Ghosmoure Saga: Discovery Ch. 04

Chapter 4

*-*-*(Author's Note: Yeah, sorry for the delayed posting of this chapter. This is a pivotal chapter where the plot goes into gear and where things start to go wrong with our characters. I had a lot of trouble putting this chapter into writing and had to split it into two chapters to make it manageable. The trouble began when I tried to force all this into a single chapter and made it a nightmare to edit and revise, so I had to settle into dividing it into two chapters, making the pacing easier as well. This chapter went into multiple rewrites and redrafts, hence its delayed posting. End of Note) *-*-*

My lips were set in a grim hard line as I first laid eyes on the island. It was a black sludge in the horizon, one berthed from the bellows of the abyss itself until the cold waters of the Pacific cooled its raging magma and coalesced to the island that is now. As the Esmeralda's engine humbly chugged her way into the bubbling waters of these volcanic waters, I noticed with grim realization that the stretch of water surrounding the volcanic landmass were littered with numerous piscine corpses. There were so many dead fish floating atop the waterline, from small humble school fishes to large game fishes like swordfish, marlins and many others.

I have never seen the likes of it, with the reaction the underwater volcano has on the surrounding waters has rendered it an almost pitch-black coloring and acidic qualities to killed surrounding marine life.

A myriad of other sea life also floated among the dead, ones that took great effort to draw my eyes away from, horrid looking creatures from the deepest of abyss: deep-sea anglers and oarfishes I managed to identify, with many others whose name I do not know with features so alien and twisted that I wondered if they even belonged to this very Earth. They all littered the boiling black waters in their multitude, thousands of unblinking circular eyes staring at the heavens in quiet agony. Everything about this place sent shivers down my spine, as if we weren't supposed to be there.

It was a hard thing to explain, which is why I never spoke it aloud to my sisters, for there was no concrete evidence to back up my claim. Just a feeling. As we approached the black mass of cooling igneous, I felt, what could only be explained, a certain watchfulness about the place. As if the very island had unseen eyes looking outward for any intruders that dare disturb its hissing and boiling lull.

The surrounding sea was littered with dead fish and yet not a sea gull on sight. They should be swarming the place to feast and pluck the dead and yet none flew. Save for the bubbling from the heat, the waters were strangely calm. A subtle heaviness hung in the air, as if the wind had drawn to a still, holding its breathe.... as if waiting. But for what?

"Don't go into the water," I happen blurted to my sisters when they joined me on the deck to prepare for landfall. It was quite obvious with the state of the waters but I especially made a point to refer to Kit at that remark. She can be recklessly adventurous and prone to accidents, especially when we were kids.

"No shit, Sherlock," Kit gave me a sour look as if I thought of her as a dolt. I shrugged, better to be safe than sorry. I circled the isle, not a month old by Tanner's satellite reports, looking for suitable shores to dock the Esmeralda.

It was still unstable when we arrived, pieces of it breaking off and sinking back to the obsidian void of the waters that it rose out of, with small aftershocks rocking its depth every few hours or so. Every fiber of my being spoke out, eager to depart and never look back from this place. But I held my tongue, the glint of discovery in both my sisters' eyes could not be easily quenched by my caution.

By Tanner's estimation, the size of the island could have been three klicks in the longest and one klick at the shortest. I could not see further inland, the outer edges of the landmass were entrenched with a steep inclined rise, six feet higher than the Esmeralda. I spent half an hour trying to ascertain where to make port and found the best out of the worst, a narrow but navigable slope that would make it just possible enough for the ATV and a small attached two-wheeled trailer to ride through. We could try and circumnavigate the entirety of the island's outcrop but that would waste precious time. Rock formations proved to be poor docking in the half an hour we spent trailing the rocky coast and this spot was the one with the least likely rocks to rupture the hull of the Esmeralda. Plus, weather conditions were less than optimal with the lurking stormclouds that hung literally over our heads. The wind did not have a cold bite to it and was warm, my gut instinct telling me that it would most likely pass over us and spare the Esmeralda from being thrashed against the jagged rocks.

Hopefully.

Thankfully, the Esmeralda has just enough space in her hold for some small machinery and Tanner has the foresight to have a small ATV suited for just one rider, attached at the back was a two-wheeled trailer for the rest of the equipment to be hauled easily in our inland expedition.

With practiced efficiency and haste, Kit and Tanner unloaded all their equipment in fifteen minutes after secure docking. Then they retreated below deck to change into something Tanner said their Research and Development Department cooked up for both of them. Must be some experimental equipment, which gave me just enough time to double check the security of the Esmeralda. My eyes were drawn to the olive-green footlocker hidden in my wheel cabin. Something itched at the back of my head, like a claw raking on stone. An old instinct of mine when I had served in the Marine Corp. Without thinking further, I hoisted the footlocker, muscles straining and quickly loaded it on the back of the ATV trailer when my sisters weren't looking. Then I covered it up with the rest of the excavation equipment, camera cases and sample containment cases until it was completely hidden beneath. I hope that my instincts are wrong and that I never have to use what's inside.

I noticed Tanner seemed to be in a better mood. As we were loading the supplies unto the trailer, she didn't give me one of her withering side-eyes or didn't tense up with restrained dislike whenever I got close. She handed me the cases with little to no spite, which was good. Guessed Kit must've talked to her or something. I have to talk to my little sister about that.

Sounds of their footsteps came closer as they climbed back up from below decks. I double checked the equipment and the green footlocker, making sure it wasn't easily seen. "Everything is green and good to go," I said to them when I secured the clamp on the trailer. I had my back turned to them. I turned around shouted, "Good lord! What are you wearing?" I raised my hand to shield my eyes.

"This is a next generation exosuit, made in mind for extreme and harsh environments," explained Tanner. Kit followed closely by, but I noticed she was trying to hide behind Tanner nonchalantly. I don't blame her.

The suit they were wearing looked similar to that of a wetsuit, skintight but the material woven into it had a glistening effect when struck by sunlight, showing hexagon patterns in the hundreds. It was complete with an attached helmet on that showed a full faced glass helm, an unobstructed view of the wearer's face. It would not be out of place in a sci-fi movie shoot. But the main reason for my reaction was that the material was so skin tight and thin that it left little to the imagination as it adapted to the contours of both my sisters' body.

I had to glance up at an angle and look at the periphery of my vision. No decent brother wanted to see their female sibling in their birthday suit. The first that drew my eyes were their nipples were clearly poking through the material.

"I take it these things are still in the prototype stages?" I asked looking mostly to the sky. If I look at either of them straight, my eyes would see a not-so-small hint of Tanner's nipples poking through the material of the suit.

Christ.

"Yes. Good guess. How did you know?" Tanner asked indifferently.

I raised my hand for decency's sake, to cover my eyes, "That's because I could see some glaring issues with it and I highly doubt a professional would have these things approved to be mass produced as it is."

"Really? What issues?" She asked in a blasé manner.

"Tan, I could see your fucking nipples poking through. I take it Kit has a similar problem with her suit?" I could partly see Kit looking down, clearly flustered and already halfway back below deck.

"The suit is state of the art technology. It needs unobstructed contact with the upper dermis to provide flawless biometrics through my HUD. It regulates body heat and air filtration, dehydration is reduced by 36%, while oxygen intake depletion is reduced by 18%. It stalls the calorific deficiency state of the body when food resources are scarce by an astounding 27% across the board."

"What about common decency?" I said and I tried to look her straight but my eyes reflexively glanced down, trying to take it all in and almost jumped out of their socket and I forced myself to glance up back again.

"Tan, I can see your cameltoe!" I yelled. "Don't you have pads?"

After another ten minutes of rummaging below deck, Tan and Kit walked back out of the deck and into the shore below still wearing that ridiculous suit. Kit was moving more freely now but still I could not help but force myself to glance at any other direction where my sisters weren't standing. The glaring problems may be out of the way but the damn exosuit was quite flattering to their figures. It hugged the contours of the body and even bending in places left little to the imagination.

Both of them were in their prime, with Tanner being tall and slender of frame, with subtle curves that would draw the eye. Seeing Kit as she is now made me sick about myself. She had a full figure, with more dangerous curves and a full chest compared to Tanner. I am going to hell and I deserve to for even having a trickle of depraved thoughts with my sisters. It could not be helped, there was that underlying animal within every man that they must wrestle with. I know I should not and yet that unreasoning, illogical part of my brain that only sees them as physically attractive women and nothing more would whisper dark twisted thoughts into my mind's ear. They were stupid, intrusive thoughts that would come and go with irregularity.

I easily dispelled them for now, focusing on the larger task at hand. Such is the way with dealing with such intrusive thoughts.

I never knew what it was I expected once we landed. The land was barren and uneven, recently formed volcanic rocks having cooled, made the landscape jagged and craggy with many small rises and hills. Black rocks littered the entirety of the island, fissures appeared on the ground, hissing volcanic fumes. Footing was atrocious and uneven but the ATV proved to be quite useful in making our trek easier. No trees or plantlife of course, not enough time yet for it to bloom here in this arid soil. A primordial land where no mortal soul has ever set foot save for us. The sun had been hidden behind a brume that had not lifted for the last two days, filtering golden sunlight into a dreary, lazy brown haze that made my humors glazed with a depressive undertone. I longed for clear blue skies and familiar waters. The sooner we could be done and my sisters safe and back home, the better.

Tanner and Kit led the way, while I brought up the rear with the ATV and the attached trailer with all our equipment. I noticed Tan carrying a case I hadn't seen before. I pretended not to notice Kit giving me a quick glance before saying something to Tanner. My older sister never made a motion to look at me, as if she was trying hard not to turn around whenever the case, and whatever is inside of it, is open.

More secrets. Great.

They were consorting that tool they had that never left Tanner's person. Once the case was closed only did the both of them turned to face me fully. I pretended to fiddle with the ATV's odometer or the harness that held the equipment together when they think I'm not looking at them.

We moved on, making further inland. I noticed both of them were ecstatic, with Kit's blue eyes wide in wonder and Tanner sporting a genuine smile in her face as she documented her findings with a tape recorder and an almost animated energy about her as she gestured to the landscape for the camera. I roll my eyes. They made recorded commentaries with their built in cameras in their suits.

"Making ingress towards the island. Terrain is craggy, with regular spurts of volcanic vents caused by the sudden release of pressure resulting from superheated magma meeting with the seawater. Time is 0918 hours eastern time. Making towards Extraction Site Alpha."

Some parts of the island were small areas of flat terrain in between small rises and rock formations and we used as much of these to make our journey easier and safer at the cost of time. We weaved our way in long curved paths with the both of my sisters not complaining, not once. I looked to my watch and saw that we've been trekking for the past two hours when something caught my attention to the strange terrain of the land. Multitude of holes, warrens by the looks of them, dotted the sides of some small hills and mounds that littered the isle. Small vents of gasses would hiss out from them and they looked deep, with unyielding shadows that made gauging their depths from the outside a complete mystery.

"Hey Kit, see those caverns on the hills to the left? How did these things got made? Aren't caverns formed due to water erosion?" I asked Kit over the radio. She and Tanner were about twenty meters ahead of me. God in heaven forgive me, I had to look to the sides for any and all distractions, their suits were formed so tightly against their bodies and the both of them were in damn good shape--

Jesus Christ! What am I thinking about?!

I shook myself straight and instead focused on Kit's words over the radio.

"--Probably due to release of pressure and gasses making its way to the surface. In any case, I don't suggest any cave diving with this level of tectonic activity as it is," she replied after a crackle of static.

I'd say we were about closer to the center of the island then. We had just cleared the latest rock formation, almost like a small hill when Kit and Tanner saw something from just out of the bend. They ran into a sprint, never bothering to radio it in or whatever they say. I swore under my breathe and throttled the ATV to go faster.

It was a half sunken monolith, halfway buried in the igneous rock, it lied almost flat with a corner of it protruding from the cooled ground. It was fifty feet wide and its dimensions were gargantuan. On it surface was thousands upon thousands of lithographs. Inscriptions. Tanner and Kit were unto it like starved junkyard dogs being thrown a bone. I stayed back and narrowed my eyes. I did not stare long, the more I look the more I felt nauseous. I don't know how they could stand to look at the engravings and not get sick.

"My God, Kit, you getting this?" said Tanner with no little amount of awe.

"Yeah yeah, I'm getting it. Jesus. This is Kit Ghousmoure. Expedition Log 0939 hours, we have encountered a monolithic structure, partially fused into the volcanic spew. Object is thirty feet in height and is etched with murals similar to found in the Siberian Dig site. Extracting samples now. Possibility of extraction unfeasible. Photographic documentation will suffice."

"What the hell is that?" I asked, slightly disturbed. The thing didn't look like it was made by human hands of the ancient past. The depictions and caricatures of people in the object where twisted in various and deplorable acts with one another. I shuddered to myself.

"A mural, probably part of a monolith," Kit answered clinically, turning off her built in recorder and getting down before the large object. I glanced away instinctively when the fabric of her suit stretched and tightened around the contours of her rump.

"Okay, mind telling me how did this thing get here? Wasn't this place all just water up until a couple weeks ago?" I asked, partly interested in the ruins itself and partly to not dwell on the sick thoughts that popped up in my head when my sister bent over. Stupid, stupid suit. No good brother must think of such things.

"We found some accounts and star charts that depicted this area as a small settlement, thousands of years ago. Volcanic activity in the region caused the island to be swallowed by the waves and tectonic movements. Fast forward a couple thousand years, it got churned up once more by way of an underwater volcanic eruption."

"Any other civilization would have been utterly destroyed by the cataclysmic event, inrushing tidal waves and tectonic shifts of the earth. But I deduced that will not be the case for the people of the First Star," Tanner butted in our conversation.

I laid a hand unto the surface of the monolith. It had a sheen like steel but the way the light hits it feels..... off for some reason. It had the quiet strength of stone but the more I look at it, the more I felt something wrong, something I'm not seeing quite right. Was that.... vibrations in the air around it? I couldn't be sure if it's just the volcanic gas in the area or a trick of the light, "It's because of this strange metal isn't it?"

"Metal, mineral, our research departments couldn't make heads or tails with how to classify this object's composition," Tan nodded to me. I was surprised her tone seemed rather.... helpful. A slight hint of approval even. Tanner continued, "It is virtually indestructible. But because of it supposed indestructibility, we are unable to gain any smaller samples or garner any effective ways to deconstruct and read its molecular composition. What we have in our Research vaults barely amounted to 10kg of tablets and small sculptures of this element."

"Which begged the question how did they work the element? How were they able to achieve this level of marvel and craftsmanship?" Kit added in wonder. Tan nodded, silently observing the sculpting laid on the surface of the monolith.

"This kind of unknown metal, it must fetch quite a price huh?" I came to the natural conclusion of such a previous metal. And may even put a sizeable funding in your research huh girls? I thought to myself.

"50 grand per gram last time our sources estimated if sold to the right buyer," Tan answered.

My brows shot up at that. The thing before us must weigh in tons! Could be worth billions! No wonder Tanner and Kit were keen in keeping this expedition a secret. Tanner must've read my mind, "Unfortunately we don't have the equipment to extract and transport an artifact of this size, we'd just have to leave it as is and photograph the engravings on it," she added.

While Tan and Kit went over the intricate artistry of the monolith, I turned my gaze away from the thing. I did not particularly hold the people of the First Star in high esteem. My mother was enamored with their society because they possessed technology, knowledge and culture that were thousands of years advanced compared to the other civilizations living in that epoch.

I, on the other hand, saw that they were depraved, debauched and just outright mad. Their gods are innumerable and indescribable and just the mere sight and depiction of them etched in their paintings and murals hurts the very eyes of those who looked upon them. They practiced blood sacrifices in such number and frequency that made the Ancient Aztecs look like saints in comparison. They also offered worship by way of outright debauchery. I only ever heard it was described as debauched by my mother's colleagues but seeing it now, I feel thankful that mother kept and locked away the more graphic pieces of recovered artifacts of the First Star Civilization.

It showed men and women intertwined in various positions of coitus. The endless line of debauchery went on and on, as I tried to follow one line of entry in the monolith. Then I reached a section where the participants were slowly replaced by something else. Not human. Humanoid. The eyes were shaped differently. The number of limbs and the tone of their skin as well. Others were just outright bizarre, a mesh of tentacles and eyes snaking its way through a dozen women, slimy tentacles wrapping around their supple bodies. Of a horned humanoid with fire red skin with goat's feet but with a clearly upper human body of that of a woman. The rest of the drawn passage were buried beneath the ground. I felt my head light and I tried to shake it off, rejoining my sisters on the other side of the monolith.

"Orgies were prevalent in their society and that the act of lovemaking was a sacred communion towards the gods, stating that it was closest to ever achieving divinity on this mortal plain, as well as making pacts or sealing sacred oaths with the gods," Tanner explained when she saw my look.

"Odd." I heard Kit say. She was kneeling, taking photographs and stencil impressions of the mural and the engravings. The fabric of her suit almost left nothing to the imagination. I didn't know what I was thinking, only that I wasn't thinking straight but I let my eyes settle on the curvature of my sister's rump. The sight of revulsion depicted on the monolith made me desperate to wash it away with anything to take my mind off it. Kit and Tan were both in excellent shape; the demands of their professions put them in a constant state of trekking in hills or mountainous areas.

It was a moment of weakness, so I shook myself and I took control, focusing my sight on the landscape.

"What does it say?" I heard Tanner ask Kit. Thankfully Tanner hadn't noticed I had been borderline leering at my own sister like a depraved bastard. What was this island doing to me?

"--...... the Heirs of Naabh'enda," Kit read at the bottommost portion of the monolith. Tanner's eye squinted on a portion of the monolith close to the ground. It looked like it was damaged. Or defaced, I thought. I thought this thing was supposed to be indestructible? And the knowledge to work the material was lost to calamity and antiquity?

"But look, this isn't etched in like the other murals. Looks crude as well," Kit pointed. Then something caught her attention, "Is that what I think it is?"

"Bone," said Tanner, plucking something that had been jammed into the monolith, partially hidden in the igneous rock that encapsulated it. "The implements they used were crude. This is a huge bone. Could have been from a whale, I think. This thing is massive, look at the size of it!"

"So what? You're saying someone defaced this part of the monolith? The one that's made to be indestructible?" I stated the obvious. I looked to both of my sisters and I was unnerved by their expressions. "Hey what's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Tanner composed herself, waved me off. "Kit, a word?" Tanner motioned Kit closer and the two were huddled once more. I gave them some distance. I pretended not to notice they took out that special case and whatever is inside it.

I busied myself by not looking at the monolith but at the surrounding landscape again. Save for the quiet passing of the wind, even the land itself was silent. There would be the occasional hiss of volcanic fumes escaping but that would be it. My back was turned towards my sisters but I kept an ear out, trying to hear what they were talking about. I could only make out a few words from their whisperings.

".......... present here?........ notes said that they inhabit........... humanity no longer sets foot upon," I overheard Kit say in a whisper.

"....... seen them in over a thousand years." Tanner replied. Who was the "they" my sisters were talking about?

"No one has seen them and lived to tell the tale is what you mean," Kit said in a louder, sarcastic tone.

"Be quiet, Lee might overhear!" hissed Tanner. I didn't have to turn around to feel Tanner had looked over where I was, several meters away, looking nonchalantly at the barren landscape. She was none the wiser what I heard. Their whisperings then continued but I could no longer hear any of it. I tried to position myself to hear better of their conversation when I caught something from the periphery of my vision.

I stopped in my tracks and looked to where I thought I saw something. There, on a rocky outcrop some 800 meters away, I thought I saw a white figure standing there, facing our direction. When I squinted into the area, I saw nothing. The entirety of the horizon about the island was cast in a khakish brume, so when my eyes caught sight of it, it sent alarms down my spine. The figure had been pearlescent white, practically glowing against the brume of the horizon, which is why I picked it up instantly. Being a sea captain makes one's eyes vital and sharp in spotting abnormalities in the horizon. I could've swore something was standing there a moment ago. Should I take a closer look at it? Whatever it was? I was hesitant, leaving my sisters by themselves in this too quiet land. And yet my foot instinctively took one step forward.

"All right. Lee!" Tanner called suddenly and I turned to face her, "We're going further inland. I think there might be bigger finds there."

"Bigger than this?" I gestured at the monolith. If it had been mom or any of their other colleagues they would have raved at such a significant find like this monolith. My sisters were looking for something specific but what? And how were they able to track its location? It couldn't have been inscribed in this monument, isn't it? and what's that bone doing out here? It's lettering was the same but its looked not as old as the monument. Crudely made too. Fine tools were used in the making of the mural of the monolith while it seemed to be crude implements were utilized in the making of the bone carving.

"Bigger," Tanner simply replied and started walking to the center of the island. Kit gestured me to follow suit.

And so we moved further inland. I hopped unto the ATV and followed after the two, casting a quick look back at the outcrop where the thing had been standing. I kept an eye out for any more.... abnormalities in the surrounding hills and outcrops.

As we journey ever deeper into the island, I noticed the wind picked up and the clouds swirled ever darker. The terrain was starting to incline as well and for the first time I saw the mouth of the volcano from whence forth the land we stepped came out of. It wasn't an obtrusive or grand majestic volcano. It was low and squat, maybe five hundred meters to the top but there was a quiet power there, slumbering for now. When I turned my attention back to my sisters, I was shocked to see them had broken into a sprint. And I saw why.

On the base of the volcano was a structure made of the same strange, glossy stone. More monoliths littered the vicinity of the structure, the magma swallowed the rest of its entirety and all that's left was the gaping maw of which to enter it from. In its prime, it must've been an impressive sight, a complement to the monolith we saw earlier. Its layout was similar to that of the temple of Athena on Greece, great slabs of stone monoliths, now toppled to the earth with the only remaining consisted of the entryway.

My sisters instantly rushed towards the site like children bursting through the doors of a candy store. They treated the half sunken structure with extreme reverence like pilgrims arriving at St. Peter's Basilica. Something kept me from stepping foot though. Wherever they look, they saw wonder. I only saw more of the same of the twisted figures embraced in unrestrained debauchery etched in the murals of the temple.

Temple, that was the only word I could describe the structure. It certainly had the air of it. Such solemn grandness could be evoked by a place of worship. I hung at the doorway of the structure, my footsteps echoing into the deep darkness that greeted us, the first humans to ever step foot in the place in untold thousands of years. I gulped at the enormous scale of the structure. The ceiling was so high up that the light itself was unable to reach it, the pillars, those that remained standing, stretching on in what seemed like endless darkness. The same could be said of the hallway. An endless array of the same glossy stone monoliths that upheld the structure stretching into dark eternity. I stood frozen on the spot. How deep does this temple go? Does this thing go deep into the volcano itself? Beneath the earth?

I forced myself away from these thoughts. It was such a preposterous idea and yet the unyielding darkness before me could very well make it true.

My sisters, however, continued undeterred by the darkness. They quickly went to work, taking their cameras out and snapping pictures. Tanner set up a small foldable table from the trailer. She put her tools and other equipment and laid it on the table. She and Kit worked and stowed away samples for later study, as well as notes. I would eventually shook myself and help with unloading the rest of the equipment, taking care not to let my personal green footlocker to be seen by either of my sisters, of which I covered up with a spare tarp.

Tanner set a binder down on one of the tables, unattended and completely engrossed on what appeared to be a dais in one of the adjoining chambers of the temple. Kit joined her and discussed things with their findings.

I had just finished setting up a pair of flood lights attached to a compact generator when I took my opportunity. I whisked the binder off the table, intending to skim the notes Tanner put there and find some answers that my sisters refused to share. I have to be quick and not push my luck. They are so engrossed with the temple for now but I could see in the glint of their eyes that their curiosity has not yet completely sated. Which meant they intend to traverse deeper into the darkness of the temple.

Most of the notes were speculation, accompanied with photocopies of different sites and artifacts from around the world. Mostly depicted were the artifacts of the Civilization of the First Star but there were others as well, some sort of overlap between differing cultures across different eras. They were of little use of me until I reached a page that drew my attention. It was a faded xerox copy of a note, it was maybe ten years old. There was a ring of a coffee mug where someone had put it on top of the paper. I recognized the handwriting on this.

It belonged to my mother.

On the page were she made a note and some drawings. I recognized the iconography used as the script of the People of the First Star. She must've copied it from some tablet. I read her note on the bottommost portion: "Legends says that Naabh'enda the Silent has succeeded in sealing their greatest enemies, the sister goddesses Tazus the Vermillion and Xidrross the Radiant Gold. But the entity itself did not come out of the ordeal unscathed. Naabh'enda was slammed against the earth, a short-lived retaliation of the two goddesses' small window of resistance before their trap was forever closed. Now Naabh'enda is said to recuperate from his wound deep inside the earth where he was thrown, waiting for eons where he would regain his full might, his resting place is said to be forever stewarded by his heirs. And thus the heretical Arabic prophetess Al-Haziyah extensively warned in her condemned book, the Kitab al-Zalaazil, with the passage: Beware the Heirs of Naabh'enda."

Scribbled on the same page were a giant pair of doors, encircled many times either by Tanner or by mother, I don't know which. There were no additional notes referring to the door symbol, only that Tanner and mom were interested in it. There were no more notes like that as I rifle through the rest of the binder. Seeing that either Kit and Tan had yet to come back to where we set up a base of operations, I returned the binder to where I found it.

I though back on my mother's note. Again that passage: Beware The Heirs of Naabh'enda.

I went to the place where I last saw my sisters, mulling what I had learned. When I arrived at the chamber with the dais, they were nowhere to be found. I looked down the long stretch of the temple's hallway and saw flashlight beams down the dark corridor. They moved on without me. Typical, I sighed and followed them.

A pearl white figure stood beside a pillar.

I jumped back, fists clenched and raised. There was nothing there, just shadow and an empty dark chamber. I swore something had stood there, not twenty feet away. I looked again down the corridor and saw my sisters' flashlights bouncing and the echo of their voices. So far, they are okay. It was hard to tell with the shadows being so deep in this place. Like an inklike consistency that could not be easily dispelled by light.

I took my flashlight. It was a high lumen, heavy duty variant and still I could only see five feet away from me. Something wasn't right with the shadows of this place. Need to put my mind at ease, not jump at any passing shadows. I stepped into the adjacent chamber. I walked for a short while before finding nothing but a collapsed wing. The lavaflow must've flooded here. The remains of the chamber's monoliths were encased in thick igneous. The only thing of note were those same warrens that Kit mentioned were formed due to gas release. I was about to turn around when something caught my attention.

I looked down on the ground, where rock solid igneous meets the chamber's metal-like alloy. There were scratch marks on the floor. These were not formed naturally. There were other things as well. Bones littered the ground, fish bones mostly, scattered about the place and leading into the warrens. My eyes went wide and I swallowed my spit.

Then I heard a skittering of loose rocks, barely audible but in the grand silence of this place, I caught it. Quickly, I pointed my light in that direction. I jumped back. I only had a brief look at the creature that had been there a mere split second before bounding deeper into the volcanic warrens. It had no face. No eye sockets, no nose, not even an ear, save for a wide maw filled with nerve-rackingly sharp and vicious teeth. It's skin was pearlescent white and its body vaguely humanoid. It was a terror straight from the darkest abyss of hell. It was filled with trilling noise, a small low frequency skittering trill barely audible. More and more coming from deep within the warren in front of me.

I made a mad dash out of the chamber and into the corridor proper. The trills faded and I thought myself safe. The things did not follow me. There was naught but the sound of my breathing in the empty hallway. What the hell was that thing?

I was about to sprint towards my sisters further down the corridor when my ears caught something else. It was that low trill again. But this time it wasn't coming in the direction I had run from, no. It was coming of the opposite side of the chamber where the warrens was. My mind danced at how could it be possible, none of the things passed by me, especially with their coloration. They may be quick but I was able to caught a glance of them twice already. I had a disturbing suspicion what it might be. Taking the risk, I went into the opposite chamber, the low trilling ceased as I got closer but what I saw confirmed my fears. The chamber had also been flooded with lava in the ancient past and much like the one before, warrens poked through the now cooled magma. I didn't linger any longer and sprinted out of the chamber and towards the directions of Kit and Tan's lights.

Through the darkness and my rushing footsteps, if I listened closely, I could her the unmistakable undulating of the low trilling sound, coming in everywhere in the fathomless dark of this ancient hallway, in every adjacent chambers that lined this ancient temple.

Dozens.

Hundreds.

They were everywhere.

Watching and waiting in the dark.