982
All these deserts are getting real annoying. I hate sand. Which may be why the universe sees fit to constantly throw me in seas of it.
My research told me I’d find whatever it was I was supposed to be looking for in an ancient Babylonian temple in the desert. Course the temple wasn’t on any map or in any history text, but I’ve come to expect that. Just look for the patch of empty land, the one with all the rumors about vanished archeological teams and evil spirits, or any other fucked up mystical shit, and that’s likely the place. The more old, fallen empires that lived there, the better.
I was dropped just over a mile from the location. Wanted to drop right on top of it, but dimensional fuckery never allows me to take the easy route. Had to walk across the desert to reach the site; least I was lucky enough to be making this trip at night. Even got a full moon to light the way for me out of the deal. Not very often I get such a good hand when it comes to timing.
First indication that I was getting close was the graveyard of planes littering the sand. The sensitive instruments must have reacted badly to this place, and caused the aircraft to go out of control. Whatever caused them to go down, it was affecting me as well; pain was burning in the back of my head, increasing with every step I took. Constant buzzing sound. No source, just buzzing, filling all the air around me. Feet felt heavy, weight pulling down on them.
I fought through it, pressing towards my target. After what I’ve been through, this was pretty low on my scale of eldritch defenses. Tried to distract my mind by focusing on something else. Looking at the wreckage of the planes was like walking through a flight museum. As long as planes have been flying over this patch of land, they’ve been crashing down. Plenty of World War II planes, even a commercial jet liner. Also several modern day jet fighters, which confused me for a moment. Confused me until I heard the explosions behind me.
Oh, yeah. 2003. There's a war going on here.
An uncomfortably close war, judging by the sound of those explosions behind me. No time for safety. Charging headlong into an aeons old ruin built to worship sleeping gods has a low life expectancy, but it's still higher than what I could expect if I stuck around while people were blowing each other up. Thanking Doc once again, I hit the switch on the boots he’d made me, and sped off.
The towering ruins soon were looming before me. Big things, much bigger than people with stone age tech should have been able to construct. Larger than most modern civilizations could build. I'd also rant about the impossible geometry. But honestly, I'm finding myself in places where up is left and down is yellow than I do in regular, more often than Euclidean locales. Course, things are never, ever easy. What was that sound behind me? Could it be the sound of battle, as Iraqi soldiers fled the rain of fire coming down upon them? Why, indeed it was! I guess smart bombs are scarier than whatever ghost stories had been told about this place.
Still had the advantage of knowing what the fuck I was doing, unlike those others. In whatever time it took for them to gape in horror at the towering structure before them, I hoped to be in and out, all quick and easy like. If I was lucky, they'd be so enraptured by the grotesque carvings which ran along the walls to even notice the obviously American woman running out of the temple with a bag.
The door was a huge, obsidian black gateway, covered in blood colored runes of an old tongue. Had I bothered translating them, I may have learned the secret to opening it. But no time for that, grabbed a bunch of explosives, and blew that thing off its hinges. Ignore the demonic wail which echoed out of the impenetrably dark depths, and ran inside. My flashlight didn't provide much help in the blackness, but it was enough to keep me from stumbling over.
I really feel sorry for any of the soldiers who also came inside. They'd have been lost in minutes. The lucky ones would have been devoured by the darkness; those less fortunate would have been doomed to wander the maze for the rest of their lives.
But I knew where I was going. No time to waste. Left turn, right turn, left turn, blow a hole in that wall and run through, jump over the booby trapped floor tiles, climb up the massive wall, blow aside another door....
The Orb was located in a small, circular room, atop a blood stained altar. The frescoes along the wall were no doubt elaborate, and I expect looking at them would have caused most men to become insane, gibbering messes. You’d think these people would have tried a new art style after the dozenth temple, but I guess the builders were the type who always stuck with what worked. Grabbed the Orb without even glancing around, and then began to sprint.
I’d only made it three steps out of the room before I heard a wet, sucking sound following me. Never look back when running. It slows you down. Focus on getting your feet to move. Don’t think about what will happen if you slow down too much, if you let up for even an instant, if you let those things catch you….
Numero Uno flaw with focusing entirely on sprinting: You forget those booby traps you were so careful to avoid the first time around. Stepped on a trapped tile, caused a wall panel to open, got shot in the shoulder by a dart. Within seconds my entire right arm had gone numb. Curse you, surprisingly fast acting ancient poisons!
The sounds from behind were coming even closer. That slimy, disgusting noise, accompanied by that sickly green light. I’d seen what happened to people who let those things catch them. Like hell that was going to happen to me.
Using my left hand, I fired a flare into the blackness behind me. That moment where I looked back gave me a short chance to see the beast; a shifting, grotesque gelatinous mass, covered in ever changing eyes, green glow coming from within its twisting body, pulling itself along the walls. Then the flare hit, right in one of its eyes. Black, tar like goo was flung all around the corridor. I didn't stick around to see how much damage had been done; at best, I'd just slowed it down slightly. More likely I'd only managed to give it a reason to be angry at me.
Clutching my useless arm, I ran through the maze, barely keeping ahead of the monster. Until at last, I saw the exit. There were soldiers by it; smart enough not to have gone into such an evil looking building, not smart enough to have stayed far away from it. This wasn't really the best time for me to stop and explain my situation to them, so I threw two smoke grenades through the door. They went off, and I ran past the soldiers and parked tanks.
The thing followed me out of the temple, into the crowd of soldiers. I tried to ignore the screams and gunfire behind me. There was nothing I could have done. None of their weapons could harm the thing, and mine weren't much better. I had to put the sounds out of my mind, and focusing on getting as far away as possible.
It was a success, though. I now have the Orb. Just a few more of these things, and I'll have everything I need.
I-330
