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Dr. Bianchi remained silent and looked curiously on as they approached the light source.
Prof. Abrams noticed what seemed like tiny sparkles upon the passage’s walls. The ceiling disappeared into darkness. As they approached the light sources, she could make out etchings of some sort.
“Hieroglyphs,” Dr. Bianchi said.
Prof. Abrams studied them from a closer vantage point. The carvings were etched upon different elevations within the tunnel. To her, they seemed to represent various scenes—some were of men chasing herds of wild animals, while others were of women weaving baskets or people of all ages dancing around bonfires or strange objects.
But there were other images—a group of men speared someone on the ground; two men held an infant over a deep crevice; a group of what looked like Shaman knelt before a large, indescribable mass.
Prof. Abrams pointed at the latter. “Look at that one, about fifteen feet up.”
Dr. Bianchi scrutinized the thing that the Shaman knelt before. The hieroglyph was hard to decipher since it was further up on the wall. “Probably a Shinari deity they worshipped. Do you have any information on that one?” he said without looking at her.
“I’ll have to come back with something high to stand on so that I can compare it to my notes, but off-hand I’d say it could be Ngwe, the Shinari lord of corruption and possession. These all look amazing though. The Whilowhen probably…looks like they used some sort of glowing lichen to illuminate them,” she remarked. “We better turn back pretty soon. I’ll collect a sample on the way back.”
Dr. Bianchi picked up a long, sturdy stick. He proceeded to walk on using it as a walking stick.
They walked on a little ways. Their torches blew around in the increasing breeze as the glow of the hieroglyphs faded and were replaced by another light source ahead. A few leaves dotted the passage’s floor.
“That looks like natural light,” Prof. Abrams said.
“Seems to be,” Dr. Bianchi agreed. “Let’s put out our torches for now to conserve them.”
The two scientists snuffed out their torches as the tunnel widened until its ceiling was far above them. It finally gave way to a large, partially lit chamber just ahead.
The two explorers walked into a sprawling, oblong space that seemed to be naturally formed within the mountain. Stalactites covered the lower latitudes of the chamber but as the elevation rose higher they could see an open hole in the ceiling and the strata changed to hard-packed dirt around it. Through the hole, they could see a break in the fog and part of a blue sky.
Off to their left side was a row of stone huts partially covered in vines and lichen. Some of them had stone roofs while others were covered by rotting rows of thatch. Sunlight cascaded down from the hole in the ceiling and fell on the roofs of the huts, making their squared entrances seem even darker. A few large stone columns loomed in the background and hung over the huts like guardians while both trees and bushes grew at certain junctures of the space.
To the right, the cave wall sloped and the chamber disappeared around a bend in the cave’s far wall.
“My God,” Prof. Abrams breathily exclaimed as she put a hand to her mouth.
Dr. Bianchi looked on in stunned silence.
Prof. Abrams approached a nearby tree. “Look at these…they’re so unusual looking,” she said as she traced a hand along the tree’s dark, horribly twisted trunk. She looked at the other trees. “The bark on these…has a…an almost grey cast to it.”
When she didn’t hear a response from Dr. Bianchi, she looked over to see that he was walking towards the bend in the cave’s far wall.
Prof. Abrams began walking toward the huts. As she moved, she studied the large pillars that rose toward the hole in the ceiling and a sense of drowsiness began to inundate her. She almost stumbled a few times as her legs became heavier. It was as if time had somehow slowed. The sensation reminded her of the nightmares she’d had as a child, where she’d be trying to outrun something but felt as if she were moving in slow motion.
Her eyes drowsily moved upwards towards the hole in the ceiling and the sun’s rays broke through the fog and fell upon her face. The lethargy that had inundated her just moments before suddenly lifted and she felt buoyant again. That gave her a few moments to take some deep breaths and finally reach one of the huts. She glanced at the hole that the sunlight was filtering through and noticed that even though the sun shone, its rays seemed strangely muted. Even the sun’s rays that now enveloped her body appeared to be dimmer than usual.
“Maybe an altitude phenomenon,” she muttered to herself.
She looked at the pronounced entrance of the hut, which was flanked by a pair of columns and various carvings of symbols she’d never seen before. She took a breath and cautiously crept into the foreboding hut.