Darklight: Precipice

Part 15: The Gate

The roughly dug stone tunnel opened through an archway into the large space. He was following Natasha through, listening to her talking about how exciting a find it was.

“We’ve never seen anything like it” She had said excitedly. She hadn’t even kissed Soran on the cheek this time - he had noticed.

“As soon as The Artefact was placed onto the pedestal the screens began to glow and detail information. We don’t know what the information means yet, but we know it’s important”.

“Have we had any problems with our own technology and The Artefact?” Draz asked. Natasha shook her head.

“No, no we set up a jamming field around The Artefact to contain any signals. It seems that the power it is providing to this facility is physical based rather than non-contact, like wires rather than signals. The isolation equipment is holding well”.

“Good” Draz said with a smirk. “I’ve been looking forward to this”.

The chamber was vast with a large domed ceiling, as if lava had flowed around an invisible force and solidified over thousands of years. This, Soran thought, was probably the truth after all. The top of the stone dome had been dug away and the morning sunshine from high above was pouring through the gap in the Continental Plate down into the excavation site and finally through the now opened dome. They had dug upwards to the surface as well as from Rammachandra’s hidden base.

The device itself stood tall and resolute, covered in the dust that had gathered on its surface through thousands of years. It resembled a sphere with a tall, narrow pyramidal shape attached to the top of it. This pyramid was not not whole, it was split down the middle. In all, the structure was around three to four stories high. Dotted around the structure were four stone podiums set equal distances around its circumference, panels mounted on them glowed faintly. The structure itself and these podiums were a dull copper colour but it had not tarnished after all this time.

The beige box-like Artefact sat upon a copper podium on the edge of the circular space. There were copper lines mounted in the floor leading from the podium directly to the device. Around this podium was a domed frame of glowing poles. It reminded Soran of large glow-sticks that Utopian children played with which were joined into a wireframe like dome. He mused that if you put a canvas over the frame it would look like a glowing tent; but this frame was protecting their technology from the harmful impact of The Artefact - so it wasn’t really something to laugh at.

“Lets see what this thing is about” Draz said with a smirk as he walked towards the centre of the room and the device.

“Rammachandra was interested so this must be important” Ana replied, walking slightly behind Draz. Natasha gave Soran a wry smile as she took his hand and pulled him after her towards the device.

As the group drew closer, dodging the fifteen or so Utopian and Skry scientists who were studying the area, Soran noticed that the split down the middle of the pyramid continued onto the sphere itself, cutting it directly in half allowing access through a narrow opening into the centre of the device. 

“I’m getting tired of exploring dark places” Soran muttered to himself as he entered the middle of the sphere. Inside was a circle of light coming from above. Looking up Soran could see that the gap in the pyramid above was larger than expected, changing shape in the middle of the pyramid to form a circle which was much larger than the small gap visible from the outside. Draz and Ana were already exploring the inside walls of the sphere.

“I don’t understand these markings” Ana said to Draz. “They don’t seem to match up to any of the glyph’s we’ve found so far”. 

“These zig-zag markings are unusual” Draz replied. “They seem to be more geometric than the cyclic’s we’ve found in the area”. Natasha joined them in looking quietly at the markings and referring to a small computer pad that glowed in her hands, as Soran gazed upwards into the light coming from far above, stepping into the middle of it. He felt some ridges beneath his feet that caused him to stumble slightly. Looking down he found a circular ridge of the same metallic material as the device that stuck up slightly from the floor. It was a small circle inside a large circle, linked together by six lines. Soran crouched down to touch the glyph and as he did so a spark sprang from his finger and into the glyph.

“Ah!” He gasped and he stepped away, drawing the attention of the others. 

“What’s wrong?” Draz asked as the glyph glowed a pale turquoise. The zig-zag patterns and geometric shapes adorning the inside walls of the device began to glow the same light.

“Sirs, what is going on?” One of the scientists called from outside the device.

“Yes, what is going on?” Came a familiar voice as Commander Raine stepped through the opening into the interior room.

“Raine? What are you doing here?” Soran asked as the light in the room grew brighter.

“Bringing some soldiers down here to guard the find of course, and I wanted to see what you found myself” She replied with a smirk. But her smirk faltered as the entire structure around them began to move.

The doorway which Raine had just stepped through was slowly moving around as the entire device began to rotate.

“Draz?” Natasha stated with some concern. “We have it - this is a confirmed focal point of the Crystalline Matrix”. Draz’s smirk reappeared.

“I thought as much” He said. “I don’t know what’s happening exactly, but I think Soran turned this thing on”.

“I didn’t do anything!” Soran replied in protest.

“Well either way I think we’re going to find our what this thing does!” Ana said, talking a little louder over the din of the device speeding up around them.

“Great, well there’s no getting out now” Raine said, looking at the spinning doorway speeding up around them. 

“Get away from the walls” Soran ordered as he drew the Darklight Sword - better safe than sorry after all. Raine’s comm device crackled.

“Commander, the podiums around the device have fully activated. What’s going on?” a voice asked. Draz grabbed his own comms device before she could reply.

“What are they showing?” He asked before Raine could reply.

“They show two spheres and a dotted line between them” The soldiers voice replied. Draz smiled.

“I think this really is going to be the discovery of a lifetime” He cried as the spinning of the device was getting so fast he had to shout over it. The turquoise light was getting brighter and brighter on the spinning walls and in the middle of the room as the five of them gathered together in the centre. The spinning of the device was so fast that it became a blur to those on the inside and the out as the circle of sunlight above them grew larger as the top of the device opened up wider, and then the sunlight disappeared into a black disk. The scientists outside the device backed away as the turquoise light that was spinning with the device spread around the outside like smoke, being drawn by the shape of the device and concentrating at the tip of the expanding pyramid on top where it leapt upwards a few meters and spread into a disk - seemingly opening up a wormhole above the pyramid structure.

Within the structure Natasha grabbed Soran’s hand as she looked up into the black abyss above them. As Soran looked into her eyes a great surge of white energy from the glyph on the floor propelled the five of them upwards into the wormhole.