Legends of Amacia Rise of the Caverias

Riddle of Alien Artifacts

They entered Hanna’s room and on the bed lay the crystal cylinders, the Relic, Artifact, Medallion, Amulet, the griffin Seal of Khitia, the Sword of Ezra Karac, the Scepter of Shadizar Kahn, and the strange little octagonal pyramid Hannibal found with Shadizar Kahn’s scepter. Hanna had laid the items out neatly on the bed earlier and all of them were glowing like lamps except for the Amulet. Enoch’s gaze fell upon the Relic and the Artifact and he asked, “What are these? Why are they glowing like that?”

Hanna stepped up to the bed and motioned for them to gather around. “First, look at Ezra’s sword,” she ordered as she picked it up, handing it to Enoch. Enoch handled the sword, examining it closely. “Look at the glyphs and scrollwork etched onto the blade,” she instructed.

They all looked at the glyphs and Enoch declared, “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen this kind of writing before. What say you, Nemesis?”

Nemesis opened his cybernetic eye and looked at it closely, even down to a microscopic scale. “It’s an impressive blade,” he stated, “The runes are unknown to me, as is the metal it’s made of. Its molecular structure is highly dense and strong, yet light. It is a beautiful blade made at the hands of a highly-skilled weapons master.”

Hanna retrieved the sword from Enoch and laid it on the bed. “You can see its molecular structure?” she asked Nemesis. He nodded as Hanna retrieved a leather gauntlet that lay next to the scepter. Putting it on Hanna said, “The scepter has a power about it that I’ve yet to fully understand. However, one thing I do know. You cannot handle it without a glove unless you wish for the thing to drain the life right out of you. I found out the hard way about that. Now look closely at it and tell me what you see.” She grasped the scepter and held it up so they could look at it.

Everyone looked closely at the scepter, especially Nemesis, who scanned it closely. “It has the same glyphs on it,” Hunter commented.

“It’s the same material as the sword as well,” Nemesis added.

“Well done, Hunter,” Hanna said in a pleased tone. “It surely is. And it’s also good to know they are made of the same material; now for the cylinders.” She sat the scepter down, removed the glove, and then picked up one of the cylinders, saying, “Now look here. What do you see?”

They gathered around as they looked at the cylinder and saw the same strange glyphs and markings on it. “More of that bizarre writing,” Enoch commented. “This is going somewhere, isn’t it?”

Hanna shrugged, saying, “I’m not sure what it means, but all seven of the cylinders have the same kind of writing on them. I believe they are some form of storage devices for information. Now for the Artifact that I found on the way here inside the pyramid in the valley of the Zinzera just the other side of Skull Pass.” She picked up the Artifact after laying down the cylinder and held it out for all to see. “Now tell me this thing isn’t one of the weirdest things you’ve ever seen?”

Nathanael looked at it and blurted out, “The writing is the same as the other pieces.”

Enoch, Nemesis, Nathanael, Andrew, and Hunter looked closely at the Artifact. “It sure is,” Andrew stated. “And you’re right. It’s about the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. I have a sneaking suspicion that all these items may have something in common.”

Hanna nodded as she put the Artifact down and picked up the Relic. “Now for this piece,” she said, “We found this piece in the Temple on the surface. It was in a room deep underground through a labyrinth of passages. The room was booby-trapped on the outside and inside a dozen different ways. It had to be by far the most difficult piece we’ve ever recovered. We lost two men to those traps, mainly because of carelessness. Now look closely at this thing and tell me what you see.”

It took Enoch only a matter of seconds to see the glyphs were the same. Nemesis analyzed it and announced, “The metal is the same and the crystal is the same as that in the scepter.”

Hanna showed it to them from all sides and said, “This thing and the other round one there we have no idea what they do, but I think you’re right. There is a common thread behind these pieces. The only thought we have on what this thing is came from a Kaitian myth that Selina told us.”

“What myth would that be?” Hunter asked.

“It is the myth of the Ammkar. It supposedly comes from the dawn of the Kaitian civilization,” Hanna stated as she sat the Relic down. “As I remember it, Selina said something about it being the key to the Etherian trove...the treasure of ten thousand galaxies or something. Do you remember that myth, Nathanael?”

Nathanael nodded saying, “Yes, I do. I remember it vividly because every so often, my excavations on Kaitia and around our area of the galaxy would uncover bits and pieces of evidence about the Etherian race.”

“Who were the Etherians?” Andrew asked. At that, Nathanael repeated the myth and some of what he found with Selina.

After he finished, Enoch remained puzzled by it, asking, “That’s all you have as a lead?”

Hanna nodded as she picked up the Medallion and passed it to Enoch. “This Medallion here is where I first encountered the strange writing,” she stated while Enoch briefly examined it before passing it around to the others. “I found that some ten cycles or more before we found the Relic in the Temple. In fact, the Relic was just uncovered several months ago. It wasn’t until a few days before the goon squad paid me a visit that I discovered the relationship between them. Watch this.”

Hanna retrieved the Medallion from Nemesis, who said, “It’s the same material as all the other pieces.”

“That’s what I figured,” Hanna returned as she stepped away from the Relic with the Medallion. As she got farther away from the items on the bed, the Medallion ceased to glow. “Now watch this,” she ordered, holding the medallion flat in the palm of her hand. She slowly walked toward the Relic and as she approached, it began to glow. When she reached the bed, it was glowing like the rest of the items. “You see, these items apparently know each other somehow. I don’t know how to explain it. I’ve been finding these items on a regular basis. Even this one, which the ghost told me was the Seal of Khitia, has the same markings on it.” She put down the Medallion and picked up the Seal of Khitia, showing it to Enoch.

Enoch’s eyes grew round with surprise. “By the Elder Gods,” he breathed as Hanna set the Seal in his hand. “I never believed I’d actually hold the Seal of Khitia in my hand. I’ve seen images of it in the Archive, but never did I think I’d actually see it much less touch it.”

“So that really is the Seal of Khitia?” Hanna asked, her eyebrows rising with surprise.

“It is,” Enoch stated, handing it back to Hanna. “After you told me about it while we were looking at the fresco in the crypt, I purposed to check the Archive about it when we got back here. Once we were certain you’d survive the poison, I checked with the Teacher about it and it showed me an image of it. It said the Seal was a powerful totem of untold power that only the King of Khitia could handle safely. Apparently, it had great protective power over whoever carried it, but only if they were pure of heart. If you weren’t pure of heart, it would kill you instantly. It also said the Seal would get extremely cold in the presence of evil or danger.”

“Hmmm,” Hanna murmured, handing it to Nemesis so he could scan it. “That’s very interesting. When I found it, I sort of freaked out because I couldn’t find my way out of that cave. I fell asleep in there and when I woke up, I was outside the secret cave. Something grabbed me like a kitten while I was asleep and dragged me out of there, leaving me in the main cave where we’d taken shelter for the night. It didn’t hurt me at all, but did leave its scent all over me, along with some minor abrasions on my neck and shoulders where it picked me up. We later surmised it must have been a saber cat.”

“Whoa,” Hunter breathed. “And it didn’t kill you? Are you sure it was a saber cat?”

“We’re not 100% certain,” Hanna admitted. “I never saw it, but we were shadowed by a pack of giant wolves led by a monster saber cat that was more than four times their size when we left the caves. It followed us all the way across Khitia. When we took refuge at Xavier Singh’s watchtower, that big cat got the drop on me. It checked me out, and then licked me before running off. Its scent was the same that was on me when I came out of the Painted Cave, so I assumed it had something to do with my rescue from the cave.”

“That certainly is strange behavior for a saber cat,” Enoch stated. “The saber cats of Khitia are notorious hunters that kill anything and anyone they go after. Furthermore, there haven’t been saber cats of the size you describe since the 1st Age. Are you sure it was a saber cat and not something else?”

“At the range I saw it, I have no doubt it was a saber cat,” Hanna stated insistently. “I was inches away from it; so close I choked on its foul breath. I told it that it should eat some mint or something after eating and it cocked its head slightly as if it understood me. Only then did I realize the cat wasn’t a normal saber cat. He was highly intelligent and obviously wasn’t acting in a predatory manner. It was as if he was seeing if I were a threat; not that I’d be a threat to such a large cat.”

“Intriguing,” Enoch replied. “Where you present when this happened at Xavier’s tower, Nathanael?”

“I certainly was,” Nathanael stated. “When I came out, it was standing nose to nose with Hannibal, who somehow communicated with it. Only when Hannibal insisted that we drop our weapons did the cat back off. Only then did I realize the cat was not engaged in predatory behavior, as Hanna stated. I’ve never seen a predator act like that. Something very strange happened that night; something I have no rational explanation for, but that cat’s scent was definitely the same scent I found on Hannibal when we found him outside the strange Painted Cave.”

“Talking with animals...that’s so cool,” Hunter crowed.

“It is,” Hanna agreed, “but that wasn’t the strangest thing about that incident. When I panicked in the cave, my flashlight failed and I started hearing things in the darkness: hissing, slurping, chewing, growling, roaring noises in the darkness. At the same time, this Seal started glowing and became ice cold, just as you reported from your findings in the Archive. I’ve had only one other item ever do that in my entire life: the lucky amulet I found when I was a kid while helping my dad on an archaeological dig. It did the same thing this Seal did in the cave.” She paused for a few moments as her memories opened up. Tears welled up in her eyes and she sat down on the edge of the bed.

“What’s wrong, Hanna?” Andrew asked, sitting down next to her and putting a caring arm around her.

“A really bad memory just broke loose,” Hanna murmured, choking with emotion. “Just remembering what happened in that cave jarred it loose. I’d mercifully forgotten it until now. That time in the Painted Cave wasn’t the first time I’d heard that horrible sound. When I was thirteen, not too long before I watched assassins slaughter my parents, a gang of bullies attacked me as I walked home from school with my best friend. They tried to kill me because I’d defied their leader, who somehow knew I was different and saw me as a freak. Before they finished, they’d dragged me into a haunted house infested with dark creatures I never knew existed before then. The house itself was alive and pulsing with evil.”

Nemesis looked up from his study of the Seal, stating, “Before you go any further, Hanna, I think you should know this Seal is a mechanism of alien origin. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen, and consists of nano-machines made from an alloy unknown to me. It makes the Emperor’s technology look primitive.” Nemesis handed the Seal back to Hanna, adding, “It constructed in a similar manner to the artifacts with the alien writing on it. I suspect the same hand may have constructed all of them.”

“Whoa,” Hanna breathed, gazing at the Seal lying in her hand. “That’s really adds to the mystery of these items.”

“It does,” Hunter agreed. “But what happened at the haunted house, Hanna? You obviously survived it.”

“I did,” Hanna murmured, becoming very soft-spoken as the horror of her childhood encounter with the Darkness oozed into her open memory, “but just barely. Jeff...the leader of the bullies nearly beat me to death. He wanted my lucky amulet; the one I found working with my Dad in a Scythian burial mound in Ukraine. But the amulet protected me and wouldn’t let him take it. Just before he attacked, it became freezing cold, just like this Seal did in the cave. Every time he tried to take it, it froze his hand. When he nor his so-called friends couldn’t take the amulet from me, Jeff got a truly demented idea: to take me into the haunted house and literally kill me in order to get the amulet. His friends didn’t want any part of murder. Nor did they wish to go into that cursed house, but he’d become insane with rage and forced them to obey. I vaguely remember warning Jeff that if he took me into that house, neither of us would come out alive. I knew down deep in my soul of the danger the house posed to anyone who would enter it.” A very troubled sigh escaped Hanna’s lips as she continued, “My warning only inflamed his rage further. He knocked me out and apparently took me in that infernal place. I woke up in the cellar just as he killed one of his friends and threw him down the cellar stairs. That’s when the world I knew was turned upside down and I discovered monsters really did exist.” Hanna paused as the gruesome memory haunting her childhood became increasingly vivid and terrifying. A cold sweat broke out on her brow as she trembled uncontrollably.

Andrew again put his arm around Hanna, seeing the terror rising in her. “It’s okay, Hanna,” he reassured her. “It’s only a memory. Memories can’t hurt you.”

Seeing Hanna’s distress, Nathanael sat down next to Hanna opposite of Andrew, putting his arm around her too. “He’s right, Hanna,” Nathanael purred. “Memories can’t really hurt you.”

“I truly wish that were true,” Hanna whispered. “This is no ordinary memory and what I experienced that terrible day just wasn’t a simple attempted murder. I learned the hard way that the legends and fables of monsters weren’t just stories. I...saw them...with my own waking eyes and not in a dream. I saw the Old Ones in that cursed house! Even now, it strikes terror in me.”

Nemesis’ organic eyebrow rose with great interest. Enoch’s mouth fell open briefly in surprise. He abruptly knelt down in front of Hanna and took her by the hands. “You saw the Old Ones when you were thirteen?” Enoch asked.

“Yes,” Hanna sobbed softly. “They were in the cellar of that infernal house, which I’m now certain was some kind of gateway to another dimension.”

“Whoa,” Hunter breathed.

Nathanael increased his purr, holding Hanna close to help keep her calm as she revealed the terrible memory to them.

Nemesis knelt beside Enoch and put his organic hand on Hanna’s knee. “I can see this is a very sore memory for you, Hanna,” he observed. “You’d never encountered such beings before and even now, it haunts you. You need to share this memory with us if you wish to be free of the fear it causes. It’s the only way.”

“Nemesis is right,” Enoch agreed. “You need to share it with us. Only when you share it can you conquer your fears of it and share the burden with us. Please, tell us what happened when you woke in the cellar of this strange place, and don’t hold back. You need to tell us everything so we can help you carry this burden.”

Hanna shuddered visibly as a trembling sigh escaped her lips. Courage started to rise in her heart. “You’re right,” she admitted. “I must tell it now that I remember it. But know that I’ve never been that scared in my entire life.” With that, Hanna recounted her experience in the infernal cellar of the haunted house of her youth long before Hannibal became Hanna.