Her eyes were red from the inches-thick and centuries old dust that coated every inch of the floor, the walls and every single object in the dark, narrowing tunnel. It also filled the air wherever they trod and thus it made breathing a pain for the lungs as well. Her legs were tired from the days walk. They had journeyed no more than perhaps a few hundred meters - and yet she felt as if she had ran alle the way from Kwythellar to Naggagrond and back. And worst of all, her shoulder had begun to throb again.
With a sweaty, smut-blackened hand, Evelyn mopped her brow. It was four weeks and five days since her injury. Her shoulder had healed well, everyone agreed. The priests, the herbalists, even the army-veterans. She had received the best treatment available in the newly occupied city. Probably a third of all the healing herbs and roots around Lorda had been applied on her. She had not wanted so much attention, there were others whose injuries were far more severe. But Taryl - and even this coldhearted
Morvena Black - had been adamant. She was a member of the vanguard and thus deserved the best possible care. Besides, as Blackraven liked to point out so much in her piercing parlance, she was “one of the few sages adept in ancient lore and now finally of some use.”
She praised Lughus and Amathon that this dagger-for-hire had been summoned back to Kwythellar by the king.
In any case, Evelyn had taken her words to heart. And as soon as she had been able to - and by far to early if the healers had had a say in it, which Evelyn had not allowed them - she had begun to work again. And there was so much work here: Every single corpse of a building (the word “ruin” was inappropriate. There was nothing ruined about those palaces of ore and metal.) Told a million stories and led to a billion new questions. Every tome they found, somehow preserved through the decades of neglect, every carving left behind by the mysterious creators of this place was worth years of research. And yet, she and the few other scholars and researchers had no time to give any of those treasures the time they deserved. They did what they could to ensure they stayed intact, made copies where the original was too damaged and translated as they went. Evelyn could very well imagine that even in the generation of her grandchildren not all the enigmas of this place would be solved.
And yesterday deep in the night (Evelyn always worked from dawn till way after dusk) she had finally unravelled a specifically inscrutable mural carving. Or at least she thought so.
And as far as she could tell now, despite the pounding in her shoulder that made her wish for the the-gods-knew-how-maniest time she had heeded the advise of the healers, she had been correct.
Seven hours ago, she had led an excavation team into one of the great, goldendomed halls. There, at her directions and exactly as the painting had made her guess, they had found a secret door. It let into a dark passage of stairs and hallways, sometimes with flat ground, sometimes with steps (which thankfully had been broad enough to allow a Centaur passage) but always leading down into the very heart of Mazera. They had descended downwards with storm laterns in their hands and a captured dove at their front. Both were ideas others had payed for with their lives. Three Ferrets had died because they had come down a passage very much like this one in the early days after the battle with torches in their hands. The dust had caught fire and the poor wretches had been burned instantly. Likewise, another exploration team had been wiped out by lethal gasses in another cellar. Only one Lamia had survived because the snakeman had needed less oxygen than his companions.
But so far, neither had been a problem to her group. The shafts were dark and she had no real idea where they might lead them, but at least they were well-ventilated. They passed through subterranean halls almost as big as the one above the surface. They had found other tunnels intermingling with theirs and doors in the side of their tube leading to smaller rooms. In one they had found rows and rows of three-storied beds. In each lay a skeleton. The bleak bones looked as if they had once belonged to humans. They apparently all had died in their sleep. They had not even woken up when whatever caused their extinction befell them.
And as they climbed down level by level, the material of the walls around them changed. They had begun with stout steel, then came iron, bronze, copper and other unknown materials. But now, stretching out her arm and touching the wall to her left, she felt no smooth metals. Instead, her hand almost tenderly caressed stone. Natural stone.
Finally, she decided that it was time to move on. She and hr group had been resting in front of a gargantuan door. It was so big, it might even have allowed Eurabatres the Golden passage.
“Well, Gentlemen, it is time. Open those doors. All of you, push!” She commanded.
At first, the giant metall doors would not move a single inch. But then, very slowly, with all their strength combined, they managed to push back the left side of the double door.
When they lifted their lanterns to illumine what lay behind the gate, the beams of light radiating from their lanterns vanished in the thick darkness of the room behind the door. This hall had to be bigger than any before, perhaps even bigger than the one above ground. Then, as if led by the hand of a god, their individual beams focussed in the middle of the hall. There was a massive something in the hall, broad as a house, dustcovered but with metal untarnished gleaming here and there. Slowly, their focussed ray of light creeped higher and higher along the vast, unknown body. Then they reached the top, about four meters above Evelyns head. She heard one of the soldiers to her left drawing her sword from its sheath. They were staring into the face of a dragon!
Fear froze them. The dragon looked at them with gleaming green eyes. They starred into what might be the face of their death. Silence surrounded them. Then Evelyn began to laugh loudly, joyously, like a child.
Her companions watched her in shock. Then they understood and joined in.
“A galley-head. What fools we are!” She smirked. They went into the grand hall to take a closer look.
The massive body belonged to a ship. A very strange ship, for it had no keel and like a river barge, it would have sunk on the open sea. But to be a freshwater-only vessel it was by far to big. Besides, it had no mast, only sails of rotten canvas looming out on the sides, reminding her a bit of wings.
“What on Mazera is this?” The female sergeant who had drawn her sword earlier on asked. She still held the bronze blade.
“I think”, Evelyn answered her unconsciously, her voice trembling with awe, “I think this is...
an air ship.
Updated map coming soon. Please tell me where your new cities are, and I will place them in, if not, you will just get a couple of random cities.)
]
