Tower of mystery

Having waited for far longer than she thought it should have taken, Opera saw that Ernest was finally done examining the exterior of the tower that the two of them had come to explore. She’d parked the starship about halfway between the tower and a ruined town that was near to it. While she and Ernest explored the tower, Celine and Precis were supposed to explore the town. The walk to the tower had only taken about thirty minutes, but Ernest had immediately become fascinated by its architecture and spent a good fifteen more minutes walking around the exterior, examining every detail.

“Truly fascinating.” Ernest stood at the entrance and looked upwards. Gleaming white and polished smooth, the tower rose quite a few stories into the air, curving gracefully as it flared and tapered at points, but mostly stayed a straight cylinder until it reached what looked like some sort of flat top with spires on it. “This is completely different architecture than the temple. Look at how smoothly the tower rises and curves, almost like the entire outer wall is one solid structure. The temple was clearly built stone by stone and level by level. This looks like someone simply placed a finished tower right here.”

Opera stepped up and leaned on Ernest shoulder while looking up at the tower. Now that he pointed it out, it was pretty obvious that the tower couldn’t possibly have been built by the same people who built the temple. “So what does that tell you?” Engaging in his love for archeology had sparked his interest yesterday. Hopefully it could again.

“Hmm…” Ernest pondered and slipped his arm around Opera. “If I had to guess, I’d say this tower is several centuries younger than the temple. Either this civilization made vast leaps in technology between the times they were built or a completely different group built the towers.”

Opera pulled her scanner out and studied it. “But the tower does have a similar energy signature to the temple.” Although it was admittedly a little different. Now that the stone in the temple had disappeared, she only had her previous scans of it to compare with. The wave lengths on the radiation from the temple stone were tighter together, while the tower’s energy reading seemed wider. It made her think of the temple as being angry while the tower was relaxed.

“True, true.” Ernest stepped away from Opera and moved to enter the tower. “And given how the temple went, if we find any more strange symbology spheres, we should probably avoid touching them.”

The tower was probably only about fifty feet in diameter, and as they stepped inside, they could see the entire interior was one single room. A narrow, but not dangerously so, staircase, that seemed to be made of the same white material as the tower exterior, ran spiraling upward along the outer wall. Up and up and up all the way to what looked like the flat top of the tower where they could just make out an opening that presumably went out onto the roof. The rest of the tower was largely empty save for two things. First, a line of crystals, each about ten to twelve feet from the next, floated in the center of the room also going all the way up to the roof. Each crystal glowed with a soft magenta light, reminiscent of the stone and symbology sphere they had found in the temple, but softer and gentler. Directly under the line of crystals, was a statue of an elfin woman. Standing tall, with her head tilted slightly to look up and her arms raised, hands out, the statue looked like it was offering something up to the line of crystals. Though the statue appeared to be marble or perhaps the same material as the tower, symbological runes slowly spiraled around it. Like the crystals, the runes glowed with a soft magenta light. Lithe, but not skinny, the woman was naked, her body beautifully displayed in a celebration of her feminine form rather than pure eroticism.

Ernest stepped closer to the statue and studied its face. “I’d have to go back to the ship and confirm.” He glanced at Opera. “Unless you happened to have scans of that statue we brought back from the temple.” She shook her head no and Ernest shrugged. “No matter. I’m pretty sure that this is the same woman as before.”

Opera studied the statue as well. Having three eyes meant that most Tetrageniots had increased depth perception and spatial awareness. It did not, however, mean they were better at studying artistic impression. After looking for a few moments, Opera could only assume Ernest was correct. “So why is this woman almost deified or priestly elevated here, but in the temple she was destroyed and hidden?”

“An excellent question, my dear.” Ernest cheerfully exclaimed. He stepped behind Opera and wrapped his arms around her waist as they both continued to study the sculpture. “Presumably the tower was built by a completely different faction of people from the temple. Likely we’re looking at some sort of religious difference. Maybe the temple faction worshiped the male figure while the tower faction worshiped the female.”

Opera happily leaned back against Ernest’s chest. She was beginning to think that she definitely needed to take Ernest on some sort of private archeological excursion. Gently grinding her ass back into him, she could also feel a stirring in his crotch. Opera smiled but decided not to rush it. Precis and Celine were hardly likely to come rushing in and interrupt them, but knowing her recent luck she didn’t want to get all keyed up again only to be disappointed. “Any idea what the symbols mean?” She didn’t just mean the ones swirling about the statue. There also seemed to be a rather large stationary one inscribed in the floor surrounding the sculpture. Her knowledge of symbology was rudimentary and while this didn’t look as complex as the sphere they’d seen in the temple, it was still beyond her comprehension.

Ernest’s fingers gently caressed Opera’s belly as he studied the symbols. “If you give me a week or two to study them, I can probably figure it out.”

Opera turned her head to smile back at Ernest. “I wouldn’t mind standing here for a few weeks with you.” She ground her ass one last time into his crotch and then stepped away. “But for the moment, let’s see where these stairs lead.” She sauntered over to the steps and began to climb them, giving her hips a slightly more pronounced sway so that Ernest would have to watch her provocative movements the entire climb up the tower.

Her enticing plan lasted only about four flights of stairs. Opera wasn’t out of shape, but there were a LOT of stairs. By the time they reached to top, both she and Ernest weren’t exactly winded, but they were glad to be able to step onto a flat surface and pause while they took in their surroundings. Rather than a roof, the top of the tower seemed to be some sort of ritual platform. Completely open to the air and with no guard rail, they stayed away from the edge. The winds blowing across weren’t dangerous, but there was no sense in taking unnecessary risks. While the outer rim was mostly open to the air, six gleaming white spires were equally spaced about the platform edge. They rose maybe ten feet into the air, arching towards the center of the platform but stopping well short of touching each other. In the center of the six pointed star they made was another floating crystal. The floor beneath the crystal was inscribed with another complex set of symbols.

Ernest paced the entire circuit of the platform, studying the structure and symbol. If he looked off to the west, he could just make out the top of part of the temple. “I’m fairly certain this tower is meant to focus something over to the temple through some sort of ritual.” He gestured at the symbol on the floor. “What I can’t figure out is why. If the tower and temple were at odds with each other, it doesn’t make sense for the tower to offer anything up to the temple.”

Opera considered his theory and then took in the full view of the western landscape. If she looked to the northwest and southwest, she could just make out two of the other towers. “Presumably the other four towers are also like this one. Which means they had multiple offerings.”

“True.” Ernest rubbed his chin. “But this was the only tower near a settlement.”

Opera shrugged. “The closest, but none of the towers are excessively far away. Even the western most tower is probably reachable in a day. And there might have been roads or trails to them that have become overgrown with disuse.”

Ernest knelt down at the edge of the symbol to study it further. “If we could understand what the ritual was, it would probably be the key to solving this mystery.”

Opera gave the symbol her own scrutiny. Unlike the symbology inside the tower, this symbol appeared dormant or possibly even completely inert. Very slowly, she slid her boot along the floor until her toe touched and then slid over and into the symbol. Nothing happened. She gave Ernest a commiserating frown. “Sorry, Ern. I think the mystery is going to remain one.”

“Perhaps.” Ernest gave a sigh and stood back up. He stepped towards the edge of the platform to gaze off at the other towers and temple.

As he pondered everything, Opera looked up at the crystal floating overhead. It was similar to the ones inside the tower but looked a little larger and possible shaped a little differently. It also didn’t have the glow that the ones inside did. Though it was free floating in the air, so it couldn't be completely inert like the symbol below it. She stepped into the center of the platform to try and get a better look at it from directly underneath. As she stepped onto the center of the symbol in the floor, it flared to life. Opera cried out in surprise as magenta symbols scrolled up her legs and across the rest of her body, disintegrating her clothes as they went. Within seconds, she was completely naked.

My combat jacket! Opera could care less about her shirt, pants, or even her underwear, but the jacket had been a custom tailored, reinforced, carbon laced weave that was essentially body armor. It could stop all sorts of simple kinetic and energy attacks, plus it was pretty stylish. Her boots had also been quite comfortable and well broken in. Fortunately, only her clothes seemed to have been disintegrated. Her photon pistol, scanner, and other assorted items in her pack clattered to the ground around her.

As the symbols stopped scrolling across her body, rings of new symbols encircled her wrists, ankles, thighs, waist, and neck. Everything had happened so fast; Opera could see Ernest was still only turning around from hearing her cry of surprise. His alarmed eyes locked onto hers and then an invisible **** began contorting her body. Her feet went up on to just her balls and toes as her legs were spread wide so that she perfectly straddled the center of the symbol. Her chest bent forward at the waist but then curved back as her arms were pulled back and slightly up. And finally her neck **** her head to tilt so that she looked straight out in the direction of the temple in the distance. Opera’s entire body felt stretched and taunt, yet amazingly it wasn’t uncomfortable. Either the ritual symbology was also taking the pressure of the position off of her or the person that had designed it was a master of posing the body perfectly.

“Um…” Opera could see that Ernest’s mouth was hanging open in surprise as he gawked at her predicament. “I guess the symbol wasn’t as inert as I thought.”