This one is inspired on the words globe, embody and entrancing. The darkness of the tunnel retreated before the fire of their lantern, revealing long forgotten passages, bones, and artwork. Under normal circumstances, Liz would have stopped to admire the latter, and possibly to make copies – as it was, she was hurrying her partner Terry along. She wanted to get to the end of this passage – there would, hopefully, be time to explore the artwork further on the way out, but they had to hurry to the final chamber.
However, even she had to make herself continue. She’d been studying this material for years, and to finally be here, in person, was marvellous. The fact that there were Nazis somewhere on her trail was less than ideal, but what else could you expect in this day and age – Nazis were everywhere. She was just happy to have beaten them this far, but they couldn’t be far behind. Sadly, the archaeologists of the Thule Society were actually fairly capable people. They’d already had a few encounters with them before entering the tunnels, though they’d always managed to slip away – they were both scholars and academics, rather than fighters. They’d had to pass various traps on the way down these tunnels, but they’d tried to rest them after they had passed – all the better to slow down their inevitable pursuers. The two explorers came upon a large, stone door blocking their way forward but from the markings on it, this was the final barrier before they reached their goal. They could see etchings of a small sphere on a pedestal which matched references they’d found elsewhere. This had to be it – not just another dead-end which sent them to look at yet another site. She started to push at the door. “Come on,” she called to her partner. “We need to get this open.” He was standing at a distance, looking at the pictures. “Leave it, Liz,” he said, distractedly. “That door has to be six inches thick – we’ll never move it without equipment.” She slumped to the ground. “There must be some way we can open it. We can’t leave it, and we don’t have time to go and get any equipment.” He nodded. “I agree – it seems likely that there would be some sort of mechanism already here, otherwise the people that built this would have trouble. The answer isn’t always to just plough ahead though. Look here.” He was pointing at something above her head, so she stood up and went to stand with him. She followed his finger. Towards the top of the door there was another image that showed one person pushing on a door and it swinging open. “OK,” she said, pondering the other images. “So, there must be a way. But what is it?” “I imagine some kind of counterweight – clearly, the figure here is pushing the door, rather than using some kind of pulley system, so there must be a way to make that feasible.” The two of them examined the images. From behind them, they could hear shouts and cries as their pursuers started moving through the traps. They didn’t need to take care – their leaders didn’t seem to care if they lost a few people along the way. However, it did indicate that Liz and Terry would need to find their answer swiftly. They spent precious minutes looking at different parts of the ancient drawings, pointing out potential answers, discussing possible meanings and then trying things, but to no avail. They heard the sounds of the Nazis getting closer and closer, and they became more and more desperate. “Give me a boost,” said Liz, eventually. “The clue that it can be done is at the top – maybe the clue on how to do it is up there too.” “A boost?” Terry replied, his eyes wide and his expression shocked. “You want me to lift you up?” “Yes,” she said. “We’re running out of time – we don’t have the luxury of niceties at this point.” Still looking mildly outraged, Terry put out one knee for Liz to climb upon. As she went up, he tried to find somewhere innocuous to place a supporting hand, and eventually settled on her waist. She reached down for a lantern, and he passed one up. She looked at the diagrams – she was right that there were more up there, that they hadn’t been able to make out from the ground. But did any of them help. She scanned the top of the doorway and then started to run her hands along it. Wait! There was more that she couldn’t actually see. Too old to be visible, but she could still feel where there had been more at some point in the past. Was it words? Yes, it was. And, thankfully, ones that she could translate. “OK – I think I’ve got it,” she called down to Terry, keeping her voice as low as possible. “Let me down.” He took back the lantern, let go of her waist, and took her hand in his own as she climbed down again. She moved back to the door and knelt down by the side of it. Yes – this was right. Part of the door gave way. She pushed it and immediately started to hear water move. A moment later it stopped, and she tried to push the door again. It worked – the water having moved enough to act as the counterbalance, and they entered the final chamber. The chamber within was exactly what they had been looking for. There were precious and semi-precious stones dotted about the walls and ceilings which she recognised as matching how the constellations would have looked from here at the time this chamber was dug out. However, not only did the stones show the constellations, they were also coloured in a way that seemed to indicate the rough distances to those stars – knowledge that it should have been impossible to come by at the time. In all, the effect as the stones reflected the lantern light was entrancing. In the centre, as expected, was the sphere on a pedestal but now she could see that it was actually a globe, with markings indicating continents and seas. Again – it showed far more knowledge in its making than should have been possible at the time that it was made. Where had it come from? Or, at least, how had it been made. “We could spend weeks in this chamber alone,” said Terry, staring all around. “If only we weren’t being pursued by murderous Nazis?” Liz replied. “Quite so.” “Either way, they’re after this,” Liz said as she walked to the globe in the centre of the chamber. “So we should try to stop them getting it.” “Any idea how?” “Not really. They are quite heavily armed, and probably outnumber us a fair bit. And, sadly, I don’t see any other exit from this chamber.” “I concur,” said Terry, pushing the door shut again. Once it was closed, they could both hear the water moving again. “If we’re lucky, they won’t find the way in that you did and might leave.” Liz nodded. “Yes. If not, they’ll either open it up and shoot us, or have enough supplies to keep trying until we starve. Or run out of air.” “I didn’t say I had any good ideas.” Liz looked at the globe again. “You know, this really is quite remarkable. Look at the detail – there should be no way that the people of this area, at the time these tunnels were dug out, should have known so much about the world. She moved to put a hand on it. “Stop!” Terry called to her. She looked round at him. “What’s wrong?” “We need to make proper records before you go knocking it off.” She smiled. “No danger of that. It looks like it’s attached. See…” As she spoke, she reached out and gave the globe a push. As she made contact with it, something happened. Her consciousness contracted, as if all of her senses had abandoned her. However, her centre of self was no longer herself, but the globe. It was as if touching it had made her embody it. She tried to focus, unsure of what she was doing or what might happen, and her consciousness expanded – though still centred on the globe. She could now see the chamber, saw her body touching her, saw Terry trying to get her body’s attention. She focussed again, and her awareness grew. She could now sense everything in the tunnels. There were Nazis, and they were almost at the door. Again, and she sensed the planet. Somehow, she knew everything that was going on and could view it dispassionately. She was stone, rather than flesh and blood now. A part of her thought that she should be panicking, but the rest of her didn’t feel that was appropriate. Again, and her senses were wider – now she could feel the Earth, and the moon, and all of the meteorites and dust that lay between them. She had a sense that if she tried, she could sense everything. More than that – she realised that, with only a small amount of concentration, she could change things. Her mind was still her own, albeit now housed within the stone, and she knew she couldn’t do much without damaging it. But some things she could do. She brought her focus down again, back to the chamber where she, her body and Terry stood. She focussed on her own body, or that which had been her body. It would be again. She would reclaim it. And then, without knowing how, she did. She fell back slightly but caught herself before Terry had to. He looked at her, a very worried expression on his face. She took a moment to breath and recentre herself. The world suddenly seemed much smaller. “What happened?” Terry said once she was calmer. “You seemed to zone out for a bit there.” She tried to explain but didn’t feel that she did very well. Terry, to his credit, didn’t question her experience of try to suggest that she had imagined it. “We need to destroy it,” he said, once she was done. “If you could have changed anything in the world, of even the universe, from here with it, we can’t risk it getting into Nazi hands.” “No!” she said. “I could use it to change the world for the better. I could make changes to see the Nazis defeated. I could…” “Exactly,” he replied. “Once you’d done that, you’d want to do more. And who knows what else might change because of what you do. And we can’t stand here and guard it forever – it’s too dangerous.” Liz sat, back against the wall. In her heart, she knew he was right. “How?” she asked. “We haven’t brought the equipment we’d need for something like that.” “One of us goes back in and uses it to destroy it.” She shivered. “I don’t know what that would do…” He completed her sentence. “To us? No – I don’t either. I’ll do it if you like.” She shook her head. “No – I dragged us out here. Without my investigation, the Nazis might never have found this in the first place. It’s my responsibility to put it right.” Again, to his credit, he didn’t try to change her mind. She knew, from long experience, it wasn’t that he was scared (though he probably was), or that he thought she was right (though he probably did) – it was just that he respected her decision and her resolve. She was scared herself. She stood up and placed her hand on the globe again and, again, her consciousness contracted and then expanded. She knew that the Nazis had reached the door. She started by moving Terry outside, to a place of safety. He’d be disoriented, but at least he’d be safe. She wasn’t sure if she could move her own body without losing the connection, so she didn’t. Then she concentrated on the chamber itself. The water was moving in the doorway – the Nazis had found the answer far quicker than she and Terry had done. She willed the globe to be no more, to be destroyed, to be empty air, but it resisted. It didn’t want to be destroyed. She had to hurry. She needed an answer. If she couldn’t destroy it, she would bury it. She cracked the rocky ceiling, and set in motion a cave-in. Once she was satisfied that it was done, she moved her body and, as she had suspected, once she was no longer in contact with the globe, she lost her connection to it. Her consciousness flooded back into herself and she looked over at Terry. “I wasn’t sure if you would make it out,” he said. “Neither was I,” she replied. “I’m glad you did.” “Me too.” They stared at each other for a few moments. The relief at her escape was clear in his eyes. After a few moments he looked away, coughing embarrassedly. “Right,” he said. “On to the next adventure?”
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