The Fox and the Seedrian: Frontiers
by milesprower06
Chapter Twelve
After a light breakfast and a quick check of their water supplies, Sonic, Tails, and Lily crossed the last half-mile to the first structures of Sandopolis.
It was mostly large gazebo-type buildings, held up by half-sunken pillars, though in some places the pillars were all that remained of the structure, the roof having collapsed and vanished under the dunes long ago. A few sandfalls that were driven by the wind poured more sand and sediment down from the canyons that surrounded the ancient city, though most of it was carried further by the winds.
Of course, all the ruins that dotted the region were dwarfed by the massive pyramid in the center, and the closer they got to it, the more it overtook the volcano looming over the sands.
"How are our lanterns doing? Batteries still good?" Tails asked.
"Yeah, they've seen minimal use. Our campsites have been pretty much exclusively lit by campfires," Sonic told him.
"To ward off those ghosts or spirits in the pyramid, right?" Lily asked.
"Yeah," Sonic replied. "Hard to out run those when they were coming out of the walls, floors, and ceilings. No idea how the ancients built this place, but they used gas coming up from the volcano to light a whole system of torches once you get inside. They only came out when it was dark in there. By far, the creepiest part of the whole island, if you ask me."
"Maybe they won't be a problem this time around," Lily suggested. "Maybe they were just disturbed by Eggman trying to get to the Hidden Palace."
Sonic and Tails knew that it likely wouldn't be a quick jaunt through the pyramid; Lily would likely want to spend hours looking at all the carvings and hieroglyphs in there, and neither of them had an issue with that, as long as the light held out. Besides, there was no guarantees that they would be going any farther, depending on the condition of the passage down into the lava reef and the Hidden Palace. It would be the most risky part of the journey, by far.
Coming up to the Great Pyramid, they gazed down at the entrance, noticing that the staircase down had long since crumbled away, and that there was a moat of quicksand that would have to be avoided.
Sonic, eager for any bursts of speed he could get on this hiking trip, took several steps back, then took a running leap over the moat, landing over on more solid ground by the entrance.
"Alright, hang on tight," Tails said, spinning up his tails, taking his daughter by the hands, and gently carried her over the moat, letting her down next to Sonic before coming down himself. Then the three of them unhooked the lanterns from their packs, and took another swig of water, before turning their attention towards the entrance. Sonic went in first, Tails was second, then lastly, Lily stepped inside into the darkness before Sonic found the first chain for the lights, and pulled it to temporarily ignite the gas-vein-fueled torches, and Lily's eyes widened as within moments, the interior was flooded with flickering orange light, and she saw just how massive the ancient complex was.
"Whoa…" She said just above a whisper.
"The gas valves will eventually close if we don't find other pull-chains fast enough, so keep your lanterns in your hands at all times," Tails told them as he reached into a side pouch, coming out with his BD drone again. He switched it on, and it floated out of his hand.
"BD, pathing mode," Tails said.
The drone beeped an affirmation, then it took up a hovering position behind him.
"Pathing mode?" Lily asked.
"In addition for scanning for pressure plates, it will keep a record of exactly where we go, and where we've been. If we have to get out, it will guide us on the path we came in on," Tails told her.
"Quite helpful," Lily admitted.
The trio made their way down the stairs in front of them.
"I can't imagine how long this took to build," Lily commented.
"It could be not as long as we think," Tails commented. "The technology of the ancients is largely unknown, so their construction methods might not be as archaic as the Mobians of the same time period."
"You also have to wonder what happened to them. Signs of their existence are dotted across Mobius, and yet there's no trace of them anywhere. They just vanished, before any of our modern recorded history," Lily replied.
The lighting began to dim just as they came to another pull-chain. Tails gave it a yank, and the gas valves were fully opened again.
"Are you sure that our lanterns are going to last through the night when we have to set up camp in here?" Lily asked.
"On a dimmer setting, which should be enough to keep a tighter campsite illuminated, yeah, the batteries are good for 24 hours, and we've each got a backup battery," Tails told her.
"Maybe they won't be a problem with Eggman not disturbing everything," Sonic offered.
"That's an optimistic thought," Tails told him.
The stairs took them down to an immense, cavernous room that was well below the base of the pyramid. Stone slopes carried quicksand flowing in from above, which was probably what was stopping the pyramid above getting buried.
With how large the room appeared, Lily was shocked that it didn't drop out of the bottom of the island the farther down they got, but according to her altimeter, they had only descended about one hundred feet.
On the far side of the room, there was a large mural carved into the wall with various symbols and hieroglyphs, and Lily paused to look at them, lightly running her fingers across them. Luckily, there was another pull-chain close by, so Sonic stood by the chain, pulling it again the moment the torches began to dim again, as Tails went over to his daughter who was giving all of her focus to the wall.
"Can you make sense of any of it?" Tails asked, coming up next to her.
"Some of it…" Lily began, especially fascinated by the hieroglyphs surrounding the carvings of the Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald. "I think… The ancients brought the Chaos Emeralds with them, here, to Mobius… But not the Master Emerald. That was already here."
Lily took several steps to the left, going farther back in the mural.
"They believed the Chaos Emeralds were drawn to the Master Emerald. But…"
Lily stepped back to the right, towards the middle of the mural.
"If this is their numerical system… Most of them weren't in this region. The ancients that came here… It was the last of them. That… That would match what I've read in the Chaos Compendium. One of the most prevalent theories was that the last of the ancients eventually became Chao, because there were historical records that tell of large numbers of them in this region around 4,000 years ago, the same time as Knuckles' tribe, before this landmass became a floating island."
"Not exactly a lot of them around here now," Tails commented.
"Yeah, you're right about that."
Sonic pulled the torch chain one last time before the three of them continued down the next corridor, which tightened considerably. Curiously, it didn't descend, but it zig-zagged up and over, then down in the same pattern, as it continued farther into the mountain.
The corridor opened up once again, to another wide open room, not quite as big, but with more murals on the walls, this one in another style than the last.
"These look different, more recent…" Lily observed.
"The echidna tribe, likely," Tails said.
"That looks familiar," Sonic said, pointing to what looked like a crumpled heap of stone and metal, looking like a cross between a sphinx and a robot.
"No torch chains in this area, so time to get those lanterns out. I'd say it's time for dinner anyway. That right there leads down into the lava reef," Sonic said, pointing to a small square tunnel at the very back of the room. "And it's a drop. We should get ropes set up to rappel, so we can get back up if it's not safe."
"I'll handle that," Tails said, dropping his pack. "You and Lily handle dinner, and set up our sleeping area as close together as you can, no tents. We should try for a shorter amount of sleep, in case the spirits of this place don't want us here."
Lily also knew that this would be the first real test of their sleeping pads, as every other campsite had been on dirt or grass, not stone. So as Tails carefully selected anchor points for the ropes that would hopefully take them down to the lava reefs, Sonic and Lily went about putting together a simple meal of biscuits and gravy, made over a portable camping stove. When Tails was done with the ropes for tomorrow morning, he came back to the campsite that was nothing more than a trio of sleeping pads, sleeping bags, and lanterns, his daughter handed him a tin plate of two halved biscuits with creamy gravy on top.
"Looks delicious, sweetheart, thank you," her dad told her immediately before taking his first bite.
"So what is it going to look like down there?" Lily asked Sonic as they ate their dinner.
"Mostly caverns, and if the reef is still cooled, likely a lot darker than it was when I was down there," Sonic replied. "As we close in on the Hidden Palace, it'll really start to open up, and you'll even see some daylight come in from the top of the mountain."
"That's if we get that far," Tails added, wanting to manage expectations. "We won't be coming to anything that looks even remotely hot or dangerous, and BD will be monitoring surface and ambient temperatures the entire way."
"I know, I know. Safety first, dad," Lily said, as she took the last few bites of her dinner, running her finger along the inside of the bowl to get every last bit of gravy, before licking the fork clean, and returning both items to her pack.
Tails was somewhat surprised at how quickly Lily seemed to start yawning, and his daughter quickly got laid out on her sleeping pad, and was out like a light in just a matter of minutes.
"That was fast," Sonic commented, sitting next to his best friend. "Figured she'd spend at least an hour after dinner recording the hieroglyphics, going over every inch of this room."
"Well, at least this way she's not overstimulated and has trouble getting to sleep when she has to," Tails said.
Deciding to lighten their packs a bit more, the hedgehog and fox opened a pack of freeze-dried ice cream bites, and began to snack on them as Lily slept soundly in the lantern light.
As he munched on the pieces of ice cream, Sonic's gaze caught the air almost rippling above Lily; something that wouldn't be out of place had a campfire been set up, but without one, it was cause for concern, and Tails paused in his snacking to see what had caught Sonic's eye.
Sonic slowly set his packet of ice cream bites down, and scooted over to the lantern in the center of their sleeping pads, put his fingers on the dial in the base, and slowly turned it counter-clockwise, dimming the light ever so slightly, while not taking his eyes off of the shimmering air.
"What are you doing?" Tails asked, his voice hushed and just above a whisper.
Sonic's eyes remained on the shimmers, as he dimmed the lantern further, just enough to see a pair of ghost spirits, circling about ten feet above Lily.
Tails quietly came forward on his hands and knees next to Sonic.
"What are you doing? Turn it back up!" Tails told him, under a whisper.
"Look…" Sonic whispered at his friend, pointing up at the pair of ghosts. "When I was in here the first time, they went in and out of the walls, and swooped down to try and hit me, but nothing like this. Back then, they were bigger and angrier."
"What's your point?" Tails asked, wondering why Sonic was entertaining this instead of keeping the lantern bright.
"Didn't Lily just say she was hearing voices when she slept? What if they're trying to talk to her? Isn't that why she's here? To try and commune with whatever has been reaching out to her in her dreams?"
Tails took a deep quiet breath as he considered what Sonic was saying, and took the time to look up at the spirits that were slowly circling above his daughter.
"Okay," he whispered to his friend, and Sonic turned the lantern down farther. The ghosts started glowing brighter and brighter, but didn't get bigger, and their expressions didn't get angrier. Tails looked down at his daughter, and while he was glad that she didn't start thrashing in her sleep in a nightmarish manner, he could tell her rapid eye movement beneath her eyelids speed up, as whatever she was dreaming began to intensify.
It was fifteen, perhaps twenty seconds, before the ghosts stopped circling above her, and zoomed out back towards the walls of the room, and Lily's eyes shot open as she bolted up into an upright position on her sleeping pad.
"Are you alright?" Tails asked as Sonic slowly turned the lantern up again to illuminate the entire camping area.
Lily took several deep breaths, looking around her to confirm where she was.
"Lily?" Tails repeated.
Having caught her breath, the girl looked over to her father, eyes wide.
"I… I understood them that time… As clear as day…" Lily told him.
"They spoke to you?" Sonic asked. "What did they say?"
Lily took another breath, before reaching into her pack for her bottle to take a swig of water.
"They said, 'set him free.'"