’t you just roll it out of the way?”
“This a very peculiar pillar in that it is square. It also completely stopped my anti-material rifle bullet as if it were nothing. The 40mm shell shattered on impact leaving a tiny dent.”
“Wait, seriously? A square pillar that stopped your shot?”
“What is it Felicia?”
“Hey, old man, listen to this. They found a door way at the bottom of the stairs but its blocked by, get this, a square pillar and that loud noise just now was a 40mm anti-material rifle being fired at said square pillar.”
“By the tone of your voice, I’m guessing the pillar did not turn to sand on contact with the shell?”
“No, in fact, quite the opposite. The shell turned to sand on contact with the pillar.”
“Ooh. Oooh. That is interesting indeed.”
“We'll be down there immediately.”
The com link closed and the specialist informed the others.
“Guys, wait. They're coming down. They want to see the pillar.”
“At least someone is enjoying their time here. I can't stand the heat. I hate it. At least the suit has climate control.”
“Quit complaining. They're close, I can already hear them.”
Less than a minute later the big 3 arrived at the doorway to inspect the pillar. Poking and prodding the pillar with his knife, Anton discovered he couldn’t leave so much as a scratch on the seemingly crude and uneven surface. Looking over at Felicia and Ferdinand, he found them investigating the dent left by the shell.
“It appears the pillar is indeed made of some kind of stone. What kind of stone though, I couldn’t even begin to guess.”
“Yes, this dark grey colour is almost blue and looks very strange.”
“The density of this stone is incredible. It must have come from very deep to be this dense. Its a wonder how they got to it and got such a large piece here 100 thousand years ago.”
“Ok, the rock is nice and all, but I would very much like to see what is on the other side of it.”
Anton’s impatience annoyed Felicia, but she had to admit he was right. The room beyond this doorway must be important. To have pillars like this, it must have been very important.
“At least the square shape makes sense now. The material is too hard to be carved into a cylinder so they left it as a block.”
The 2 large suits moved towards the doorway again and started to lift the pillar. The huge block slowly turned, eventually tipping and falling onto it’s other side with a deafening doom.
The room on the other side was huge. At least 2 thousand metres long and a thousand metres wide while the ceiling stood less than 100 metres above them. While walking around the pillar they noticed the glass tubes on the walls. They covered every spot available on the walls and stood in layers upon layers. Each tube was less than 1 centimetre wide but the layer on the wall came out over 1.5 metres.
“There must be millions of them here. Hey, old man, is ancient glass valuable?”
“No, and even if it was you would have no way of getting them out whole.”
“What could they have been used for?”
“Look at this plate. I recognise the number 1 but the word next to it... I don’t recognise the language.”
“Before coming here I tried to find books about this place from 100 thousand years ago, but all of them were written in a language I couldn’t read. So I did some research and found some translations by my ancestors. The word means something like 'seven moons' or something like that.”
“So a length of time, like a week? But why would all of them be labelled 1 week?”
“Maybe the content would expire after a week? Or maybe last a week?”
“Guys! You definitely want to see this!”
Anton’s shout came from far behind them. Looking in his direction they noticed the many tubes snaking along the floor towards the centre of the room. They all converged at the place Anton was calling them from.
“You carry us to Anton, and you, try to find some small chunks of that pillar.”
Ferdinand’s guard sighed as he watched the construction suit bound towards the centre. He went on to look for pieces of the pillar.
At the centre of the room stood a waist high metal pillar with many circular buttons at the top. It gave off a soft humming sound as if it were a machine at work. Around the pillar lay 2 large, open coffins, and one small, closed coffin.
Anton stood looking at the small metal pile leading from the metal pillar to the small coffin. The metal pipe was connected with glass pipes every now and then allowing him to see the red liquid running through the system. Following the pipe back to the machine, he saw the pipe that was feeding the red liquid into the machine.
“I found something fairly interesting here.”
Hearing the footsteps of the power suit come to a stop next to him, Anton continued.
“It appears this is some sort of feeding system. I looks like a hibernation chamber disguised as a tomb. The glass tubes were probably filled with nutrients to keep the sleeping occupants alive. What's more, it appears to be active. Right now. There is someone. In that coffin. Sleeping. Since nearly 100 thousand years ago.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Look at the pipe leading from the metal pillar to the coffin. It has red liquid flowing through it towards the coffin. We can follow the pipes back to check the nutrients part of the theory.”
“Let’s go check. It would be great to find out if your right.”
The trio followed the red liquid filled pipe back, past the metal pillar and towards the centre of the back wall. After nearing the wall, a faint red glow caught their attention. One of the pipes had some faintly glowing red liquid at the bottom of it. Watching the strange glow for a while Felicia spoke.
“I guess you were right. Although, I don’t really like the look of those nutrients. They look...creepy.”
“Look, the tube is about to empty.”
“Ooh, look. It emptied. Now it’s just whatever is in the pipe that’s left.”
“It’s going towards the machine. Shall we follow it?”
“I suppose there isn’t much more we can do. We don’t understand how any of this works or the real purpose of it all.”
The trio walked, following the slowly emptying pipe back towards the centre of the room.
Once there was no more red liquid going into the machine, it gave a short, deep humming noise. As the last of the red liquid reached the coffin the machine gave off another, even deeper hum. A red light began to blink on the side of the metal pillar and the coffin lid began to move.
As the lid of the small coffin began to lift the trio slowly walked around it to look inside. When the lid was fully opened they got their first look at what they could only describe as the most beautiful and perfect little girl they had ever seen. Flawless skin, if a little pale. A stunning, unforgettable face. Long crimson blond hair flowing around her. In her left forearm was a long silver needle where the last drops of the red liquid just disappeared.