Penithcea Chronicles: The Ancient Threat

Prologue

The pale light of the moon, only assisted by a small oil lantern, was not enough to do labor by; yet, Andrei worked tirelessly at the stone below him. It cracked and crumbled before his pick as he revealed the steel underneath the earth, a plate so wide it would easily be usable as a wall in his village without further modification. It was for such a find that he worked through the night, when the beasts slept and the forest around him was quiet save for the crash of his pick against the stone.

However, as he grew ever closer to revealing the entirety of his find, his confusion grew. In the center of what he had thought was a single plate of steel was in fact a clear pane, similar to glass, but so hard as to not be cracked by his pick, or to have crumbled under the weight of the 2 meters of stone he had pulled from above it. As he brushed aside the last of the rubble with his gloved hands and tapped at the pane with his pick, he called to his brother.

"Michail, come here a moment. I have found something."

A shuffling came from the hole a few meters away where his brother was working to dislodge a large latticed steel fencing. Andrei continued to poke and prod at the pane as his brother lowered himself into his hole, all the while staring at the pane with wonder. 

Andrei spoke up after his brother had reached the bottom of the hole, his boots clanking against the unearthed steel. "What do you think it could be brother?" Michail was usually the smarter of the two, and as such Andrei referred to him to make the assessment of his find.

Michail crouched low into a squat, pulling off a thick leather glove and tapping against the pain with his knuckles, as if searching for a weak point. He slowly moved around the edge of the pain, taking care to keep his feet firmly on the steel that surrounded it.

After a rotation, he realized looking at the pane was a waste of his time, and instead focused on the steel surrounding it. It was somehow unscuffed, looking like steel that had just been buffed after being reforged. It shined when he brought his lantern close to it, and had an almost blue hue in the red light of the fire. That is when he saw it, a small insert on the right side of the pane that looked to be the shape of a hand.

He moved to the insert and brushed off the remaining dirt and grime that covered it, and sure enough, there was a hand shaped recess in the steel, somehow carved from it. He reached towards it with his ungloved hand, and as if by magic, it came alight, glowing a pulsing blue, lighting the hole around him.

Andrei chewed his bottom lip. "Brother, maybe we should go back to the village and ask about this? I do not like the look of this place... we are disturbing things we should not."

Andrei thought back to the tales his Babushka used to tell, tales of things that lived below the earth, and tales of ancient beings that wielded magic strong enough to kill the dragons. Since he was a child he had always made prayer to the beings below before he mined, asking them forgiveness for digging into their domain. This place, this pane, it led somewhere where they would not want him to go, he was sure of it.

Michail, not one for superstition, scoffed at his brother's worry. "Do not worry Andrei, I know what I am doing." he said, as he placed his hand into the recess.

With a smooth, low hum, the pane split down the center at a crease that neither of the brothers could have seen. A singular, pulsing orb of light appeared in the new opening, and a path of light began to swim down the metal hallway that was revealed behind the pane. Michail stared, his eyes wide, as the pulsing orb began to meander down, down deep into the earth, following the hallway that seemed to never end.

Without saying a word, Michail took his longest rope from his belt and clipped it to the nearest mine brace, and began to follow the light down into the depths. For a moment, Andrei hesitated, looking back up at the night sky through the trees. He had a feeling that should he enter the domain of the ancients, he would not return. However, his brotherly bond won over his fear, and he too clipped to the nearest beam and began to follow.

It took time to safely scale this pit, and judging the amount of rope left once they had reached the bottom, it must be over 40 meters deep. At the bottom was a steel wall with a hatch, closed using a simple force based latch. With a bit of effort, the two men had the hatch open, and hopped down into a small room with a single door facing them. The door was steel as well, but with a bit of prying they forced the sliding panels open, revealing a large room dimly lit by the same light they had seen in the hallway.

Ahead of them was the pulsing orb. It made its way slowly to the center of the room, and once it was there, a lectern of steel rose from the floor to meet it, bearing the same hand recess they had seen outside the strange dungeon. It absorbed the orb, and the hand shaped recess filled with a thick, clear liquid to its brim.

Michail moved towards the lectern, seemingly transfixed. He was stopped when his brother grabbed his arm. "Please, brother... We should not be here. I am scared..." said Andrei, giving his brother a pleading look.

Michail shook him off, not even bothering to answer. In that moment, Andrei could swear his brothers eyes were not their normal brown, and instead were glowing a faint blue, pulsing with the light of the lectern. Before he could say anything, Michail plunged his hand into the blue liquid, and light filled the room from every corner.

A woman's voice rung through the room, speaking a language that sounded familiar, yet distant to the brothers, like something they once knew. The lighting flashed blue, then green, then began to pulse a deep crimson as a blaring screaming began, deafening them to all other sounds with its oscillating tone. The red lights began to spin around them as one of the walls in the room gave way, sliding into the floor, revealing a massive facility that began to light as if by magic, going on as far as their eyes could see.

The two men huddled close, staring slack jawed at the massive space before them. It was row upon row of massive steel ovals, each containing a suit of armor for a giant. The pods began to shuffle through the facility, and one flew towards them at speeds incomprehensible. It stopped only a meter away, and with a hiss and an explosion of steam and vapor, opened.

The slits in the helm of the armor came alight, a dull glowing blue that matched the orb they had seen before. In a voice that grinded like metal on metal, the thing spoke, moving towards the two men, in the same language as the woman before.

As if suddenly realizing where he was, Michail lept to his feet and ran towards the doorway they had entered from. As he fled he did not see the eyes of the armor turn deep crimson, or it raise its hand. The last thing he saw was a flash of white.

Andrei heard as his brothers pick fell to the ground, the metal on metal waking him from his stupor. "Please, please," he begged, his hands coming together in prayer, "I have always begged your permission, please I was just following my brother, please!"

The armor looked down on him. Its voice scraped and twisted, grinding and churning as it became more and more similar to Andrei's. Then, it said, "The cleansing shall begin."

There was a blinding light, and all that remained of the two brothers was the steel of their tools.