November 5th, 2112. Cavern leading to the unknown buried city

The elevator descended towards the cavern below, where the entrance of the buried city was discovered by Eli. During the last two days in which the doctor was convalescent, the engineers had installed an elevator.

Eli stepped out and passed beside the partially buried iron pillar. Rashid was there waiting for her.

-"Have you deciphered the inscription, Rashid?" Eli asked him.

-"'the remnant of the great glowing heat of a burned-out fire in a once great forest, the [it cannot be read] has quit this [planet]? And had gone to the other world, moving in from [Tripura]'" Rashid read the inscription again. "Apparently it says this forest planet was burned in a fire and the original inhabitants moved to another place."

-"And the name of this planet was Tripura" Eli suggested "That's the word at the end of the inscription. Does make any sense to you?"

-"Tripura was a region of India, back on Earth, in fact, the Iron Pillar of Delhi was from that region, If this is a copy or Earth's is a copy of this, I don't know"

-"We'll find out. Come, let's see the Tzompantli room." Eli invited Dr. Rashid, and they entered the ruins towards the large hallway.

-"Oh, and before you went missing, I deciphered this planet's name. Or at least that of the city" Rashid told her. "The associated symbol was similar to the sanskrit 'Svarga', and if you read correctly, Svargaloka is the name of the place where Thunder God Indra's palace was located."

-"Indra?" Eli frowned.

"Well, Indra is the Hindi equivalent of Zeus, the God of thunder." Rashid concluded. "It makes sense, both Greek and Hindi myth, as the rest of Middle East and Europe's derived from Proto Indo-European, so they must be different versions of the same story."

They arrived at the hall, now illuminated by potent work lights. Eli and Rashid now could see the true extent of the altar and the sculpture. Rashid analyzed the features of the humanoid depicted there.

-"What do you think, Rashid?" Eli asked.

He couldn't keep his eyes out of the ugly face of the humanoid.

-"A Rakshasha" He said.

-"A what?"

-"Rakshasa. From the Sanskrit Rksas which means Beast, some kind of cannibalistic warrior demon. They inhabited forest and hills, killing humans and sometimes devouring them. They appear in the Ramayana and Mahabharat epic. Many heroes had fought them, Rama and Bhim among them" Rashid explained.

-"How are you sure." Eli doubted.

-"Descriptions include fanged faces, they were tall and had clawed hands and feet. They liked to wear human skins and bones." Rashid numbered "Also, they were shape shifters and used something called Maya or magic, they could vanish in the air, but we can't be sure of that seeing the sculpture."

-"Did it say anything about displaying skulls in a wall?" Eli asked, pointing at the niches.

-"No, but it's almost like a trophy room. Like some kind of hunter or warrior."

They turned their attention at the skulls displayed. There were many different shapes, mostly humans, but some of them had thick supracilliary arcs and wide nose pits.

-"Homo sapiens neanderthalensis? They hunted Neanderthals? That means this date at least 35,000 years old." Eli exclaimed.

-"Not only them, Look!" Rashid pointed at another skull. One far larger "Titans"

Indeed, the skull on the niche matched the features and size of one of those who Elizabeth Shaw called Engineers, Titans. Eli was dumbstruck, they have found proof not only of one civilization, but two, and both of them had visited Earth on ancient times, at the end of the last Ice age at least. More than that, the two cultures also interacted with each other, possible waged war and the evidence pointed at the Titans destroyed these Rakshasas using their weapons of mass destruction, namely the one Eli called Pandora's box.

-"Got it!" Rashid exclaimed suddenly "It makes sense now. Tripura!"

-"What is it?"

-"Tripura is the name of a city, or most exactly, three cities in Hindi myth" Rashid told her. "The triple city of the Asuras"

Rashid related then the story about Tripura, the Triple city of the Asuras. Long time ago, three powerful demons had made penance to god Brahma the creator. He, pleased, conceded them each one a boon, the three Asuras –some thought to be Rakshasas –asked for immortality but the creator can't grant them that, so they asked for an indestructible fortress, again the creator denied them, but he will built them a city and they can choose the way of its destruction. The three demons asked for three cities made of Iron, Silver and Gold which can only be destroyed when the cities aligned, every thousands of years just for a second by one single arrow fired by Shiva, god of destruction.

Brahma told them that nothing was eternal and the cities were constructed. Many Asuras, Yakshas and Rakshasas lived there for many years and became a powerful empire, so powerful that the Devas, or gods, feared them and they pleaded Shiva to destroy the cities. Shiva destroyed Tripura during the alignment using his weapon, the Pasupata.

-"So, you think this buried city is one of them?" Eli asked.

-"Possibly, after the destruction of Tripura, Indra asked the only survivor, an Asuran architect called Mayasura, to build him a city, this city was known as Amaravanti in Svargaloka." Rashid concluded. "Mayasura is also the designer of some of the gods' weaponry."

-"Oh my –the myth is real. Or at least some part of it" Eli exclaimed. "Did you think the three cities' ruins are located on each one of the summer triangle systems? Think about it, the cities made of iron, silver and gold, maybe they represent the three birds, the vulture, the swan and the eagle, and here in 'the vulture' we have an Iron pillar…"

-"Maybe, but how did you align the three systems? It's not possible. Not from here, not from Earth." Rashid asked

-"Maybe it's not an alignment per se, maybe it's an event. Astronomically, the only way the summer triangle interacts is during the seventh day of the seventh month" Eli explained "Did you know the story of the Weaving girl?"

-"No" Rashid said.

-"Maybe you have heard of it, the Tanabata festival in Japan" Eli continued "The weaving girl, the star Vega, was in love with a shepherd, the star Altair. And their love was forbidden so the girl's mother, the Sky goddess, traced a Silver river between them, the Milky Way. But God took pity of them and every year, during the seventh day of the seventh month, the magpies form a bridge for them to cross and meet for a day. The star Deneb falls just in the middle of the river. That's the moment of the alignment of the three cities."

-"Maybe you're right."

-"But as for the year, the poem dates back 2700 years ago, but we don't know when that exactly happened, and you mentioned a weapon, Pasupata, what is it?"

-"Pasupata astra is the personal weapon of Shiva, the god of destruction in his Paspati form, which means 'Lord of the animals'. We don't know what does exactly, but descriptions say it invokes a large number of demons and a huge spirit which is the weapon's incarnation. It will never be hurled at a lesser enemy or it could destroy the world, as the Weapon kills indiscriminately–" Rashid's words cut midsentence. Eli had her mouth opened by the last words. Both had made the connection but was Eli who pointed first.

-"That sounds exactly like the description of Pandora's box we saw in the temple at Mount Ebrus."

-"Pasupata is the same weapon as Pandora's box?" Rashid wondered.

-"Yes, and it was used three times at least, with catastrophic consequences" Eli nodded "If it exist, it will never be found."

-"Dr. Monygham, Dr. Rashid" Ezra voice interrupted them "Get back to the lab, there's something I have to show you."

- o –

A/N: Welcome back again. Well the story turns out to be kind of mega crossover between Alien, Prometheus, Predator, and also mythology! This chapter had a crazy theory and more. It could be boring as it is mostly exposition but I'm making a point for further action.