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Chapter 16
Part 2
The privates made their way to Kolt, getting into position before pushing the doors with all their might. The metal cracked and screeched into motion, slowly sliding open, before finally locking into place.
“Woohoo! Some progress.” Kolt hi-fived the two privates before fist pumping. Dai shook his head with a small smirk on his face, eliciting an embarrassed recoiling of her arm to her side.
Fendrick stepped ahead into the new passageway. The floors were brushed steel, and his footsteps resonated throughout the hall. The fire light exposed a number of doors up ahead, alongside dusty glass windows offering a murky glance into the other rooms of the facility. The hallway extended for several metres before an abrupt corner and a doorway ended its linearity.
“Come on, let’s see if any of these doors open up.” He pushed ahead, stopping at the first windowpane on his left. He wiped the glass with his sleeve, and the muck barely moved. The door was closed, but luckily for them used a standard door handle to open.
Kolt was the first to reach the door, pushing it open eagerly. The metal hinge shattered under her excited force, causing her to fall inwards and crash to the ground along with the door itself.
“Ow…”
Fendrick stepped in after her, offering a helping hand and pulling her upright once more. The air was stagnant and full of dust; a table lay in the centre of the room alongside a tray of metal apparatus. He assumed the room was used for some manner of experimentation, as he wiped the dirt from the table’s surface.
The others shuffled in, cramming into the doorway, and realising the room was far too small to comfortably hold all five of them.
“Ryker, with me, we’ll go look at the room opposite. Meet back in the hallway when we’re done to discuss our findings.” Dai turned and stepped back into the corridor, shouldering the other door in an effort to force it open. Ryker followed, helping to push the second of the double doors open.
The room was lifeless. Its metallic walls and white flooring betrayed the practical nature of its existence. A desk, sat at the opposite end of the room, called to Kolt, its surface littered with papers and writing utensils. Collecting a handful of the notes, she took to perusing their contents.
“It’s not in a language I can easily comprehend. Something akin to proto-Inarellian. Enough differences I can barely make hide nor tail of it.”
Fendrick’s torchlight crackled in the dust as Kolt shifted the papers, its light dancing around the room. A groan pierced the quiet. A further shift behind him startled him to near breathlessness.
Kolt spun around at the sound, watching the door to the room opposite creak open under the efforts of Dai and Ryker in the murky, translucent observation window.
Podge flashed an awkward smile at Fendrick as the captain turned to face him, his face stricken with surprise. “Sorry, the sound got to me.”
“Keep your wits about you, we don’t know what lies in this facility. Or what it was for. Don’t apologise for being on edge, Podge.”
“Thanks, Fen. Sorry, Captain Fendrick.”
“Dai really whipped you into shape, huh?”
“I really need to ask him for his secret.” Kolt put the papers back down. Displeased with her inability to translate its contents, she stepped aside, offering Fendrick the ability to give it his own go. “Go ahead, worth a shot.”
“Not sure it’ll help, but I’ll give it a go.” Handing over his torch to Podge, Fendrick leafed through the papers on the desk. “It’s so close but not quite right. There is this word that keeps popping up though. Looks a little like the word for Weaver.”
“Like, The Weaver? The creator of the universe?” asked Podge.
“It keeps showing up next to this other word that I can’t parse at all.”
“Does that have any bearing on the artefact that we’re here to look for? The Weaver that is,” said Kolt.
“Not that I’m aware of. But to be honest I also wasn’t expecting to find anything like this facility here either.” Fendrick folded some of the papers up and stuffed them under his arm. “To share with Dai and Ryker.”
“You know, now that we’re in this weird facility, it might help to know what we’re looking for. So that we don’t accidentally brush over the thing or break it.” Kolt started yet another attempt at wresting Fendrick’s secret from him, a task that she’d been hitherto unsuccessful at, and she didn’t expect any luck this time either.
“A staff. Or an instrument like a staff.”
“Oooooh, he’s finally let it slip.”
“That’s as much as I can tell you. Oh, and it should also have a gemstone implanted in its head.” Fendrick took the torch back from Podge, walking back to the doorway. “Come, there’s little else in here, let’s check on the other two.”
“Boy, I’ve never met a soldier as clumsy as you. I thought Podge was going to be the thorn in my side, but you’ve reached another level.” The shout carried through to Fendrick’s room through the corridor. Kolt smiled and broke out into a light chuckle.
“At least now I know he’s experienced the full gamut of hell that is dealing with you two,” said Kolt.
“You’d be more use to me skinned and made into a rucksack, go on and wait outside!”
Ryker stumbled into the hallway, catching Kolt’s gaze as she stepped out of the other room. “I, uh, may have upset the Sergeant.”
“Is that right?” Patting Ryker on the shoulder, Kolt peeked her head into the doorway and offered a light wave to a hunched over Dai, his fist clenched against the wall. “How’s it going in here, Sarge?”
“Fine, Kolt. Looks to be a break room of some kind. There was a mess table here, before Private Ryker collapsed it under his oafish weight.” He sighed. A wave of calm rushed over him, and he stepped away from the wall. “Let’s explore the rest of the facility, there’s nowt here of interest.”
“Goody. We found some documents in a strange tongue similar to Inarellian but not quite mutually intelligible. Alongside a table and some apparatus. Maybe some sort of medical examination room, perhaps?” Kolt stepped back into the hallway, and Dai followed suit.
“I thought so too. The documents mentioned The Weaver frequently, but I couldn’t really make much else out. Perhaps this civilisation is where the term for the creator stemmed from, if it’s remained almost unchanged for all this time.” Fendrick stood a little way down the corridor, stroking his beard. “Come on, there’s more rooms up ahead.”
The group meticulously explored the other rooms along the corridor, discovering little more of interest. Another examination room, alongside what seemed to Kolt like shared office space, and another break room. A cursory glance through what little paper documentation remained revealed scant additional information, amongst further mentions of the eponymous creator of the universe, The Weaver.
At the end of the corridor, a double doorway stood; two hefty iron doors held together by a magically enchanted lever mechanism. Podge and Ryker fought fiercely to pry the entry open, shifting the masses a few inches apart. Under the inspection of Fendrick’s firelight, it seemed to be a small rectangular shaft of indeterminable height and depth.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. Why would they just have an empty shaft at the end of a corridor?” pondered Kolt.
“Who knows; this civilisation is ancient, and all together alien on closer inspection. Let’s return to the central column and continue down,” said Fendrick.