Red (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
redthedragon) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomweekly2023-11-06 07:33 pm
redthedragon) wrote in fandomweekly2023-11-06 07:33 pm
[#199] It's not necromancy, it's archaeology! (Original Universe)
Theme Prompt: #199 - Altar
Title: "It's not necromancy, it's archaeology!"
Fandom: Original Work
Rating: PG
Bonus: No
Word Count: 1000
Summary: Sofyaa, an archaeologist, has found the decaying remnants of what looks like - to them - either a religious structure or a library or something. A big room, ringed with alcoves filled with rotting books and with a massive gold altar in the center. Not worth much on its own... but they have a plan.
The Before cities were always strange. Weird chambers in the dark, hundreds of feet below the ground. Crawlers and haunts and shaids and animals of more mundane bent find themselves hidden burrows, deep nests; it was not good to go exploring alone. Or in a group, even. Everyone knew someone who knew someone who'd gone poking around somewhere a little too deep and didn’t come back.
Not coming back wasn’t on Sofyaa’s radar. This building wasn’t so bad. A big open space only about forty feet deep. Disrepair made it a little dangerous, sure; they’d cut their forearm stumbling on broken tile once. But there was nothing alive down here.
And that wasn’t why they were here. Everyone else could go rooting around for strange creatures and plumb the depths of things that didn’t want to be plumbed. Sofyaa wasn't interested. Crawler-hunting was for the dumbasses who thought they could take on entropy and win. Sofyaa was an archaeologist. They were better than that.
Humming as they climbed down the damaged wall, they made their way to the room they’d seen last week. Clearing the entrance had taken almost a week, but they’d gotten a glimpse inside of the room through a gap in the floor where metal had given way to rust. Not wide enough to fit through, in a building as well-preserved as this; but enough to see a little.
The center of the room housed a massive dais, sporting an altar covered in flaking gold leaf. What had to be the remains of old manuscripts, rotten from time and damp, littered the cut-out alcoves ringing the room. The strange glass tubes that dotted so many Before ceilings were unbroken here, shielded by the same strange false glass that showed up in so many fixtures. Though Sofyaa wasn’t going to touch it, they knew it would be eerily warm, like wood or fabric, instead of cool.
Sofyaa finally reached the floor and carefully stepped down, testing the floor to be sure it could hold their weight. These buildings could extend for hundreds upon hundreds of feet underground, and while they were pretty sure this city’s foundations were only about sixty feet below the surface, that was no reason to be incautious. The floor creaked, but held. Not the most promising thing they’d ever heard, but also not the least.
Carefully they walked to the altar. The room was preserved almost as well as could possibly be hoped. Though the region was wet enough that most natural materials would have decayed in the thousand-or-so years between its construction and the present, the structure was nearly undamaged. The masonry was littered with careful carvings. Lettering in no language they recognized circled the altar, strange and square like it was meant to be made with a stamp rather than written. When they turned on the shaidlamp- dazzlingly bright in the dark- the flaking gold leaf shone like new where they brushed off the dust. Underneath, the stone was that gray formulation the Before cities used so often, rough plastery conglomerate. The ancients called it “particular”, Sofyaa’d learned, or something like it. But that did not interest Sofyaa. They were not a materials scientist. They were here for the altar, not its makeup.
They opened the bag they’d brought down, pulling out the cup and the compass, the vial of shaid-blood and the carefully sealed canister of ever-burning fire. That last was a bad thing, dangerous. It had cost them a lot of time and a lot else, and they were flirting with danger just having it. They didn’t use it often. And the understanding would be worth it.
Careful, now. One slip would mean disaster, worse than death. The shaid-blood went in the cup; the compass underneath it. Iron pressed against shaiden silver and started drawing heat like a battery. Now- the canister, carefully. They twisted it slow, letting open only the tiniest space for the flames to spring from; they flowed to the cup and only that, thank all the luck in the world. The cursed fire devoured the shaid-blood like it was gasoline, but the cup was special, made for this, and Sofyaa watched the calculations her friend had given his life ti understand engage and direct it into, into-
- well, it was a shaid. Indescribable as ever. Sofyaa felt a headache coming on just looking at it. Shaids didn’t even have the good grace to look like anything, half the time. Just gaping wounds in the fabric of the world.
But shaids could touch the past. “Shaid,” Sofyaa said, forcing their voice steady. “Are you listening?”
“Yeah,” the shaid said. “Hi, Sofyaa, archaeologist, whatever. You never take me anywhere interesting.”
“This is plenty interesting,” Sofyaa said. “I’ll make it quick. I want the texts restored.”
The shaid vanished a moment, wavering in and out of existence. “Can’t do that. Pick one.”
One? Sofyaa stared at the room in dismay. “I can’t identify any individual works.”
“Pick a page, I’ll get you the book,” the shaid said.
Oh, well. It didn’t pay to argue with shaids; they were better at it than anyone else. Sofyya would lose if they tried. Sofyaa picked a scrap off the ground. “This one.”
“What kind of place is this anyway?” the shaid groused, and the world sucked in on itself for a moment. The smell of ozone, a feeling like their face was being peeled off; a strange stretching. Blackness that wasn’t. And then they were holding a book in their hands, written in no script they’d ever seen before.
“Alright, I’m leaving,” the shaid said, vanishing into just one point of not-light as the fire burned away. “Enjoy your boring lame book I guess.”
Sofyaa nodded. “I absolutely will.”
This would be the find of a century, for sure. If Sofyaa could come up with an explanation for it, anyway.
Title: "It's not necromancy, it's archaeology!"
Fandom: Original Work
Rating: PG
Bonus: No
Word Count: 1000
Summary: Sofyaa, an archaeologist, has found the decaying remnants of what looks like - to them - either a religious structure or a library or something. A big room, ringed with alcoves filled with rotting books and with a massive gold altar in the center. Not worth much on its own... but they have a plan.
The Before cities were always strange. Weird chambers in the dark, hundreds of feet below the ground. Crawlers and haunts and shaids and animals of more mundane bent find themselves hidden burrows, deep nests; it was not good to go exploring alone. Or in a group, even. Everyone knew someone who knew someone who'd gone poking around somewhere a little too deep and didn’t come back.
Not coming back wasn’t on Sofyaa’s radar. This building wasn’t so bad. A big open space only about forty feet deep. Disrepair made it a little dangerous, sure; they’d cut their forearm stumbling on broken tile once. But there was nothing alive down here.
And that wasn’t why they were here. Everyone else could go rooting around for strange creatures and plumb the depths of things that didn’t want to be plumbed. Sofyaa wasn't interested. Crawler-hunting was for the dumbasses who thought they could take on entropy and win. Sofyaa was an archaeologist. They were better than that.
Humming as they climbed down the damaged wall, they made their way to the room they’d seen last week. Clearing the entrance had taken almost a week, but they’d gotten a glimpse inside of the room through a gap in the floor where metal had given way to rust. Not wide enough to fit through, in a building as well-preserved as this; but enough to see a little.
The center of the room housed a massive dais, sporting an altar covered in flaking gold leaf. What had to be the remains of old manuscripts, rotten from time and damp, littered the cut-out alcoves ringing the room. The strange glass tubes that dotted so many Before ceilings were unbroken here, shielded by the same strange false glass that showed up in so many fixtures. Though Sofyaa wasn’t going to touch it, they knew it would be eerily warm, like wood or fabric, instead of cool.
Sofyaa finally reached the floor and carefully stepped down, testing the floor to be sure it could hold their weight. These buildings could extend for hundreds upon hundreds of feet underground, and while they were pretty sure this city’s foundations were only about sixty feet below the surface, that was no reason to be incautious. The floor creaked, but held. Not the most promising thing they’d ever heard, but also not the least.
Carefully they walked to the altar. The room was preserved almost as well as could possibly be hoped. Though the region was wet enough that most natural materials would have decayed in the thousand-or-so years between its construction and the present, the structure was nearly undamaged. The masonry was littered with careful carvings. Lettering in no language they recognized circled the altar, strange and square like it was meant to be made with a stamp rather than written. When they turned on the shaidlamp- dazzlingly bright in the dark- the flaking gold leaf shone like new where they brushed off the dust. Underneath, the stone was that gray formulation the Before cities used so often, rough plastery conglomerate. The ancients called it “particular”, Sofyaa’d learned, or something like it. But that did not interest Sofyaa. They were not a materials scientist. They were here for the altar, not its makeup.
They opened the bag they’d brought down, pulling out the cup and the compass, the vial of shaid-blood and the carefully sealed canister of ever-burning fire. That last was a bad thing, dangerous. It had cost them a lot of time and a lot else, and they were flirting with danger just having it. They didn’t use it often. And the understanding would be worth it.
Careful, now. One slip would mean disaster, worse than death. The shaid-blood went in the cup; the compass underneath it. Iron pressed against shaiden silver and started drawing heat like a battery. Now- the canister, carefully. They twisted it slow, letting open only the tiniest space for the flames to spring from; they flowed to the cup and only that, thank all the luck in the world. The cursed fire devoured the shaid-blood like it was gasoline, but the cup was special, made for this, and Sofyaa watched the calculations her friend had given his life ti understand engage and direct it into, into-
- well, it was a shaid. Indescribable as ever. Sofyaa felt a headache coming on just looking at it. Shaids didn’t even have the good grace to look like anything, half the time. Just gaping wounds in the fabric of the world.
But shaids could touch the past. “Shaid,” Sofyaa said, forcing their voice steady. “Are you listening?”
“Yeah,” the shaid said. “Hi, Sofyaa, archaeologist, whatever. You never take me anywhere interesting.”
“This is plenty interesting,” Sofyaa said. “I’ll make it quick. I want the texts restored.”
The shaid vanished a moment, wavering in and out of existence. “Can’t do that. Pick one.”
One? Sofyaa stared at the room in dismay. “I can’t identify any individual works.”
“Pick a page, I’ll get you the book,” the shaid said.
Oh, well. It didn’t pay to argue with shaids; they were better at it than anyone else. Sofyya would lose if they tried. Sofyaa picked a scrap off the ground. “This one.”
“What kind of place is this anyway?” the shaid groused, and the world sucked in on itself for a moment. The smell of ozone, a feeling like their face was being peeled off; a strange stretching. Blackness that wasn’t. And then they were holding a book in their hands, written in no script they’d ever seen before.
“Alright, I’m leaving,” the shaid said, vanishing into just one point of not-light as the fire burned away. “Enjoy your boring lame book I guess.”
Sofyaa nodded. “I absolutely will.”
This would be the find of a century, for sure. If Sofyaa could come up with an explanation for it, anyway.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject