Hunter sat in his hide, watching down into the valley below. His eyes were unfocussed, almost glazed over, taking in the whole scene. A small flicker of movement somewhere would see him focus in, examining a waving leaf, or a falling rock, determining why it was moving, then allowing his gaze to wander again, his mind tracking patterns and shapes, not objects, looking for things out of place.
As he saw people congregate under the gazebo though, he flicked on the laser microphone, listening in on their conversations and catching tidbits of information about the team, slowly building up a profile on them.
Back at the truck, a discussion was underway about the geology of the valley and the likely history. Tadibya was racking her brain, remembering half-learnt lessons and facts read in books during her long trek south. The mountains were granite-based, often trapping large pockets of gas and petrochemicals far beneath the surface. As they discussed fault lines, chimneys, tectonic shifts and subduction zones in imperfect terms, they realised that if there had been an event that had exposed the temple, it was also possible that another route into the temple may exist – either a man-made back door or alternate entrance located on the far side of the ridge, or perhaps cracks and fissures that lead down from a cave through the mountain ridge itself.
Marius bought up his map of the area, and they plotted sensor information from the drones onto it, marking down caves that had been spotted. A short while later, the team watched as Tadibya made herself comfortable in a seat and her body went floppy, her astral form rising from her physical. Her consciousness darted through the mountain passes, circling the target valley and through into the next, examining the caves. She rapidly searched through them all, following up on caves and tunnels, faults and fissures – but could find no way down into the mountain from here. In fact, the most interesting thing she found was a tumbledown shepherd's hut, with a collection of sheep bones in one corner.
Whilst they were waiting for her to return, the rest of the team busied themselves with maintenance tasks or practiced their skills – Shimazu in particular was spending a lot of time with his sword, performing complex drills and routines with it. Marius checked up on the laptop they had appropriated on the approach to Tashkent – the decryption routine was still running, but getting closer to completion.
There was a minor bit of excitement later in the evening, as a couple of shepherds drove their herd of goats down the hill at the end of the valley, straight towards the truck. A quick command to the spirit summoned by Tadibya though, and they walked straight past the concealed vehicle – their minds clouded and distracted by the spirit's subtle manipulations.
In the next valley, Hunter continued to watch the miners as they continued their work. Cartloads of dirt and stone came out of the temple, and occasionally material went in to shore up the roof or reinforce a section.
The miners came out late in the afternoon and looked pretty tired – indeed there was not much chatter under the gazebo that night at all, and very little to observe.
The next morning, Shimazu approached the mountain ridge again and picked up the data dump from Hunter, returning it to the truck for analysis. Hunter had more snippets of conversation and observation on their activity – but it looked like they had settled down into a fairly standard routine now. The drones up high gave a look-down sensor capability over the valley, backed up by the concealed sentry guns. Mobile drones were kept at the camp, ready to respond to alarms. Somewhere, there was a sniper hidden out in the snowy scrub, watching over everything. All of this was hidden under a powerful magical illusion that made the valley appear empty. And finally, they had a light strike vehicle ready to deploy from the truck, and from the quiet competence of the group, enough nous to use it well.
Their night time routine appeared to be a weak point – no guard was ever spotted, and it looked like they relied on technological sensors for their defences entirely.
As the team at the truck discussed the intelligence, and organised their report, they once more heard the sounds of bells ringing in the still night air. Checking again, Tadibya got the truck concealed before the shepherds and their goats got close – but unlike before, they chose tonight to bed down in the valley – right in front of the truck.
Tadibya set her alarm early to deal with this, knowing that when her spirit disappeared at dawn, there would be a moment where they were not concealed. No matter where she was in the world, no matter what the weather, or how far underground or concealed from the sky – her spirits vanished at dawn and dusk. To cover for this, she just had to get up a few minutes earlier, and cast her invisibility spell on the truck first. When the spirit vanished, they would still not be visible. As long as she held the spell up, and the shepherds moved off before she had to do something else – she was ok. Once they were out of sight, she could drop the spell, and concentrate on summoning a new spirit, and once more get it to conceal the vehicle. Simple!
Once the herd was gone though, Marius and Kai made plans to move out. They drove quietly and carefully out of the valley, down the mountain road and back towards the mine and the dam. As they dropped down out of the mountains, they started to pick up a signal on their normal phones again. As soon as they hit a reasonable signal strength, they stopped and called their employer, and made their report.
Odymoyd seemed happy with their results, and not dismayed that they had not gained any information from the temple or what was happening inside, and indicated that they should continue. With that, they turned the truck around and headed back into their valley, meeting up with the rest of the team and informing them they were staying longer.
The next day, the other team once more entered the temple, spending most of the morning hard at work, with the drones bringing out loads of spoil, and occasionally taking in stones or rock to shore up sections. Mid-afternoon though, they emerged, looking pretty excited. Hunter trained the microphone on them, and listened in on their conversation, trying to piece together what had happened. It appeared that not only had they found a staircase down to a lower level in the temple, but they'd also found their first items of worth. They had recovered four large ingots from a room, bars of pure metal. There was a bar of silver, formed into a bar roughly ten centimetres to one side and five centimetres to the other, being a few centimetres thick, easily weighing a kilo – but it was also magically active, attuned to the local mana field and ready to work into a magical form. They also had two more cubes of metal, slightly larger and with a patina of verdigris. After cleaning and examination, they revealed that these were blocks of pure copper, again magically active and ready for working. Last of all, there was an amphora, finely worked and glazed, still sealed. This took longer to examine, with them running a battery of tests before they opened the seal and discovered just over seventy-four cubic centimeters of mercury, pure as the others, and likewise being magically prepared.
When the information got back to the truck via Shimazu, it caused a stir. The magically-aware members studied the notes, and then sat back, with confused looks on their faces. Those less well versed in the arcane arts looked at them, waiting for an explanation.
"Magic comes and goes in cycles, like a giant wave. We are in an upswing right now, where magic has returned, and is still getting stronger." Tadibya said, leaning back against the wall of the truck, her eyes unfocussed as she recounted what she had been taught by her mentor. "When the wave passes, the magic falls away, and the world falls into a trough. There is no magic, just ignorance, there is no wonder, just despair. The creatures we know fade away, the spirits become distant memories, and the wondrous becomes tales of legend. We remember and we honour them, and wait for their return." Her voice had become almost musical, recounting a story that was almost song, giving the impression of something handed down from master to student for generations. "If these things are a thousand years old, they come from the trough time. They come from a time where there was no magic. They should not be."
The team studied the notes again, trying to glean more information from Hunter's copious notes about the origins of the magical supplies, but they had nothing further after an hour of study.
Later that evening, Marius was disturbed be the sound of something with claws on the bonnet of his truck. He looked up through the windscreen, into the eyes of an enormous wolf-like creature. It was several metres long, with coal-black fur and almost luminous eyes a pale blue. And it was looking at him, the head fixed upon his position, as it slowly walked up the hood of the truck, the claws scraping along the paintwork. It was looking straight at him, the eyes peering into his soul. Marius stared into the pale blue eyes, his vision becoming blurry and out of focus. The two eyes merged together into one burning blue orb. A tiny part of his mind wondered how it could see him. How was it looking "through" the polarised window. But the rest of his mind seemed entranced with the beast staring at him. He gave a start when his right hand brushed against the cold metal of the door handle, and realised that almost unconsciously he was apparently trying to open the cab. The cold and texture seemed to shock him slightly, and focussed his thoughts for a moment. He felt like he wanted to open the door. He needed to open the door. He desired to…. No! No! He didn't desire that at all! He didn't want to bare his neck and let this creature tear out his delicious succulent flesh…
"ACHTUNG! AAAAAAALARM!"
People stirred in the back, grabbing guns and kit, rousing themselves from their positions. Staring at Shimazu, who was just in the process of opening the back door, a slightly dreamy look on his face. As the cries from Marius seemed to penetrate his thoughts, a look of horror came over his face, which turned to alarm as a large black paw landed in the gap in the opening doorway as something large reared up and prepared to enter the truck. With a mighty heave, he yanked on the handle, slamming the door shut on the paw, slicing off claws as the heavy armour swung ponderously back into the frame.
The one on the bonnet gave a chilling howl, the unearthly sound penetrating the vehicle and filling the team with unease. Tadibya extended her hand towards it, moving slightly in the rear of the truck until a solid bulkhead was between her and Marius, and then uttered the words of her spell, her hand flexing and fingers opening as she cast the ball of magical power at her target. With a sigh the large wolf creature collapsed onto the bonnet, unconscious. A tiny trickle of blood emerged from her left nostril, and she staggered to the side, the mental effort of channelling the power and overcoming the will of her foe leaving her drained and slightly stunned.
The other team members listened as they heard claws track back and forth on the roof, as a second creature padded back and forth up there. They looked around at each other, wondering who was going to do what. Certainly it seemed that no one wanted to be the first to go out there…
Tadibya moved to the hatch in the cab, and crouched on the seat, ready to fling the door open and pop out, and waved for someone to go to the rear of the truck. Shimazu and Kai waited by the back door, guns at the ready, and on the signal, opened the door again, drawing the creature to turn and face the rear of the truck, attracted by the metallic noise. Tadibya pushed the heavy cover open and saw the second dire wolf turning away from her and again drew magical power towards her, channelling it through her outstretched hand to the foe. Her earlier efforts had sapped her will it appeared, as it was harder to concentrate and though the creature was struck, it did not collapse into unconsciousness like the first, but staggered to the side of the truck, falling down the three metres to the ground.
With a roar, the engine throbbed into life, and lurched into reverse, the large wheels throwing up globs of mud as Marius applied power. Both Shimazu and Tadibya screamed at him to stop, but it was too late – or he just ignored them. The heavy truck drove backwards over the stuporous creature, the huge off-road tires crushing the mid-section and trapping it under the truck as Marius reversed over him – and then forwards again. The creature was almost cut in half. The front of the body and the back legs were intact, but the waist section was a thin paste, crushed flat and torn and twisted by the roughly knobbled tyres.
Shimazu jumped out of the back door and cautiously approached the creatures, slitting their throats with his knife to be sure, but concentrating on making a clean cut that wouldn't damage the pelts. Tadibya looked over to Kai, informing him that the bodies were likely to have significant value to someone who could use magical materials – they were a rare species of awakened wolf, and their fur, teeth, eyes, blood – all manner of parts – could be harvested for use by a skilled enchanter. Marius had jacked out of the vehicle by now and looked completely unrepentant over the damage caused to the second wolf.
After checking the area carefully, they hung the two wolves from a tree, using a large container to catch the blood draining from the bodies, as they worked out how they could preserve them until they could reach a facility that could process them properly. Fortunately the outside temperature was still hovering just below freezing, so once they were drained, they could bag them up and leave them outside and they should be fine.
The rest of the evening passed without event, the team keeping a watchful eye out for more creatures and strange occurrences. Just as they were eating breakfast the next morning, the pocket computer attached to the laptop made a tinny little fanfare, announcing that it had finished decrypting the storage volume. Marius and Aswon crouched over the display, looking to see what was on there. Unfortunately, whilst it was now decrypted into plain text, the text appeared to be in a language neither of them knew. Looking at the structure, Aswon guessed that it was one of the local languages – something from the 'stans, by the look of things. But, whatever it was, they'd need a little help translating it, so it was something that could wait until later.
In the adjacent valley, Hunter watched the team descend into the temple once more after their communal breakfast and chat, noting down more information from their chatter. The day proceeded much as the others had – the drones carrying waste out from the mining efforts, and supplies in to shore things up. They broke for lunch, and chatted more – revealing odd facts and recounting tales that sometimes were illuminating, and sometimes just confusing, references to jobs without context or in-jokes with no punchline. Regardless, Hunter continued to note it all down, idly chewing on some moss peeled from the rocks of his hide.
Mid-afternoon though – the camp suddenly burst into action. All of the enemy team that were in camp, except the still hidden sniper, ran from their tents into the gazebo, grabbing equipment and boxes, making a mess of carefully stacked supplies in their rush. A minute later, the mining team burst out through the entrance of the temple, half-carrying and half-dragging Blaster with them. Steam or smoke rose from him, and his cries of anguish were clearly heard. As carefully as possible they set him down, and started to cut away clothing and equipment. The gyromount harness and gun came off first, the quick release clips making this a simple task. As Hunter looked though, straining the limits of his zoom, he was sure he could see the barrel of the gun drooping slightly, as though it was soft and pliant. Next they cut away clothes, stopping to reglove several times, and throwing the clothing in a pile where it continued to emit smoke in a lazy writhing fashion.
Rocket, Digger and Geo all crowded around the body of Blaster, doing things. From the angle and range it wasn't possible for Hunter to make out exactly what they were up to, but they were obviously administering medical care. At some point they gave him a hefty dose of painkillers, his cries of pain fading away and the body going limp. Some minutes later, they had finished and stepped back, clearing the way for Spangles to approach.
She smeared something onto his face and hands, and then stood over the body, hands moving in patterns up and down his form, as if she was folding something or throwing something small from hand to hand. Golden light started to form around him, becoming brighter and brighter, until it was painful to look at. This lasted for another minute, after which Blaster stirred. He was helped to his feet, where he looked wobbly, but unharmed, and was quickly ushered to one of the tents, presumably to get some fresh clothes.
Hunter finished making his notes, and then grabbed his small bags of waste, notes and other essential gear and slid out of the quasi-igloo, and crawled to the top of the ridge, heading back to the truck. He didn't notice his foot catching the edge of a rock, which tumbled in the snow behind him, causing a minor snow slide.
Down in the valley, Mamma Bear and Spotlight opened up another crate, and spent a few minutes bolting together another drone. Once they had assembled the Ares Sergeant II drone, and mounted weapons, it was attached to the metal track and then launched into the air, its vector thrust jets quickly vaulting it up to operating height. It headed down the valley, away from the temple, and disappeared from view…
