NEWS: Taking a Break

Well, I feel I've done pretty well with the story so far. I have decided that today's post offers a nice opportunity to take a little break in the story and I will take advantage of it. I cannot say when my next post will be, but there will be more to come at some point in the future. I do hope you have all enjoyed the story so far and will enjoy it when I start it back up again. If you have any questions you can leave a comment or send me a message on either the Entropia Planets Forums or on the Planet Calypso Forums. When I start writing again it may not be every day, we shall see what I decide when I get it going again.

Destiny

It was strange, the symbols seemed to be directions and I felt that they were specific directions for me. They instructed me which technology to take from the tables and where I needed to go with each particular piece. I informed Nira and Ambri what I was reading and that I wanted to see what would happen when I followed them, they advised me to be careful and then continued their exploration of the other items that weren't needed. I made my way around to different chambers within the ruins, placing the pieces of technology that each room, with its hidden instructions, required. When I put the technology in its hidden slot the power in the room shifted, activating the item that had seemed so dead or unfinished. It was clear that the process was turning on a much larger piece of technology that had to be hidden away. Every time the power shifted in a room new instructions were shown to me and I continued on to the next task, eventually finding my way into a chamber that had been sealed off completely had it not been reactivated by my tasks. Once I entered this particular room my thoughts about this place changed completely.

I had thought this was some very ancient civilization that had destroyed itself, but that clearly wasn't the whole story. There were no hidden symbols in this room, I understood the technology well enough to know what I was dealing with, my question was, how did this technology get to be in a place this old? I had Ambri and Nira join me before doing anything more, it was just too strange to have this thing sitting before me. When they arrived they were as shocked as I had been, they had seen the schematics for this technology before, I had shown it to them when I was designing the next generation of this stuff. It sent a shiver down my spine though, I knew what the instructions were asking me to do but I didn't want to, I had no idea if this would add or subtract from my being, but there was really only one way to know for sure.

We checked everything we could, trying to confirm that it would add, it appeared to be so but there was so much technology that was hidden from view that we couldn't be absolutely sure. Ambri and Nira both volunteered to try it instead of me, but I knew that it was meant for me. Something had designed this and knew I would be here and follow the instructions and find myself in this position. So all I could do was sit and activate the single button on the chair. Once the button was pressed my head was filled with images, symbols, translations, tons of things that were familiar yet alien at the same time. The technology of this world quickly became so clear to me, how it was made, what it was for, what I should be able to do with it, and most importantly to me at that moment, what the energy device had been and how to reseal the thing inside of it, however the information didn't stop there, it kept coming. Years and years of history filled my head, things that had been done in the past, but not memories, more like instructions for what needed to be done, I wasn't sure what it was all about until the last bit of information entered my head, as it came in I knew what was going on, but it was too late, my sitting here in the chair had caused the rest of the facility to activate and now that I had the information my fate was sealed. I quickly tried to react but all I felt was the familiar sensation of being translocated.

Hidden Things

All about this chamber were tables covered in various stages of projects. Some involved studies of the creatures that had lived upon this world, others were clearly studies into botany and the properties of the plants. There were some technological projects as well, however they weren't at an advanced level that would show that the civilization here had constructed the containment device. I spent some time marveling at the skeletons that were constructed, the creatures looked so fascinating, I wished I could have seen them when the planet had more than just plant life on it. The technology was simple in its construction, it was evident that all of it had been hand made and worked as finely as the tools could shape the pieces. There appeared to be the makings of time devices and different optical enhancers as well, one of which changed how I saw the room. With the glasses on, that surprisingly fit my face, I could see the lines of energy flowing through this room. The door was distinctly dark, no energy was flowing to it, while the lighting in the room was much more evident where it was coming from. Though it wasn't a crystal technology it appeared to have some very similar properties. Following the flow of some of the lines I could see another location that was very well hidden where one should be able to control the door to this room, however I also saw some hidden symbols in the energy patterns that I felt were much more interesting.

I had just about finished translating the symbols when Ambri frantically reached out to find where I had gone. I realized that she had returned to the door and when I wasn't there thought something had happened to me. I responded quickly and said I'd have the door open in a moment. So without having finished my translation I went to the control location and opened the door, then removed my glasses so I could see the world in a normal way again. Once the door was open Nira and Ambri quickly rushed in, they stopped quickly in their tracks however when they saw everything that was in this chamber. They had many questions about what I had discovered and how I had opened the door, all of which I answered to the best of my ability, still unsure of what some of the things were. When I got to the part about the glasses I made my way over to the table and grabbed some for them to use so they could see what I had discovered. Once they slipped them on they stopped listening to me and instead started looking at all the wondrous sights there were to see when you wore this little piece of technology. I took advantage of this time to continue my study and translation of the symbols.

Under the Ruins

Unfortunately the sleep had not been very restful. Apparently we all had strange dreams about the place we were in and as such didn't sleep as soundly as we had desired, though it was odd that we all had had the same type of dream. After discussing it for a bit we figured out where the dream had taken place and went there. Some quick searching in the area revealed what we had all witnessed in the dream, the entrance to the lower levels of the ruins. We packed up what we believed we would need, some of which had been shown to us in the dream, and went below, hoping that what we had envisioned wasn't just a chance thing but would actually lead us to what we were seeking. In the dream everything had been so clear, for some strange reason we had known where we were going and it was the same for us now as we began our descent into what should have been the unknown. The light we used came from a crystal torch we created, we had saved a few sizable chunks of crystal in case we needed to develop some very specific technology and this, though not advanced, was specific enough. We used a basic energy to charge the crystal, it provided a white light for us to see by without any side effects, such as the heat or cold we had gone through before. It was all very strange as we continued our journey, we knew where we were going though we should have had no ideas about this place at all. Becaues of this I kept my guard up and Ambri sensed my apprehensions about the visions and remained alert to the things around her as well.

The various chambers were fascinating and we passed through them as we each had in the dream, our focus was to find the end that we never saw when we were sleeping, there would hopefully be time later to check out the rest of the things that were down here, but for now our curiosity drove us forward. As we turned the last corner we remembered in the dream we came to a very large door. Pressing upon it revealed that it was closed tightly and far too heavy for any of us to move it, so we began looking around, trying to figure out how it worked and what would trigger it to open. Unfortunately none of us had reached this point in the dream, so there were no hints to go by except for the items we had brought with us, however none of them seemed relevant to the problem. Taking a closer look at the door revealed very fine lines and patterns etched into it, along some of the lines were symbols in the language of the people of this world and so I got to work interpreting it all while Nira and Ambri continued their search for other clues.

Their search ended up taking them pretty far away when I started to understand how to work the door. They didn't hear me either when I yelled and so I decided to go ahead and get it opened, I knew they would come back eventually. Using one of the energy torches we had created I traced the proper lines to form the symbol that would activate the control mechanism in the door. Having done so the symbol I traced illuminated and the door opened slowly and quietly. Once it had opened fully I proceeded forward into the chamber, which responded quickly to the light I had and illuminated with the same type of energy, though there were clearly no crystals present. As I looked around the enormous chamber I didn't hear the door slowly close behind me until I felt the last bit of air flow stop. I turned around quickly and saw it was closed, there were also no lines or symbols on this side for me to trace and so I knew I would have to find a new way out, though I would worry about that once I explored all the wonderous things I saw around me.

Clearing the Ruins

It seemed our ploy was quite successful, the ship had not shown up yet, which meant we either kept ourselves pretty concealed or the fake ship was still going strong. It was hard to tell how long the ship would last, we didn't have time to watch the energy decay before we deployed it. We had found plenty of time to go through the ruins, however nothing turned up that helped us determine how to fight our enemy. We learned much of a rich culture that the people of this planet had lived, but nothing of any sort of technology that they possessed that would have eventually led to the creation of the device we had studied. It was good that we still seemed to have more time, our next bit of exploration would take us into some of the deeper parts of the ruins we had been wandering in. The entrance wasn't obvious, but we knew it was there. We had dared to activate some scanners to tell us if there was more to this place than what we saw, and the scans showed us some caverns going deep beneath us.

Clearing up the plant life to see if we could find the entrance was very time consuming, some of the plants had sharp thorns and so it took us awhile to carefully cut through them. We even employed some burning techniques to clear it up when we had made sure it wouldn't spread further than we intended. All in all the ruins started to look pretty clean as we continued our search. As the day started to turn into night we went back to the ship to get some rest, it had been an exhausting day and we still had a lot of work to do to figure out where the entrance was. Once we had all sat down for a simple meal we began discussing the various things we learned about the civilization that had lived here. Each of us had found a different part of their history and, though it was all fascinating, there wasn't much useful information about what they were capable of or how they designed the ruins that we were exploring. When we finished our meal I double checked that all of our technology was off, save for the one simple device that would detect and alert us to any gravitational fluxes. After I was sure that everything was set we all turned in and got some much needed sleep.

The Ruins

We had several probes ready, we knew we needed to find what we were looking for as fast as possible and so once we arrived in the system we deployed them and waited, both for their data and to see if we had indeed bought ourselves some time away from The Behemoth. Each moment that passed seemed an eternity, I knew the ship would come back for us once it figured out our ruse, however what I didn't know was how long it would take. A few minutes had passed, so at least I knew it had worked, otherwise I would have expected the ship to have arrived by now. With so many probes it didn't take long to narrow our search down to just two planets, both had an atmosphere that could sustain life and both had life upon them, though a few moments later it was clear which one we wanted. The ruins of a civilization were there and some of the markings on those ruins matched those that were on the energy device we had been studying. We quickly made our way to that planet and landed on its surface, we then powered down the ship and as much of our own technology as we could, we would be mostly blind but with nothing running we had the best chance of staying hidden. We also employed our mindforce powers to cloak ourselves as best we could, we just hoped it wouldn't give the entity a way of finding us.

The ruins would have been fascinating if it weren't for the urgency of what we were doing. There was clearly a lot of information and history stored within the markings, however with our supposed limited time we had to work quickly to find the symbols that might give us the information we sought. Using a distinctly outdated means of research meant it took quite a bit of time for each of us to evaluate our designated section, having to create the books with all the deciphered symbols that Nasero had didn't take long, but it was strange to hold such an old type of technology in our hands. Flipping the pages back and forth made our fingers tired and by the time we were a quarter of the way through our first sections we all knew what a papercut felt like. I was the only one who kept a piece of technology running, and barely functional at that. It was a simple sensor to detect gravitational fluctuations in this solar system, so far it had been quiet but it didn't put my mind at ease, I knew either the ship would overtake our energy phony or it would figure out that it wasn't the real thing, in either case I was sure it would come back after us and it probably wouldn't take it long to analyze the previous course we were taking and figure out where we had been heading, it was the thing's planet that we were on.

As the hours dragged on in our effort to find an answer, we began taking breaks, getting some rest to keep ourselves sane. Ambri and Nira had both had theirs and were urging me to take mine, I resisted but eventually knew that they were right, I would be able to work harder and faster if I took a moment to relax. I handed over the monitor to Nira and explored the ruins a bit, I had kept the book with me but instead of looking for something in particular I was just learning what I could, it was much easier to do than to desperately look for information on the technology that held that energy being in. Most of the information wasn't anything insightful, though there were some areas that gave me some extra information regarding their language and understanding of scientific things, but nothing that brought me to the conclusion that they were brilliant. I read about their history, how many of them there had been in various areas, how peaceful their lives had been when compared to other civilizations and how they constructed things. Most of their work was done with natural materials, which made me wonder at what point they had been able to create such a device as we had seen. There was no talk of flying machines or space travel, mostly the stars were regarded with wonder and awe, several stories also contained predictions based on their studies of these "lights in the sky". Each piece of history I read brought me further into the belief that this entity was not really tied to them, though the writing was the same here that had been on the shell of the prison. It didn't seem like long, but eventually Ambri found me and asked if everything was alright, I had been gone over two hours. This startled me a bit and I told her I hadn't been aware of so much time passing, so I went back with her and we continued studying the ruins for the specific symbols we needed to find.