Temple of the Solar Serpent.

Having emptied the contents of his stomach on the stone below, John **** himself to look back at the sacrificial altar. It was horrifyingly real. Every ounce of fear he'd felt in history class, every imagined terror was embodied here in stone. His blood pulsed in his veins, and John tried not to imagine it spattered all over the altar. It took effort, painfully slow breaths, but he was able to keep from vomiting again.

Erica looked almost as uncomfortable as he did, though she'd kept her composure better. She stood unnaturally rigid and pointedly looked away from the gore-stained rock. John had no doubts she wanted to get as far away from the temple as he did.

"I think we need to go down," he managed, through the urge to turn tail and run.

They both looked around for a set of stairs or passage into the temple, but the altar was centered on a flat plateau. It wasn't completely smooth, with the upper body of the carved snake continuing in a spiral towards the bloodied stone. John began tracing the path of the serpent, steeling himself as he reached the head. Sure enough, the beast's jaws were engraved into the sacrificial rock, worn away with the erosion of years of blood. Fighting his instincts, he touched the altar and braced for whatever would happen.

Skill Rank Increased: Fear Resistance 1 -> 2

The effect of the improved skill was immediate; John's pulse slowed a fraction more and he closed his eyes, taking a badly needed breath.

"John! Over here!" Erica waved from across the temple's peak, pointing down.

He hurried over and followed her gesture downwards. Just below, there was an archway built into the stairs. Presumably, it led into the temple's interior. They descended the stairs on either side of the entrance and stopped at the opening. It was a tunnel; the walls decorated with hieroglyphics showed a pair of lizard-people bowing to a coiled creature: the same serpent that surrounded the temple.

Erica nudged him, "I guess this is it, dude. You sure what we need is in there?" The tunnel appeared to lead down, deep into the temple's underbelly. "Looks dark." She was right; the passage way was deeply shadowed and dipped further out of sight before they could see the end.

John searched his mind for the fragments of memory he could still grasp. This... was right. Every detail pointed to something inside. A machine, incomplete and faded, instructions written in a script he couldn't read... He swallowed, "I think so."

"Alright," she shrugged, starting forward into the tunnel. With a word and a drawn rune, her tattoos glowed once more and lit their way.

The pathway was shorter than either of them expected, leading into a room fifty or so feet below the surface. It was octagonal, with four exits. Aside from the one they'd come through, the rest seemed to go deeper underground. In the center of the room rose a tall cube, each side being at least as long as John's height. The surface was exquisitely carved, revealing complex inner workings, dusty gears and empty sockets. Visible in the depths of the machine was a much smaller box that gleamed a dull turquoise. It was the only metal that John had seen in the entire city.

"I think this is what we're looking for... but I don't know why."

They both approached the cube, Erica pacing around it slowly to give them a good view of each angle. Whatever it had once been, the device was a complicated thing; it seemed to be missing pieces, but he didn't even know where to start. He tried to rebuild the thing in his mind from what he could see, but half the parts couldn't possibly fit together...

"What is this?" Erica asked, vocalizing the question John himself had been pondering.

"Beats me," John knelt next to one side of the cube and opened his inventory. There had to be something in it that would help him get a better look... the Starstone Emerald. It shone in his hands with a luminescent viridian glow, as bright as a lantern. With it, he could see deeper into the machine, but the mess inside was no clearer. Was that a missing gear or an intentional gap in the cogworks...

Erica stood beside him, the light from her tattoos mixing with the green gem's illumination into a soft teal. "That's pretty; where did you get it?"

"Back in the clearing with the hydra," he replied, instantly regretting it. Reminding Erica of what'd happened probably wasn't the best idea, but she only hummed a nonchalant reply and stepped back to give him space. With no real idea how to fix the machine, John tried to focus on what it did. He could vaguely remember something... but the details kept slipping through his grasp. It was important, they were supposed to be here, so what was he forgetting? What happened next? Deeper, in the forgotten dark, carved in eternal stone.

John's eye was drawn to the unexplored side tunnels, "I think I know where we can find out what this is." He walked to the left one, holding up the gem to see deeper into the temple. Not far out the passageways split and curved to each side. "Over here."

Erica followed, and together they descended a level further. The tunnels wrapped back around, depositing them in a much larger room, half again the size of the sanctum above. It was far more elaborately decorated, every wall completely covered in images of lizardfolk at work, farming, trading, hunting and...

There it was, the image from his vision. Full circle, the wheel turns and begins anew.

"Look at this," John turned to Erica, pointing at one of the hieroglyphs engraved into the temple walls, "the people here knew how to create barriers, and it looks like they used something to do it."

The pattern of glyphs showed a device being operated by two of the lizard-humanoids producing what looked suspiciously like a portal; on the other side of which were figures closely resembling a male and female human. Both were naked and standing in an exquisitely carved garden of fruits. Yet perhaps the most distinctive element that caught John's eye was the inscription of a sun behind the humans, the one thing this underground world lacked...

He approached the wall and stared up at it. The apparent benevolence of the lizardfolk did not at all match the piles of skulls on the dais above. What had happened here? John turned to look at the other walls. None of them showed carvings of sacrifices, but there was an element that seemed strange. Coiled all around the walls was another image of the great serpent, this one with its jaws firmly clenched around a ball... no, another sun.

Erica had walked up beside him and was examining the carvings, particularly the portal device. "It does look kinda like the box upstairs." She tapped on the visible cogwork, then the central cube, "Maybe if we found some of the parts we could get it working again? There's no guarantee it'd get us home..."

"...but it's worth a try, yeah," he finished Erica's sentence as she trailed off. "Alright, let's go back up and see what's missing."

"Hold on," she rummaged around in her armor, pulling her phone out from somewhere, "Let me take a couple pictures first."

Where was she keeping that?

While Erica captured snapshots of the facade, John mentally berated himself for not thinking of it first. Even if he couldn't call anyone, he could still use the other features of his phone. Hell, it might be worth buying a decent camera or two... especially considering how wealthy he was and how easy they'd be to transport.

"Alright, got it," Erica pocketed her phone, walking back towards the entrance. He joined her, about to leave when John noticed something. The room they were in now had two exits.... why did that seem off?

It's probably nothing.

Unfortunately, Erica's pictures were only slightly helpful in figuring out what they needed to get the portal machine working again. At her suggestion, they'd agreed to focus first on getting the metal object out and taking a closer look at whatever it was. That task had fallen to John. He managed to get one side of the stone cube open and crawled in to fiddle around the interior with the aid of his emerald's light. By shifting some of the gears aside, he'd reached the central box and was now trying to work it free. It was seemingly attached to everything!

It took longer than he'd liked, buried up to his waist in the increasingly claustrophobic machine, to get the metal box out. Once it was removed from its mounting, the component easily slid free, and John pulled himself back out. The tight gears scraped his right shoulder, biting into his skin painfully, but left no lasting damage.

While he'd been fiddling with gears, Erica had taken a seat against one of the walls, her tattoos softly illuminating the room. She didn't move as John wriggled out of the device, her eyes were closed, and she breathed softly. She was probably asleep. It was the first real opportunity for rest since she'd woken up; her body clearly was taking advantage... John decided not to disturb her. She was still his patient... and she looked beautifully serene.

Instead, he quietly sat by the open side of the stone machine, turning the metal box he'd pulled out of it over in his hands. Every side was perfectly flat, featureless and seemingly pointless. There was no obvious use for it; maybe it was just a weight, something to keep the device together... but that didn't explain why it was the only metal he'd seen in the entire temple. It had to be important.

John made mental notes of every attribute the box had.

Firstly, it was quite light. Despite being almost as large as one of his hands, the cube weighed less than his emerald. Secondly, he couldn't place the material. At first glance, he'd assumed the thing was made out of silver, but with closer examination, John wasn't so sure. Thirdly, the cube had no scrapes in its surface or any blemishes whatsoever. Every side was perfectly smooth, and he got the sense that even if he bashed the thing into the floor that nothing bad would happen to it.

Of course, none of his analysis would be needed if Observe worked. It was the very first thing he tried when he dove into the machine, but the result he got now was the exact same text he'd gotten initially.

Object status unclear - Material resisted data collection attempt

John leaned back against one of the exposed cogs and sighed loudly. Whatever this thing was, it didn't want him to know... or the Developer didn't... or maybe it didn't even exist. Maybe he was stuck somewhere out in the jungle dying of thirst while his mind conjured a delusion of escape!

A soft noise drew his attention to Erica, who was rubbing her eyes and pushing herself upright. "What's wrong?" she asked.

He held up the cube, catching some of the light on one edge, "I got this out, but can't figure out what it is. Any ideas?"

Erica pushed herself up, walked over to where John sat, and took the offered item to examine it with a speculative look. After a long moment, she spoke, "Not really, but I might know what's inside," she started to pace back and forth as she talked, "I was thinking about that wall downstairs, the one that shows Earth... or something a lot like it. Opening a stable gateway between one of Yggdrasil's Branches and our world isn't easy; I've got no idea how we stumbled into one." She tossed the cube up into the air, a grin spreading across her lips as she caught it, "Part of the reason it's so difficult is you either need a powerful mage, like crazy powerful, I'm not even sure the Scarlet Witch could pull it off... or you need a Keystone."

John pulled himself to his feet using a cog as a handhold, "A 'Keystone'?"

"I don't know much about them, aside from the legends... but they're old. Older than dirt. Each one supposedly contained a part of the essence of the World Tree itself and lets whoever holds it travel freely among the Branches." She leaned over, setting the cube on the ground.

"So, assuming there's one of these 'Keystone' things inside that, how are we-" he started to ask.

Purple smoke formed into Erica's great weapon and, with an energetic shout, she brought the axe down on the surface of the metallic box.

John winced as metal screamed against metal. He expected to see two halves of a broken way home... but instead Erica's axe bounced off and disintegrated back into smoke. The berserker seemed frozen and remained motionless as John knelt to pick up the cube. The only result of her attempt to break it open was a thin crack on one side. Before his eyes, the metal flowed like water, sealing it back up and hiding the contents from them again. So, it repaired itself... that was something he could stop. John cast Rend.

The red light of the spell vanished into the cube. It trembled. Deep scores appeared all over the surface, and though it tried to mend them, the immutable damage resisted whatever regeneration capabilities it had. John's excitement grew; after everything they'd been through, he held a way home in his hands. Cracks ran up the side of the cube as he threw another cast into it, growing larger and larger by the second, until the surface shattered and fell away, revealing a disc made of rippling flame.

Solaris Keystone
One of the ancient relics of lost Lemuria, memories of a burning warmth reside in this echo of a fallen era.

Despite apparently being made of fire, the Keystone was only a gentle warmth against his fingers. It rippled with orange and red, radiating a brilliant glow that lit up the whole room... but was painless to look at. Simply put, it was one of the most beautiful things that John had ever seen. Erica, too, seemed captivated by the artifact's beauty and stared at it silently for a passing minute.

"So..la," a croaking voice, unlike anything John had ever heard, interrupted them. They both turned to see a ragged figure emerging from the shadows of one of the tunnels. Torn clothes, aged far beyond their years, clung to the emaciated form of a lizardman. He had scars all over his jaws, and teeth were clearly missing from his mouth. One eye was clouded over with blindness, but the other stared at the disc in John's fingers. The elder hobbled closer and fell to his knees, either out of reverence or exhaustion. Inhabitants: 1, John's mind recalled. A hand shuddered and reached out, a clawed finger missing, towards the Keystone.

John stepped back, away, and the lizardman collapsed entirely to the ground. His scales were silvery with age and had bones visible underneath them.

How old is he? How... how long has he been here?

Handing the Keystone to Erica, who took it cautiously, John knelt by the side of the ancient creature. His acquired medical knowledge struggled to assess the lizardman's condition, but what was certain was he was toeing the line of ****. Any second could be the elder's last. Offering a hand, but with the other ready to draw one of his knives, John helped the lizardman to his knees.

To both their surprise, he was crying. Slow tears rolled down the ancient's cheeks and dropped to the ground, his other hand clutched to his chest in a fist. His eyes seemed to never leave the Keystone in Erica's hands, but he made no move to take it. If anything, he seemed frozen at the sight of it. "Sola..." he repeated.

John helped the elder to the nearest wall, letting him sit as comfortably as possible before gesturing to Erica to hand the Keystone to him. He held it up and asked, "Do you know how we can use this?"

A single clawed finger traced the flickering edge of the disc, and John resisted the urge to snatch it back. There had been no response to his question, so he asked again. This time, the ancient looked up and stretched out a shaking hand. John looked between the disc and the elder, hesitantly offering it, but the lizardman shook its head slowly.

What does he want?

John tried pointing at the machine. The elder shook its head again and pointed slowly at him, opening its claws towards the human. He cautiously placed his hand in the ancient's palm, but again the lizardman made no move to attack. It turned his palm over and reached its other trembling fingers into the torn robes, withdrawing a small pouch. Then it spoke, with a clarity that surprised both humans.

"Children of Eden... forgive..."

John looked at Erica, who seemed as startled as he was. Neither of them seemed to know what to say.

"Pale eyes... blinded by... sola..." the elder whispered as he drew forth a pinch of black sand from the bag and began sprinkling it over John's palm. "Mistakes..."

Uncertain of what to do, John sat as the lizardman continued his work and watched as a design emerged from the sand. A spiral that began along the outside of his palm led inwards to an eight-pointed star that itself contained a barely visible sphere. The detail alone was impressive, so John was **** when the elder encouraged him to close his fingers on it... but he did; with a sigh, John wiped out the design and-

He felt no sand under his fingertips. John opened his hand again and stared in shock at the image inscribed there. The elder's work had been inked onto his skin, a permanent tattoo that made him scramble back in confusion.

"Knew you... come... be... fr..e..e."

Looking back up at the ancient creature in growing anger, John was met with something that he could best describe as a smile... on the dead elder's jaws.

Inhabitants: 0
Helia Briyo Aurelion is now classified as Extinct

"Uh... what was that all about, dude?" Erica's voice cut through his shock.

John looked at his inked hand, turning it over and following the tail of the spiral up his left arm.

This'll be hard to explain...

"Hey. Hey, dude. Dude?" a hand waved in front of his face, "John!"

"Sorry," he snapped out of thought and pushed himself up from the ground, holding out his arm for her to look at.

Erica let out a low whistle, glancing back and forth between him and the now deceased artist, "That's a hell of a souvenir."

"Yeah," John grumbled and looked at the design, turning his hand over, "I haven't got a clue why... hold on." The elder had mentioned freedom... He held out a hand, "Pass me the Keystone."

She obliged. The moment John touched the burning edge of the disc, a light began to spread along the lines of his new tattoo. Black turned to a glowing yellow, as though it were absorbing energy from the Keystone, and new popups brought hope to his heart.

Achievement Unlocked! - "Knowledge of the Ancients"
Obtain a skill or spell through a gift from an Abyssal entity.
+1 Intellect
+1 Wisdom

Spell Learned: Stellar Dive ~ 1
Creates a variable Illusion Barrier based on the Gamer's experiences in the Abyss and the intent held on creation.
Mana Cost: 18 mp
Spell Focus: Keystone
(Domain: Abyss)

Intellect is too low to discover the locations stored within the Solaris Keystone!