"This is a crazy plan," Tahlm declared as he sat on Shiver's shoulder.
They were standing in the shadow of a large warehouse on the edge of the land port. Spread out before them were the docks controlled by Black Steel Corporation. It was early in the morning – or the middle of the night, depending on who you asked. Tahlm wasn't used to being up so late but his anxiety kept any tiredness at bay.
"It's ambitious," Shiver granted, her voice slightly muffled behind the shark mask she was wearing. "But given what's already at stake, we should be willing to assume an equal amount of risk."
If this was an equal amount of risk to the threat to Splatsville and the clans then they were in deep trouble indeed.
"Don't worry," Big Man said, lifting his fin as if to give him a thumbs up. "You've got this. We're counting on you."
Tahlm had to admit, despite the danger and his fears, it was nice to have someone counting on him. After a life of having everything done for him because he couldn't do anything himself, the idea that someone might depend on him for something instead was uplifting, too uplifting and too novel for him to ignore.
"Right, I'm ready." He said.
Shiver turned to Frye. "Which one?"
All landships were big, larger than any vehicle someone would see travelling Splatsville's streets. They were as big as many sea-going fishing boats operating out of Splatsville's harbour. The one Frye indicated was the length of about two and a half city buses and it's hull was twice the width of one. The landship sat on eight large wheels, each taller than even Big Man and giving it a wide stance. Nobody could call it small, but it was still dwarfed by the examples nestled in the docks on either side of it.
But it's not size we're after, it's speed.
"It definitely looks like a scout," Shiver observed.
"That's their main scout ship," Frye said. "Apparently it's been going out a lot lately. Guess we know why. If any of the ships have a map showing where the clue to the treasure is, it'll be there."
"Excellent work." Shiver was pleased. "Do you think you can drive it?"
Frye chuckled. "Easy peasy. It's just a big truck."
Tahlm doubted it would be that simple. Besides, there was one little wrinkle in this plan to steal the landship. Black Steel's docks were protected by a wall with three gates, each of which was currently closed to keep out desert predators. Tahlm suspected they were also designed to help resist an attack by the Outlanders and their own landships, so they could easily keep one from getting out, but that was where he came in.
Each gate was operated by a gatehouse atop the wall. His job was to find the switch to open the gate while Deep Cut seized the ship itself and provided a distraction. Somehow he didn't think it would be that simple but he was in no position to argue.
"Everyone clear on the plan?" Shiver asked.
Everyone nodded, though it wasn't much of a plan. Honestly, they were doing little more than winging it. Shiver didn't seem the type to admit that though.
"Then let's do it!"
The three members of Deep Cut separated, with Shiver going left, Frye going right, and Big Man going straight down the middle. He seemed like the timid one of the group, but clearly he was confident to take the company's security head on.
Shiver ran at a brisk pace, sticking to the shadows while Tahlm clung to her tentacle desperately.
The docks were not particularly busy, which actually was part of the plan, but there were over a dozen people between them and the landships and most of them wore Black Steel's security uniforms.
Shiver hid behind a pile of equipment, panting softly as she and Tahlm waited.
There was a shout, following by a loud splash. Shiver peeked over their cover and Tahlm was able to see what was happening.
A large splash of ink had erupted in the midst of several security guards. Frye emerged from it, kicking one of the stunned urchin guards onto his back. She then whirled, arm outstretched, a splatana gripped in her hand, and struck the next guard. Ink wouldn't kill him but the shock of it and the force of the blow would stun him briefly.
Another group of guards clustered together intending to move on Frye. Tahlm looked around, wondering where Big Man was. He was supposed to be supporting Frye.
Frye appeared to ignore them, even as they leaned their heads forward, made their spines sharp and rigid; and moved towards her. They slowed slightly as they entered her ink, perhaps afraid of slipping, then Big Man burst up from Frye's puddle, behind them.
How? Rays can't hide in ink, can they?
Big Man's fins smacked two of the guards from behind, sending them flying forward and skidding along the ink to stop at Frye's feet. Two more were slapped right to the ground, the sheer force of the impact stunning them. Frye smacked the remaining two with a series of quick strikes from her splatana.
Big Man put his fins together in apology then followed Frye down the gangway to the landship, just a handful of guards in their way.
Tahlm wasn't able to see what they did next because ahead of him and Shiver were two more guards between them and the gatehouse. Both of them had their spines errect and waving angrily.
Shiver told him to hold on tight and raised her tri-stringer. She fired directly between their opponents, the suction bolts sticking to the wall just behind them. They must not have been familiar with the weapon because they ignored the bolts and stuck close to the wall. It must have made them feel safe because it would prevent Shiver from getting around them, but they soon paid for their ignorance.
Before Shiver ever reached them, the stringer's projectiles exploded, splashing the two guards in the back and knocking them forward on their hands and knees, more from the surprise than the force of the impact. Shiver was between them instantly.
Although their heads were still protected by their natural shells and spines, Shiver gave them each a swift kick to their soft guts, knocking the wind out of them.
Shiver took a second to catch her breath, panting heavily and looking around for any other threats. Finding none, she tried the door to the gate house. As expected, it was locked, but that was why Tahlm was there.
If not for the suckers on Tahlm's tentacles and the smoothness of Shiver's own tentacles, he would have flown off from Shiver's movements. He was a little shaken from being jerked around but he was fit and ready.
The door of the gatehouse had a tight seal, something necessary to keep cephalopods from bypassing it or sand from getting in, but for Tahlm at least, there was more than one way in.
An air conditioning unit sat in the window. Some caulking had been used to seal it in place. Shiver jammed the tip of her stringer aggressively into the seal, managing to break through with a few strikes to make a tiny hole. Tahlm hopped down from her shoulder, ran down her arm and rolled across the top of the air conditioner. He shifted to octopus form and slipped through the hole.
The interior of the gate house was much warmer than outside and just large enough for two average sized people to stand in. A single swivel chair sat near the middle of the room and near it, Tahlm found what he was looking for: the control panel.
He jumped from the air conditioner onto the stack of radios next to it. From there, it was a short drop onto the counter before he had to climb up onto the control panel itself.
There was a surprising number of switches considering it was only meant to control one gate. Quickly looking over the labels he discovered many of them controlled the flood lights along this section of the wall.
He found the gate controls on the far-left side: a hefty toggle switch. It took all of his strength to get it to move and nearly knocked him over when it clicked into place.
There was a loud groan and a cry of whirling mechanisms as the gate slowly began to part. Tahlm wasted no time in making his way back to the air conditioner but he could hear noises outside.
Alarms were blaring now and he could hear a scuffle. Shiver had to be fending off more guards.
Tahlm looked out the window and saw the landship they were after with its lights on and starting to roll towards the gate, but more guards were also appearing, running towards the gate house, or at least, the urchin equivalent of a run. It roughly equated to a fast jog for octolings, but they would still be at the gate house soon. Shiver was near the door, fending off four guards that Tahlm could see, including the two she had initially attacked.
Tahlm bit his lip and looked at the landship's progress. It would be at the gate in seconds but would Shiver be able to board it? If only he could do something, give her some kind of opening. He searched around the shack, finding nothing except electronics, and that's when he remembered the lights.
Urchins hadn't originally had eyes, that was something the Custodians had given them as they changed into more humanoid creatures in order to help repopulate the surface. Although their vision was good enough to let them do most tasks, it could easily cause them to be overstimulated in certain situations.
Tahlm hurried back to the control panel, found the light switches he was looking for and began rapidly switching them on and off in quick succession. These switches were much easier to handle.
He heard and felt the land ship rumble past but he kept going. He could escape much more easily than any of them. He heard cries and painful shouts outside the gatehouse and took that as his cue. He made his way back through the hole and found Shiver waiting for him on the other side.
He leapt into her hand and then she jumped up and onto the wall's railing and into the air. It was the longest free fall Tahlm had ever experienced. He clung to the back of Shiver's cloak with an iron grip, wondering when they would finally land, and if he would survive it.
Lights appeared below them and they collided with something large and grey, yet much more yielding than steel.
Tahlm heard a wheeze and Shiver slowly stood up. "Oof, thanks Big Man. That was a close one."
"Ay…." Was all the ray said.
Tahlm couldn't move. He had been latched onto by one of Shiver's suckers during the impact. Still, it was better than being squashed.
They had landed on the roof of the land ship. Frye had stopped it just outside the gate and Big Man had caught them, sort of.
Shiver stood up and released him, letting him adjust himself on her shoulder before she helped Big Man up. The land ship rumbled and started to move again. The three of them made their way down a roof hatch into the interior, leaving the blaring sirens and emergency lights behind.
Tahlm had never been aboard a landship before, he just imagined it being like a large truck with some beds thrown inside. Instead, he found it really was arranged more like a ship, with a narrow central walkway, a ladder leading down to what sounded like the engine room, and when they reached the front of the vehicle they saw an arrangement more like a wheel house than a truck cab.
Frye was sitting in the driver's seat on the left but there was an identical seat with matching controls on the right side. What appeared to be a navigator's station sat between them, slightly elevated. Behind, that, the floor rose a couple of steps before it became level again with a captain's chair in the centre and computer consoles on the sides. What their purpose was, Tahlm couldn't guess.
"Welcome aboard, maties" Frye said, turning around and giving them a two-fingered salute.
Shiver slipped her mask up and gave the room a quick look around. "Any problems?"
Frye faced forward. "Not so far. Nobody's following us yet and we've got a full tank of fuel. Far as I can tell, everything's ship shape."
Big Man wandered to the navigation station and sat down, turning on the display, which glowed a bright blue.
"Think you can figure it out, Big Man?" Shiver asked.
"I think so. Most of the equipment I use at home is made in the Urchin Kingdom so I shouldn't have too much trouble. I just need to figure out which map is the one we're looking for."
Shiver set Tahlm down on the back of the captain's chair and yawned. "Since we have to keep moving, I'd better get some sleep. Wake me in a few hours Frye and I'll take over."
"Sounds good," the inkling replied, never once taking her eyes off the route ahead.
Shiver waved then disappeared into the corridor.
Tahlm shook his head, trying to climb out of his daze. He couldn't believe all that he had just done. He'd participated in a heist to steal a land ship, something that most people thought impossible. What's more, he had helped Shiver fend off several guards. These were all things he never thought he would do, never thought he'd be capable of doing.
Which made it all the more odd that Shiver would suddenly go to sleep. He would have thought her too keyed up and full of adrenaline after what had just happened. Maybe she'd actually just needed some time alone and work the anxieties out of her system.
Tahlm climbed to the navigator station and stared at the display as Big Man tried to figure the system out.
"Can I help?" He asked
Big Man sighed. "Please. I may know how most Urchin computers work but I've never used a navigation system before."
Tahlm grinned. "No problem, I'm sure we'll figure it out."
Dunewalker's huge, rhombus shape lumbered into Crater's Edge. Her massive tracks clattering against the hard, packed earth, making the ground rumble.
A nervous crowd gathered at the docks. Some were family, others were friends, but those most concerned were the girlfriends.
Neo watched the latter group from her spot on Beacon Rock. They huddled in a knot together, trying to comfort each other as they waited to learn the fate of their boyfriends who had gone out scrapping.
Neo wasn't alone. Almost every teen in town was up on Beacon Rock. Like her, they shared a terrible curiosity about the fate of Selliker's group of scrappers.
Selliker was a young and ambitious guy in his mid-twenties. After failing to secure a permanent spot on a landship he formed a small group of his own using motor sleds to venture into the dunes in search of scrap. He and his group had been operating this way for almost a year but after they had failed to return the day before, everyone had become worried.
Dunewalker delayed her own return in an effort to go find them. Now everyone waited to see what they had found. Neo was not optimistic. There were reasons why you didn't use motor sleds for extended expeditions in the desert.
Dunewalker came to a stop and her engines finally went silent. The whole town seemed to hold its breath as her doors opened and people emerged.
Neo grimaced as a few were brought out on stretchers, others had to be helped out of the ship. Family and girlfriends fought for room, trying to find out anything.
One of the girlfriends let out a horrible cry upon reaching the stretcher, and a wave of white went through the assembled crowd, followed by mournful dark blues. She was joined in her wailing by others, the family of her tragically deceased boyfriend no doubt.
"Poor Cyalla," one of the girls near Neo murmured. "He was a good catch for her too."
"At least they hadn't gotten married. She's still pure."
"Not sure that'll help. There aren't any guys of age left."
Neo listened to them with only half an ear. For girls who planned on living their whole lives in this backwater town, such considerations were important. There were roughly twice as many females as males in Crater's Edge, primarily because of the mortality rates among the latter. While an inkyar could take on more than one wife, few could actually afford to, and things weren't getting any easier.
All the more reason for me to leave.
Neo climbed down from her spot and decided to head home. Her parents would doubtlessly talk about what had happened over lunch. If she had to do chores, then she might as well do it now and then she could talk to Tiyes after she found out what happened.
Neo was angry as she left her house and descended the slope of the crater to Tiyes' house. Her mantle rippled with dark reds, her face muscles were tight, but she was going to hold it in until she got to Tiyes and told him what her father had told them.
Tiyes was actually sitting outside under a corrugated steel awning. He busily applied a brush to a set of lightly corroded sprockets. He looked up as she approached, his mantle pailng warily when he noticed her mood.
"Did you hear what happened?" She demanded.
He leaned back and looked around. "Um… I heard that Selliker's group lost some people. It was a razorback, wasn't it?"
"I mean before that," she snapped. "The razorback attack wouldn't have happened if that cursed corpos hadn't tried to crush them!"
Tiyes leaned away further and he stared at her. "What do you mean?"
"I mean Selliker's group was just picking at a scrap pile when a corpo landship came out of nowhere and tried to run them over. They managed to avoid getting crushed but they flattened all of their motor sleds and left them stranded in the desert!
"The razorback attack only happened because they were forced to try and walk home the whole way. If Dunewalker hadn't found them they'd be squid jerky for the vultures."
Tiyes looked at her skeptically and adjusted his spectacles. How he could be so calm about this? People from their community had just been attacked, almost murdered. Two of them had actually ended up dead and the rest had virtually nothing left to their name.
"Selliker is notorious for taking shortcuts," he said. "He probably didn't set up flags around where they were working, again, and that's why the landship nearly ran them over. It didn't see them."
Neo's mantle flashed red. "No, they actually turned towards them. It was on purpose."
Tiyes remained skeptical. "And Selliker said this?"
"Probably. I believe him though."
"Why? What reason would the corporations have to attack such a small group?"
"Because they're corpos and they're evil. What more reason do they need?" She shook her head. "You think too much. Sometimes things are just that simple."
"And sometimes they aren't always what they appear to be." Tiyes' eyes narrowed at her. "Like maybe this is a response to what you did the other day, stealing from an already claimed scrap pile."
Neo winced. She hadn't thought of that. "So what? They steal our claimed piles all the time. Why should we respect theirs if they don't respect ours?"
"Because they can do to us what they just did to Selliker and we can't. They're the big fish that's come into our pond, Neo, and we're the runt. We can't do anything about it."
Neo narrowed her eyes and grit her beak. Yeah, you'd know about being the runt, wouldn't you? She thought spitefully.
Sulking, she sat herself on a small crate opposite him and decided to change the subject. "So, did you find anything out about that weird orb thing?"
"I did, actually." Tiyes' expression brightened immediately. "The symbol on it is the Precursor symbol for 'male'. I still have no idea what it is but it might be a piece of something larger. We don't know what all that scrap we took was originally. No way we could find out now anyway."
They had already sold the scrap and gotten a good price for it because it had been mostly aluminum. Anything they'd left behind would have been grabbed by the landship that had pursued them.
Tiyes took the orb out of the bag next to him. It had a shine to it it lacked before. Had he cleaned it?
He delicately rubbed a hand over the orb as if caressing a baby's head then his smile faded, his brows furrowing.
"I wonder…"
"What?"
Tiyes looked up at her. "The corporations wouldn't get mad over a little bit of scrap lost and I doubt they care enough about their people to get too angry over that stunt with the cable, whoever that was, but what if this is what they were actually after?"
Neo straightened. "That would make sense. If that symbol is on it then that means it was made by the Precursors, right? So it has to be worth a lot of money."
Tiyes flashed red. "Not just money, Neo, it could have a different meaning. After all, we found it in the ground and all that was there were marker flags. They hadn't taken the time to search but they must have been expecting to find this thing when they brought their landship in, which means they already knew where to look for it. The only question is why?"
Neo's mouth slowly fell open, puzzle pieces fitting together in her head. "You think that Selliker's group found another pile like ours and they were trying to chase them away from it so they could get back to it first?"
Tiyes held the orb up. "I don't know. But if this is a male then there should logically be a female that goes with it. The Precursors used that kind of symbolism a lot."
Neo's mouth morphed into a grin. "Wanna' take a look?"
An hour later, Neo was speeding along the desert, cruising across the dunes with Tiyes sitting behind her.
"Are you sure we're going the right way?" He asked.
"A landship's tracks won't be wiped out by the wind even after two days. It hasn't been windy enough."
"So?"
"So, we just have to keep going west until we run across them then we follow the path until we get there!"
It sounded easy but it was a risk. Taking a motor sled so far from home was risky even at the best of times. She was using up her family's supply of fuel for the month going on this expedition but it wasn't like her parents ever used the motor sled much anyway.
They eventually did come across the tracks. They were faint in places but still visible. They followed them north until they came across a large scrap pile. Some of the scrap was more recent than others.
Neo came to a stop and shut off the engine. Lil' Buddy took that as his cue to pop out and sniff around.
The scrap pile Selliker's group had come across resembled the bones of some massive dead creature, jutting out of the sand like a rib cage. The metal beams looked like they had been warped and partly melted by heat.
Tiyes walked up to one that Lil' Buddy began sniffing around.
"Looks like this was part of a small building."
Neo's gaze swept the vast expanse of dunes, frowning, finding it hard to believe that, at one time, massive skyscrapers had dominated the land with endless streets heading in each cardinal direction. Yet, she knew it to be true. It was one of the reasons so much scrap could be found here.
She walked up to another beam more bent and warped than the other, looking almost like it was melting in the hot sun like a wax candle.
"Remember when we were told that, in the last days, the Precursor's fought by throwing stars at each other? Do you think that's what happened here?"
"I don't know," he admitted. "But I guess it would explain why it's all melted. No volcanoes around here that I know of, unless it was due to whatever caused The Crater."
Lil' Buddy started chirping and Neo went to him, finding him picking at the remains of the Selliker group's motor sleds, all broken and crushed beyond repair. Neo wasn't sure they could make even one between the six of them. At least some of the trailers were intact.
Tiyes withdrew the red Precursor orb from his backpack and held it in his hand as he looked around, as if it might give him a sign.
"No sign of anyone coming back," he said. "Strange. You'd think they would have by now if they thought there was something valuable here."
Neo flashed green and her eyes traced the waving tracks left by the landship. It was a wheeled design. She could tell by the way multiple tracks appeared whenever it turned.
"Maybe it wasn't here that they found it. Remember the bad guys in some of our favourite books? They would chase people away if they got too close to where they thought a treasure was buried or something else really valuable. Even if they weren't looking for it they would try to keep them far away."
Tiyes nodded, holding his chin. "I guess that fits. So, if they were worried about the Selliker group finding something and it wasn't this pile, then there must be something else nearby, something that landship found that they didn't want anyone else to."
In minutes, they were away again, following the tracks the landship had carved through the dunes. Neo hoped it really was close because they were already almost out of fuel and she needed to use what they had in the jugs they'd brought with them to get home.
They came across an especially tall dune. The landship's tracks showed they had gone around it but Neo was confident even her family's battered motor sled could make the climb.
They crested the dune and Neo peered down the other side, at which point her stomach fell and her eyes went wide as they locked onto the bottom of the reverse slope descending sharply before them.
Neo let out a cry as the motor sled's front dropped, sliding down the almost vertical slope until it flared out near the bottom. The nose of the 'sled plowed into the soft sand, splashing them with hot granules. The abrupt stop sent Lil' Buddy flying out of her bag, and she and Tiyes were thrown forward, but managed to stay on.
The engine stalled and Neo brought a hand to her head, groaning.
"What the heck? Why was the slope so steep on this side?"
Tiyes stood, taking a few steps away from the 'sled and he looked around. He frowned at a spot on the ground in front of them and reached into the sand, pulling something out. It was a marker flag, but planted into the ground backwards and buried completely. Why?
He looked at the ground then back up the slope. "They must have excavated some of the dune away." He pointed to Neo's left , showing a spot where the tracks were deeper and small mounds of sand had built up on the windward side, indications that that was the spot the landship had been stopped.
Neo stood and checked on Lil' Buddy. He seemed oblivious to the fact he had just been thrown two metres through the air. He chirped and wagged his tail while she knelt to pet his head.
"Did they drop that flag or were they actually marking something?"
Tiyes frowned at it. "It was buried the wrong way up so I don't think they wanted anyone to see it."
"Then why?"
Tiyes grasped his chin, his mantle rippling as he thought. Lil' Buddy went over and began digging into the hole Tiyes had already made pulling out the flagstaff.
"Hum… well they must have done it for a reason. It was too deep to have just fallen off the landship. They must have done it so they could find it but we wouldn't notice."
Neo frowned and gazed around. "You mean there's scrap under here?"
"I don't know; it's possible. They have much better equipment than the scrappers in town do. This is pretty close to town so whatever's here must be buried deeper than what our metal detectors could find."
"Must be huge if they would even consider going down that deep. Maybe we could let our dads know and they might –."
She was cut off by a sudden yelp from Lil' Buddy and they heard his voice echo down in the hole he'd dug. Neo ran to it, diving onto her hands and knees to peer inside the hole.
"Buddy? Are you okay?"
Some excited noises called back and she could hear him bouncing up and down.
"Doesn't sound that deep and I think he's found something. Let's take a look."
Without waiting for his reply, she changed to squid form and dove down the small, dark hole.
At the bottom, Neo reformed and found Lil' Buddy, barely visible in the narrow shaft of light coming down through the hole.
"What did you find down here, Buddy?" She looked around in the dim light and found the flashlight in her backpack. It had a few teeth marks on it where Lil' Buddy had chewed it.
Turning on the light she waved it around and gasped as she realized where they were.
Things went darker for a moment as Tiyes also made his way down.
"Tiyes, look at this!"
Buddy's hole had led them into a small, stone passageway. They were in some kind of ancient ruins.
"I didn't know there were any ruins around here," Tiyes said surprised. "It must have been left here between the Diaspora and the time the Onaga arrived here."
The Inkling Diaspora was an event over one-thousand years old. According to the Book of Madai, hordes of salmonids had driven inkling kind from their ancient homes around a massive inland sea on the other side of the world. From there, they fled, becoming nomads as they wandered across the world to find new homes. Most didn't survive.
Somehow, at least one inkling civilization came through the Splatlands and was around long enough to build a few temples and other structures. At some point, they disappeared and nobody knew what happened to them. No inklings were seen in the area again until centuries later when the Onaga arrived to join Splatsville, followed by Neo's own ancestors, who had been driven from the lakelands by crabs and forced to flee south.
"So this place is probably over a thousand years old then."
"Probably." Tiyes touched the wall, feeling the smooth stone beneath his hand. "I can only imagine how much history is in this place."
Neo rolled her eyes. "Never mind that, come on, let's explore!"
"Hold it!" He shouted. "We need to be careful. Some lizards might have made their homes in here."
Neo flashed blue. "I doubt it. We'd be able to smell if they had. There's a reason they bury themselves in the sand."
Chuckling to herself, she made her way down the corridor. Tiyes followed, looking just a little braver. They had both dreamed of a moment like this, finding and exploring ancient ruins. This trip had definitely been worth it.
They reached what they thought was the T-junction but it turned out to be just a broad ceiling support in the middle of the corridor. They went around it and found themselves in a large open chamber.
Neo aimed her flashlight at the ceiling and a sky of glittering stars sparkled back at her in a rainbow of colours. At different points along the ceiling's range metal disks pressed into it, each a different size and single colour, save one which was blue and green. A single huge disk of gold was in the centre of the ceiling.
"It's a whole sky," Neo said, awed.
"Not just that." Tiyes brought out his own flashlight and moved the beam between the various disks. "I think these represent the planets in the solar system. That big one there, is Jupiter and this one –," he fixed his beam on the blue and green disk, "is us on Earth."
Neo scratched her head. "I didn't know you knew about planets. I thought your books were just full of history and about ruins and stuff."
"I have read books on astronomy too," he replied stiffly. "It's important to keep one's horizons broad. The Wisdoms say so."
Neo's lips pressed together indignantly.
"Alright, smart guy, what's this planet then and why does it have a symbol when the others don't."
She pointed her flashlight at an orange disk slightly smaller than the Earth one. A circle with an arrow coming out of it at a right angle was drawn on its surface.
Tiyes eyes went wide. "It's the same symbol as the sphere." He pulled it out of his bag and held it up, comparing the two.
"Based on how far it is from the sun compared to the others, my guess is that's Mars. Some people believe that some Precursors are still alive there but we've never found any proof. All we know so far is that some people tried to make it there to avoid the end of the world."
Neo grunted. "But why would the Ancients build this place? We don't even know where they went, never mind the Precursors. I mean, it's pretty an' all but the Scrap Corporations have never cared about ruins. If any of this was valuable they would have taken it already."
Tiyes flashed green and slowly swung his flashlight around again. If fixed on a section of wall that jutted out from the rest. On it was an arrow pointed directly upwards and a hole just beneath it.
Neo pointed her flashlight to the ceiling where the arrow was pointing but saw nothing but the twinkling of the tiny, artificial stars.
"I don't get it."
Tiyes walked close to the arrow, reaching out his hand and gently brushing its surface. "Hey, it's not built into the wall." He indicated a curved groove just above the arrow and brushed sand away from it, showing that the groove continued.
Neo went over and helped him, working from the other side until the groove formed a complete circle around the arrow.
"Now what does this mean?" Neo asked.
Tiyes hummed. "It doesn't look decorative. I think the arrow's supposed to turn."
"Turn? Oh! I get it, this is just like the puzzles in the temples from our adventure books! We have to solve the puzzle to unlock the temple's secrets!"
Tiyes glanced around. "I think this is more of a shrine than a temple."
"Oh who cares, let's just figure this out, get the treasure or secret or whatever and get out of here before the corpos get it. Now, what are we supposed to do with the arrow? We've only found one."
Tiyes nodded again then adjusted his spectacles. "Help me turn this."
Neo adjusted her grip on her flashlight and gripped the circular rock the arrow was carved into as best she could. They both grunted and tried to shift the arrow. It took a lot of effort but they finally managed to get it unstuck after a full minute of pushing and pulling with their limited grip. They kept at it until the arrow pointed at forty-five degrees to the right.
Nothing happened.
"What's goin' on?" Neo demanded. "We did it right, didn't we?"
Tiyes touched the side of his spectacles then took the sphere in his hand again. "Yes, but maybe…" He cautiously extended his arm, placing the sphere in the hole below the arrow.
He took a step back. The symbol was sitting on top of the sphere. She thought it should be facing the same as the arrow. Tiyes probably thought the same because he reached forward to adjust it, but then he froze.
Neo frowned then stared in amazement as the symbol slowly migrated across the sphere's surface to face perpendicular to the ground.
There was a clunk, followed by the sound of stone grinding against stone and the circle on which the arrow sat slid into the wall until it revealed a small hole in the bottom.
Neo shone her flashlight inside but saw nothing. She looked at Tiyes but his flashlight and eyes were pointed at the part of the ceiling where the arrow was pointing.
"What are you doing?"
"Those stars. They're –."
A rumbling sound interrupted him. It came from the entrance and shook dust from the walls and ceiling. Something making that much noise could only be a land ship.
"We need to get out of here!"
Tiyes nodded and placed the sphere in his backpack while Neo picked up Lil' Buddy and carried him back to the entrance, Tiyes right behind.
The vibrations had widened the hole they had originally come in through, making it easier for them to climb out rather than use their squid form. Neo jumped up into the hole and scrabbled upwards.
On the surface, she threw her arm out to shield herself from the bright sun after her eyes had adjusted to the dark inside the shrine. She helped Tiyes up and headed for their motor sled when the light of the sun was abruptly cut off.
An avalanche of sand knocked them both over, half burying them. Neo spat, gagging at the sand that had somehow found its way into her mouth then scrambled to try and get herself out.
Lil' Buddy sputtered and popped out of her bag, digging with his fins to get her unstuck. The moment Neo's feet were free, she looked up, and her stomach dropped.
A landship with the Black Steel logo printed on its side loomed above her. It's tires had dislodged the sand that had almost buried them. They needed to get out of there now!
Lil' Buddy was helping Tiyes so she tried to find the motor sled. She found it alright, buried up to its handlebars. They were stuck and in deep trouble.
Tiyes groaned and sat up, finally free and Neo forced herself to swallow her anxiety, standing to her feet and getting ready to fight. She wouldn't let the corpos get their hands on the artifact, she couldn't leave such power in the hands of evil!
The side hatch on the landship opened and three figures leaped down into the sand. All three of them wore masks and one of them was incredibly broad. These were not the usual Black Steel employees; they'd sent special agents.
Tiyes stared at them, eyes wide in fear, his mantle a stark white in surrender, but Neo refused to be cowed so easily, she would not submit to evil, so she turned her mantle a hostile red instead.
The hero of the story always got their way out of situations like this somehow – it was too early in their journey to get caught, but as she stared up at the looming figures on the slope above them, she had no idea how she was going to manage the same feat.
Author's Notes:
Argh, Deep Cut be sailing the seven sands now! Tahlm may be little but that just means the bad guys don't see him ;)
It took a while but we got back to Neo and Tiyes. Life is tough in the Outlands, desert predators and a potentially dangerous job keeps the male population low and things are only getting harder and more desperate as the corpos continue to put the squeeze on them, leading to groups like Sellikers assuming even greater risks in the hope of achieving success.