Tidal Flux

Now the bellow-ground hollow began to rumble in a way that even Skott’s unattuned human senses couldn’t help but notice.

“Seriously? Surely we haven’t been down here too long,” Skott said.

“That’s not what incoming tides sound like.” Grog’s half-orc countenance appeared strangely pale, accentuating the family resemblance.

The sound of spurting, onrushing water was coming from somewhere to the east; the echo off the cavern walls made it hard to judge exactly where.

Maybe it’s not that bad a leak? Skott hoped. The cacophony could easily make a small trickle sound worse than it was.

The others, however, did not treat this like a minor leak.

“Everyone out,” said Skottson.

“Good thing we got what we came here for.” Grog took off, lumbering towards the stairs up and out of the plaza. Then, he stopped dead in his tracks and turned around. “The mural! The mural!”

Skott looked to the mural, then to the far wall, where the sound of a sprung leak continued to grow louder still.

Ah, they had to seal the mural back up. Even if the whole plaza were flooded irreparably, proof of egalitarian contact between elvan, human, and orc in the ancient past was the find of an Aeirunian millennium.

The series of counterweights, three on each side, sat down near the floor. Winding it all back up ought to close the sealed-tight door and preserve it for whenever a dig team would be able to get to it again.

“I’ll help!” Lucy declared.

The feisty adventurer returned to the counterweights, but found that pushing them back up was not quite so easy as forcing them down with gravity’s assistance.

“Alright. They got the vault closed somehow…” Skott began, looking around the dimly lit cavern face.

“Skott, there.” It was Lamora. “The chain.”

Lamora pointed to a chain of mithril, resistant to the elements and relatively irreflective of light, waiting in the far-left corner of the room.

Huh. Skott shrugged as he rushed up to this chain. Behind him, he heard Skottson and Sethset usher Lamora away.

“Mother, you really must get to the surface,” said the pair in unison.

“You all don’t do anything foolish,” Lamora said, relenting to her two security-minded soldierly sons' desire to get her to safety.

“We’ll come running the moment I feel water lap on my shoes,” Skott promised.

They were doing their job. Skott resolved to help Grog do his. He examined the chain. A crank system may’ve been set up to allow for an easier time of it long ago. That didn’t survive the years of churning tides. Skott grabbed the mithril chain and found it surprisingly smooth.

“Is mithril resistant to decay?” Skott asked.

Grog quickly identified a similar chain on the far side of the mural. “As a matter of fact, it’s the strongest material known to drwarvenkind, and they know their materials. Why, do they not have this material on Earth? That’s most curious. Perhaps we should conduct a study to… ah, sorry, I may wish to focus on the task at hand.”

The cavern ceiling rumbled to highlight the urgency.

Skott and Grognar pulled, each focused on the counterweights on either end of the mural. Slowly, the counterweights began to rise toward the ceiling. A series of pulleys began to work behind the scenes, and the heavy doors began to ever-so-slowly wind themselves back into position.

Water sprouted out of a divot in the floor. They were running out of time.

Each pull met with further resistance. Skott gave a mighty pull with both hands and found the chain moving with renewed speed, as if someone had greased the pulleys with WD-40 or something.

“Skott of Omaha! Father!” a voice came from behind. “Allow me to help.”

Skott glanced back to find Lucy there behind him, helping him pull the heavy chain. Over on the far side, Grog had no problem pulling unassisted.

Ah, the kids have that orc-strength in ‘em, Skott thought, still holding his own even as Lucy helped the chain along. Guess they take after their mom.

With the trio working in sync, they swiftly slid the vault back up tight. There was a slight hiss as the hefty stones slid into place, sealed-tight. By the time they did so, water was pooling at the vault door’s base.

“Just in time,” Skott said, out of breath.

He barely had time to rest up, however, as Lucy grabbed his hands and pulled him back towards the exit with her prodigious strength.

+++

The mural would be protected, for now. They’d have to find a way to safely drain the underground hollow again at a later date. The waters rose faster than any tide.

Skott let Grog and then Lucy squeeze through the narrow fissure up to the surface before he evacuated as well.

Everyone’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the midday sky. A wave of that familiar Aeirunian humidity hit Skott; he’d scarcely noticed how cool it felt underground.

Lamora and their other two sons were already up past the base camp. The sound of falling and pooling water did not abate now that they were out of the underground.

“Look!” Lucy pointed to the eastern cliffs.

Those great wooden supports used to provide extra reinforcement to the white chalky cliffs separating this dig site from the sea had been knocked out. At a glance, it looked like a team of axes had been taken to one, though they hardly had time to stop and observe from this vantage point!

Again, the trio ran up the winding path to the dig site. None dared look back to see how far behind the oncoming water was. They made it back to the ‘base camp’ in a quarter of the time it had taken them to slowly walk down through the layers of excavation.

“Ah, so many findings,” Grog said, dithering about the camp. “I simply must prioritize what to preserve. It would take years to reconstruct some of this data…”

Over to the west, the last of the support beams fell away. The entire cliff face was going to collapse inward, reducing the dig site into a saltwater inlet. Still, Grog ran about the camp, throwing everything he could into many packs and pockets on his scholarly robes.

“We need to go!” Skott said.

“Ah, seismic data. Could be invaluable…” Grog said, distracted.

Skott looked ahead, where Lucy was waiting, ensuring the path ahead remained clear. Lamora and her nominal bodyguards were still further ahead.

“C’mon.” Skott scooped Grog up and ran upward with the half-orc scholar in a fireman’s carry.

Big mistake. Skott’s back threatened to buckle in on itself. While nominally his son, Grog was no child. The kids were all near-adults by orc standards! To say nothing of the fact that Grog was stronger despite having the appearance of a mere scholar. Grog continued to sort out various curios as Skott carried him, hobbling along.

“Hurry!” Lucy said.

There was a deafening sound as a wall of water poured into the excavation. There wasn’t much time. Skott continued, running slower still as he went uphill. He could see Lucy, Lamora, Skottson, and Sethset up ahead.

The ground underneath Skott’s feet buckled. He stumbled, then gave Grog a great lift and a push that sent the young mage-scholar flying to high ground beside Lucy and company.

Skott stumbled over. The others were safe, but now the ground was collapsing beneath his feet. He tried to stumble over the line to safety, but found himself flying backwards!

“Take this!”

Twin rifle butts jutted out. Skottson and Sethset’s service rifles caught Skott by the straps of his pack full of Earth-supplies! They pulled him back to high ground.

“Well. That was… good hustle, everyone.” Skott said, barely able to breathe.

Lucy had taken the opportunity to borrow that spyglass from earlier. She looked over to where a great gash in the granite cliffs now let the sea flow into the old ruins freely.

“Hmmm. Starting to think that the other group took the pillars out,” Lucy said. "Do say they appear to have sabotaged us." 

"With the mural safe our findings... should be good." Grog was also catching his breath despite having been carried the last major stretch. "Still, who would bury such an important find?" 

“Elvan?” Sethset guessed.

“Judging by the ears.” Lucy shrugged her agreement. “Don’t look like Redeemers, though. Locals. Maybe small-scale farmers? It doesn’t look like they could afford a tree manse.”

“Ah, just acting on their own?” Skott’s breathing gradually slowed, though the pain in his back did not abate. “Swear, there’s a word for that. Give me a moment… ah, kind of hard to think with all this exertion. It’ll come to me… any minute now…”