Divine Awakening - Chapter 55

Chapter 55

Ash carefully travelled down the southeast tunnel, Lesser Ripple pushing out before him. The rest of the group all left the cavern they’d rested in, advancing cautiously behind him, their footfalls echoing against the ancient stone walls—loud in his Solar Plexus enhanced senses.

The dungeon’s oppressive atmosphere clung to Ash like a second skin. The air tasted faintly of decay—an unsettling reminder of how long these halls had remained sealed away from the world.

Concentrating on Lesser Ripple Ash fanned it outward in a sphere in case the danger came from a different direction. His Third Eye didn’t detect anything imminent, so he continued forward slowly.

Two minutes later, an ominous chamber loomed into sight, vast and circular, with towering columns, ancient Sumerian or Egyptian symbols inscribed upon them. Ash didn’t know how to tell them apart. Torches completed a ring around the chamber twenty feet above, like a glowing crown. The scent of incense pooled in the chamber, forcing him to breathe through his mouth to keep from sneezing.

Ash let Lesser Ripple encompass the room, but Third Eye didn’t so much as itch. He entered the hundred-foot-wide chamber and quickly made a circuit, checking it out before the team arrived.

Ten humanoid jackal statues stood like guards around the edge of the room, each holding a spear. They were completely black and sculpted in lifelike detail. Writing encircled the floor of the room, the symbols in front of each statue larger than the rest of the script. A single large cuneiform occupied the center of the floor.

Ash still felt no warning from Third Eye and saw no visible door.

“This place feels wrong,” Blueprint whispered as she entered the room, her rifle held ready.

Ash felt it too, the hum of ancient magic crawling along his skin. Nothing appeared, but the silence felt deliberate, as if waiting for release.

Nomad, flanking Shamrock’s left, gave a tight nod. “Spread out. Everyone ready for contact. Watch your step and don’t touch anything. Fletcher, Grizzly, you're up.”

Fletcher immediately went to the right and Grizzly to the left. Nomad searched the air above. In seconds they had confirmed what Ash already knew—the room was empty.

“Shamrock?” Nomad asked.

“All good at the moment.”

“Readers, Thinkers, and Talkers it’s showtime.”

Oracle, Cipher, and Babel exited the tunnel to the right and moved slowly around the room, studying the walls and floor, Blueprint following behind them as protection.

To the left, Wiki, Checkmate, and Syntax mirrored the other team, and Longshot followed to provide cover if needed.

Ash could see how the groupings worked. The Talkers could interpret the languages and tell the Readers, who analyzed for clues to the historical period or referenced stories to help understand the purpose of the room. The Thinkers could identify any patterns, both in the written or spoken forms, and anything else the others might have missed.

“Do you have names for all the groupings?” Ash asked.

Nomad smiled. “Yep. The other seven are: Builders, Docs, Leaders, Boomers, Snipers, Campers, and Greeters.”

It took Ash a moment to understand a few of them. The Snipers must be Longshot and Fletcher since they could use their bows to silently kill from a distance. The Campers must be Grizzly and Everest who probably spent a lot of time outside survival training. Greeters had to be Brainwave and Relay since they both had skills to help them identify and quantify anyone they met. That must mean Nomad knew a little about Relay’s ability to see symbols around others.

The Readers, Thinkers, and Talkers met at the opposite side of the chamber. They spoke for a few seconds and then all six along with their protection strode to the center of the room to view the large symbol there. Syntax and Babel slowly walked around it.

Nomad stood patiently beside Ash waiting for the two groups to reach a consensus. They did and Babel strode toward them.

“Talk to me, Babel,” Nomad said.

Babel turned as she spoke, pointing to different points in the room. “Each statue stands in front of the name of a place. Uruk, Nippur, Ur, Eridu and so on. All significant Sumerian locations. The Readers and Thinkers are discussing but no obvious pattern.”

“And the thing in the center?” Nomad asked pointing to where the others still stood.

Babel sighed. “Syntax and I agree on the basic meaning of ‘to go’ or ‘travel,’ but it’s written slightly different than normal, and we can’t agree on why.”

“Your assessment,” Nomad asked.

“I think the form points to the concept of ‘fast’ and Syntax believes the alteration contains a spiritual or divine nature.”

Cipher jogged to the statue closest to Ash. He studied it, moving slowly down the black stone. He touched the spear the statue held and Third Eye flared.

“Stop!” Ash yelled at Cipher.

Cipher froze as Ash stepped closer, and Nomad followed.

“It’s dangerous,” Ash told the Marine and the genius immediately removed his fingers from the spear and stepped back.

“Are you a button pusher Jarhead?” Nomad asked Cipher.

“No sir. Sorry sir.”

“What’s up, Shamrock?” Nomad asked.

Ash studied the spear but didn’t notice anything amiss. His Third Eye had gone quiet.

Ash looked at Cipher. “What were you planning?”

Cipher licked his lips and pointed to the oversized symbol in front of the statue. “The Talkers say these are places, and the big thing in the middle means to travel. So I thought the statues might be what bridged the two concepts.” He turned toward Nomad. “I wasn’t going to push any buttons. I only wanted to see if the spear had any movement.”

“No touching, remember,” Nomad said, and Cipher nodded. “Good idea though, Cipher. That makes sense to me.”

Ash agreed.

“Lightly touch the spear again,” Ash said.

Cipher did and Ash’s Third Eye flared.

“Okay, let’s go touch all the others,” Ash stated, already striding to the next statue.

“Two button pushers,” Nomad muttered loudly to himself, and Cipher smiled.

They repeated the process on all ten statues.

“Well?” Nomad asked.

Everyone had gathered around the tunnel opening.

Ash pointed at one of the statues. “That one is the least dangerous.”

Nomad turned to Babel.

“Uruk,” Babel responded to the unasked question.

Wiki spoke up, his words spilling out as if desperate to get them all spoken. “Uruk was one of the most powerful and largest cities of ancient Sumer, known as the home of the legendary King Gilgamesh and the site of monumental ziggurats. Ziggurats are massive, stepped temple structures and served as religious and administrative centers. In Uruk most of the ziggurats would focus on the worship of the goddess Inanna, who everyone calls Ishtar nowadays.”

Wiki took a breath but before he could continue Nomad held up a hand. “Thanks, Wiki.”

“Inanna and Ishtar are not the same,” Oracle said forcefully to Wiki. “Inanna is clearly a combination of traditions that—”

Nomad held up a hand to Oracle in a placating gesture. “Let’s argue about that later.” He turned to Ash. “What do you think, Shamrock?”

“We have two choices,” Ash responded. “Return to the cavern under the temple and take a different tunnel or pull the spear down on one of these jackals.”

“Like a Sumerian slot machine,” Relay said quietly.

“We can’t go back,” Tripwire said from inside the tunnel. “I checked our six and the tunnel somehow loops back to this room. We’re stuck here.”

“Fletcher, Grizzly, check it,” Nomad said.

The two men jogged down the tunnel, disappearing around a bend in the passage. Thirty seconds later their jogging forms reappeared, this time facing them.

“Son of a—,” Nomad muttered, the last portion unintelligible.

“Uruk it is,” Ash said. “Let’s get everyone out of the tunnel before we try that jackal.”

Nomad placed everyone on one side of the chamber so that if things went south, friendly fire wouldn’t become an issue.

With a nod from Nomad, Ash stepped up to the stone guardian. From the experimentation with Cipher, he knew only a touch on the spear caused any type of reaction from Third Eye, confirming it held the mechanism to trigger whatever this room did.

Ash gripped the statue’s spear, the stone cold against his fingers. He pulled down, and just as he’d expected, the spear easily rotated with the movement.

The dense uneasy feeling Ash felt upon entering the room spiked, then disappeared. His skin prickled with goosebumps.

An arched doorway had appeared in the wall behind the jackal and hot air flowed over Ash, causing the stale air in the chamber to swirl.

Through the opening, packed red earth stretched for twenty feet before ending at a canal. The waterway spanned thirty feet. On the far side another packed dirt road was bordered by a brightly colored wall. Not a wall Ash realized, but the bottom tier of a massive ziggurat. Mud brick structures sprawled around it and disappeared to the edges of his limited sight lines.

Third Eye itched but it didn’t flare, and Ash’s Root chakra barely stirred.

“Give me a minute,” Ash said and Nomad nodded.

Ash stepped through the doorway and the whispering voices reappeared, louder now. He tried to ignore them as he studied his surroundings. Movement caught his attention at the top of a ziggurat in the distance and he immediately studied the one across the canal in case these acted as sentry towers.

The top appeared empty of figures, but something shiny reflected the scorching sun. Ash turned and studied the massive ziggurat he’d exited. The bottom tier was constructed from thirty-foot-high blocks of stone.

Third Eye didn’t react strongly to any direction, only indicating a moderate danger everywhere around him. Ash used Lesser Ripple to check the immediate area.

Nomad stepped up beside Ash. “How can there be a sun that hot? Aren’t we underground?”

“I’m not sure,” Ash responded.

They’d exited from the middle of the ziggurat and Ash strode quickly to the edge, peeking around to see if anything stood nearby.

Ash shifted his attention to the canal and headed toward it. Third Eye responded to this, and he turned cautious.

The temperature dropped a few degrees as Ash crept up on the waterway, the air noticeably more humid. Lesser Ripple still didn’t detect anything dangerous within a hundred feet.

Everyone exited the ziggurat and awaited Ash’s directions. He leaned out over the canal to look for bridges or causeways to cross, and a little of the red dirt fell from the road and into the water creating small waves.

Within seconds Third Eye responded. A moment later Ash knew why.

From both directions, creatures moved through the canal like speedboats. At first Ash thought they were crocodiles, but their wakes appeared far too large.

“Incoming,” Ash yelled as he stepped back.

More information appeared right before Ash lost sight of the creatures, and he suddenly understood the reason for the large wakes.

Name: Hippodile

Type: Hybrid Mutant

Level: 12

Description: Fast moving guardians these creatures combine the jaw strength and viciousness of a crocodile with the speed and strength of a hippopotamus.

Damage: 10-18 Crushing, 3-6 Piercing

Effect (Passive): Ripple – detect any disturbance within five hundred feet while submerged.

Effect (Triggered): Charge – for three seconds double speed on land or quadruple speed in water.

Ash willed the information he’d received into the chat and was gratified when it worked.

“How many?” Nomad asked as Ash returned.

“At least four, two from each direction,” Ash replied as he turned to face the Hippodiles that would soon be upon them.