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Chapter 150: The Ancient Ruins
🕑 Added 2023-03-29 16:36:01 +0000 UTCA goblin stood in the middle of the high-tech room. The contrast was almost jarring.
Its bare green feet were planted on the immaculate marble floor. It was green, child-sized, and covered in brown rags. Its teeth were sharp, like a dog’s, its eyes were dark beads of hatred, while it rubbed its short claws together, enjoying the prospect of devouring them without the slightest idea of how massive the gap between them was.
“Kekekeke,” it laughed, licking its long, clawed fingers. “Humans. I bity! I eaty!”
Jack did a double-take. “Is that a goblin?” he asked. “Why would a goblin—”
He almost scanned it. Almost. The move was an ingrained reflex by now, but his surprise was such that he waited an extra moment, and that saved him. The words on the wall came to mind: “Scan nothing.”
His thoughts were firecrackers. All connections were made instantly, and he dived in front of Nauja, shouting, “NO! Don’t scan it!” He landed in a somersault, rising to his feet at once.
“What are you doing?” she asked, raising a brow. She ignored the goblin completely.
“Don’t scan it!” he said again, speaking quickly. “The wall said not to scan anything. This is what it meant. Don’t scan the goblin. That’s the only reason it would appear; it’s too weak to test us in combat.”
Nauja raised the other brow, too. “Okay,” she said, turning back to the little creature, which was now approaching them with an astonishing unawareness of danger. “So, what should we do with it?”
“Let me handle it.”
Jack stood before her, facing the goblin. It suddenly broke into a sprint, covering the room as quickly as its little legs could take it. It was…painfully slow.
“Kekekekeke!”
“I don’t think it’s a threat,” Nauja said from behind him.
“Let’s not risk it,” Jack retorted. “Since we can’t scan it, it could be hiding its power.”
The goblin finally reached them. Even Brock looked disinterested, but Jack had experienced the System’s shenanigans before, and he was determined to play it safe. He shot a Meteor Punch as the goblin came within ten feet.
“Keke—” It exploded without even seeing the strike. In fact, the explosion was so strong that the goblin was torn into a million tiny pieces, covering the floor behind it in a red paste that spread across half the room.
They remained silent for a moment.
“I think it’s dead,” Nauja finally said, “but you can hit it again if you want. Just to be sure.”
“Caution is important,” he retorted, rubbing the back of his head. “But, man… I remember how one of them almost killed me once. Tough times to be a goblin.”
“Eh. They’re goblins.” She shrugged. “Little sacks of hatred and sadism. They’re better off dead.”
“I thought you loved nature.”
“I do. But not goblins.”
He shrugged back. “Well, it’s dead now, anyway. I wonder if we succeeded this trial thingy already.”
“Maybe there will be a kobold next. You should hit it even harder.”
“You’re welcome for my figuring out the trick, by the way.”
“Just so you know, I figured it out myself, too.”
“I didn’t hear you shouting, ‘Don’t scan it!’”
“I trusted you.”
“I call bullshit.”
“In any case,” Nauja looked around, scanning the walls, “what now?”
This time, the room took her cue. Just as her words finished ringing, a sliding sound made them turn towards a wall. A door had opened there—a door that had been indistinguishable before.
At the same time, the goblin’s remains were absorbed into the floor, walls, and ceiling, leaving the room as spotless as when they entered.
Jack raised a brow. “Maybe that’s what happened to the previous delvers,” he said. “They died of dehydration, then were sucked into the floor.”
“What a way to go, huh?”
“Yeah.”
There was light beyond the door, so they didn’t bother keeping their torch. It had almost burned out, anyway. Jack let it fall, and the floor absorbed it after a moment. “Think it can absorb us too?”
“Not so far. Let’s hurry before it changes its mind.”
They reached the door with quick steps and peered through.
“What the fuck?” Jack said.
“This is…” Nauja’s eyes went wide. “This is impossible!”
A civilization stretched before them.
The cave ceiling rose a mile above them, but not as high as the sky. Mushrooms hung from it, illuminating rolling fields of wheat and vegetables. These stretched on for miles, all the way to the far wall, a rising cliff of stone that connected the ground with the ceiling.
There was cattle, too. Cows and pigs, sheep and goats, all grazing on a hill that rose to the right. To the left stood a small lake, its edges bordering the wall.
People dotted the landscape. Some tended to animals; others, to the fields. There were many of them, easily dozens, maybe hundreds, and they looked like humans.
The entire thing looked like Earth, actually. The cattle was the same. The crops, too. There was even a temple at the back, resembling a buddhist shrine. The only differences were the houses, little picturesque huts with no roofs, and the subtle hints of advanced technology. Everywhere Jack looked, he saw high-tech contraptions integrated into the seemingly simplistic lifestyle.
Here, a farmer tilled the field with a hoe that had a vibrating head. There, the cows were tied to a wooden stake that slowly moved around the fields on tiny legs, regulating their feeding. Farther back, a watermill scooped up the lakewater, pouring it into an ingenious irrigation system that spanned the fields.
And everyone wore a smile. Nobody seemed tired. These were happy people. Simple. At peace.
Jack was left staring.
“What?” he asked.
“That’s…” Nauja could barely hold back her excitement. She stepped through the door, into the large cave beyond—
—and everything faded.
It was like a veil was pulled from their eyes. The vibrant farms were replaced by weeds and flat, barren soil. The cattle disappeared, their pens fading away a moment later. The houses stood the test of time, changing from homes to ruins. The smiling people were the final thing to go, turning to look at Jack and Nauja as they did. Their bodies became dust, from their legs to their heads, leaving their smiles for last.
A moment later, everything was gone. Thousands of years had passed in the blink of an eye. The flourishing civilization had turned into a wasteland, with only the ruins of a few houses standing out here and there like memories of a time long past.
“No!” Nauja said. “I… I thought…”
“An illusion,” Jack said, stepping up beside her. “The past, maybe? But…how? And why?”
“I think these were my ancestors,” Nauja muttered, tears welling up in her eyes. “I think…the Ancients used to live here.”
“Really?” Jack thought back to their human forms, their Earth-like environment. Were Ancients really like that?
“I really do.” She turned to look at him. “But now, they’re all gone.”
“Yeah, I guess they are.”
The ruins were lifeless, save for weeds. Whatever lived here, it had been a long, long time ago.
However, there was one thing that remained unchanged. The temple at the back, the buddhist shrine, was exactly as the illusion had shown it, as if time had no grip on it. It stood guard over the barren fields, lifeless, still, but exuding the same holiness it always did.
“What is this place?” Jack asked, looking around. “What’s the point of it? All the tests, the door, the blood, the goblin… Why scan nothing? Why such secrecy? Why would Ancients—if they really were that—be living in Trial Planet, and why would they not want to be found?”
“They were Ancients, I know it,” Nauja said strongly. “We have stories about them. How they lived as one with nature, how they reached the apex of technology, saw its futility, then returned to the roots. It’s exactly what we saw in the illusion.”
“It is,” Jack admitted. “But still, why?”
At this, Nauja paused. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “Maybe… Maybe they disliked the delvers. They wanted to hide from them, escape the incessant conflict, the greed.”
“Hmm.” Jack’s eyes narrowed, then widened. “Wait! The Ancients were exterminated by the Old Ones, right? In your story. Maybe these ones escaped, somehow, and hid here to escape the wrath of gods.”
“You think? But why would they still hide? The Old Ones can’t come here.”
“Maybe they just…never knew.” Jack looked around again, taking in the ever-sealed stone. “Maybe they were here for a looong time.”
Her face soured. “They aren’t stupid. They would know.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. But they would have a way.”
“Maybe that place has answers,” Jack suggested, pointing at the temple. “What do you say? Wanna take a look?”
“I absolutely do!” Despite her broken and bandaged hand, Nauja was brimming with energy. Her eyes sparked, her face glowing. “Let’s go.”
“Brock?”
The brorilla was nearby, watching over the ruins with them. He idly twirled the Staff of Stone around himself, lost in thought. When Jack called, he snapped out of it and pointed at the ruins. “Strong,” he said.
Jack raised a brow. “A new word? Congrats, bro!”
Brock gave him a toothy grin.
“But strong…” Jack repeated, looking over the ruins. “What do you mean by that, my friend?”
The brorilla thought for a moment, then shrugged. He didn’t even bother miming. “Strong,” he said again, pointing to his heart.
“Hmm. Yeah. I understand.”
Nauja puffed up in pride. “Of course my ancestors were awesome!”
They paced into the ruins. They didn’t take a straight line to the temple—they explored a bit. From up-close, the contrast between past and present was even more striking. They passed by the watermill’s remains, only finding rotten wooden foundations where it used to stand. The irrigation system, all those wooden pipes, had been absorbed into the ground. The fields were overgrown with weeds, rugged patches of ground flowing over one another. The ruined houses still stood, and Jack realized that the wood in them didn’t look quite right. It shimmered oddly. Perhaps that was why it lasted so long—from what he knew, Trial Planet had been in their galaxy for a million years.
In fact, the wood didn’t just shimmer. There was a hint of something to it, an itch at the back of his mind, urging him to focus his will and scan it. Jack refused. Though curiosity burned him, he remembered the instruction not to scan anything. It didn’t make any sense—but his heart chose to follow the will of these people.
The System-induced urge to scan growed the more he resisted. It went from an itch to an uncomfortable whisper at the back of his mind, like an odd addiction acting up. It was like being offered a cup of coffee after not having drunk any in three days. In fact, it was even worse, because all it would take to activate the scan was a moment of weakness, one misstep of intention.
Together, the three of them walked through the ruins like time had lost all meaning. When they reached the temple, they stopped and gawked at it.
It was smaller than it looked from afar. A small wooden fence, barely enough to stop livestock from walking over, enclosed a courtyard the size of the goblin room from before. At its back, attached to the stone wall of the cave, was a small shrine, its gates open.
They approached. Jack, feeling wary, took to the front. A small stone tablet was half-buried in the soil before the shrine’s open entrance. Warily, he leaned down and wiped its dusty surface, revealing ancient words carved into the stone.
May they who think themselves worthy enter. May they save us from the evil we have inflicted on the world.
It was promising.
The inside of the shrine was as simple as its exterior. A room twenty by twenty feet, with a human-sized stone statue in its middle depicting a smiling man, thin and dressed in light robes, with long silken hair tumbling down his back. His smile, however… It was one filled with calmness and peace, but hiding under it all the vicissitudes of life, like this man had already seen through everything.
Unlike the buddhist-like shrine, this man didn’t look like Earth’s depictions of Buddha. However, he still reminded something to Jack. It took him a moment to place the feeling. Last time he’d seen this man, there was no hair, no robes, and his features were indiscernible. But the smile was exactly the same. Jack’s eyes widened at the same time that Nauja’s did.
“That’s Enas!” they exclaimed at the same time.
“Why is a shrine of an Old One here?” Jack said. “I thought they eradicated the Ancients. They were enemies.”
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Nauja muttered, frowning. “The Old Ones supposedly destroyed the Ancients shortly after making contact. There shouldn’t be any time for worship to occur.”
“It is odd,” Jack agreed, but his attention was drawn to something else. First, the statue created in him the same urge to scan it as the wood outside—like the Staff of Stone, the Dao Soul, and other scannable items.
Second, the statue wasn’t the only thing in the room. As he took a step inside, a glimmer of white in a corner caught his eye. It wasn’t visible from outside, as it was stuck to the entrance wall, but there was a skeleton there. It was humanoid and in a cross-legged position, back pressed to the wall. Despite the ages it had been since this person died, their skeleton remained whole and pristine, and not just that. The bones exuded a sense of awe and wonder, like they radiated the power of the Dao even centuries or millennia after death. They were also scannable, as Jack’s gut feeling hurried to inform him.
“What’s the meaning of all this?” he asked. “A shrine to an Old One, a hidden pocket of Ancients, a corpse brimming with power after all this time, a testing room that still operates perfectly, the command to not scan anything…” He shook his head. “What the hell’s wrong with this place?”
Nauja ignored his words. She touched her forehead to the ground before the corpse, struggling to bow with one hand tied-up. “Ancestor…” she said reverently. “Nauja is here. May you rest in peace.”
Seeing her, Jack inclined his head as well. “You have my respect, ancestor. Apologies for disturbing your rest.”
Brock nodded, too. “Strong,” he said, using his shiny new word again.
A moment of somberness went by. Then, Jack asked, “Should we bury it?”
“Can you not feel its power, Jack?” Nauja asked from the ground. “If such a powerful person wanted to be buried, they would be. No. This ancestor chose to die here, to keep an eye on this shrine even after death. Let’s leave it be.”
“Alright,” he whispered.
Then, while Nauja remained bowed, muttering a prayer to her ancestors, Jack looked about the room again. He felt small in this place. Insignificant. He couldn’t shake this feeling that they’d intruded on a secret larger than they could handle, something they should never have found. There was a sense of power everywhere, of awe. Everything in this place—from the engraved door to the corpse—spoke of forces far stronger than Jack could comprehend right now.
This was a place meant for people far, far stronger than Jack and Nauja.
And there was a hint of wonder in that. Of achievement. That, by some stroke of blind luck, Jack was here, taking in the sights that his meager strength could never afford. Who knows what tremendous powers lay in wait here, what secrets to uncover?
Even ruined as this place was, he refused to believe it was empty. There had to be something. Nauja had mentioned trials with life-changing rewards. This could be such a place. And, secret as it was, the rewards would be ever greater. Something related to the Ancients and the Old Ones could only be unimaginable in importance.
His treasure hunting sense was going off. Something was here. Something tremendous. An opportunity that could make his impossible goal slightly more doable. But where?
If only he could scan things…
His gaze returned to the statue. It stood in the middle of the room, unbothered by their presence, stony gaze directed at the front, one hand extended with its palm facing forward.
Jack approached it, circled it, observed it. The craftsmanship was uncanny, as expected from people who could carve even steel. It made him curious. What secrets could it hide?
He snuck a glance at Nauja. She was still bowed, not looking over. Brock was looking, but he was a bro. He wouldn’t speak.
Unable to resist, Jack raised a hand and touched the statue, meaning to feel its surface, to experience its age and meaning.
The moment he touched it, an ancient voice rang out, booming from every direction at the same time. “Let the trial begin.”
And he teleported.
Comments
Daniel
Just guessing here, but I expect that scanning things tells the System that it exists. If the Old Ones are capable of using the System (either directly or indirectly?) that would reveal this hidden place to them. That urge to scan is *sus* bro.
