Crypt Quest: Rising Darkness
Modern Abyss
A blast of wind was blown in from the outside as Reese opened the creaky doors to the air-pressured Trinity Museum of Antiquities. The stuffy interior, where a glossy, marble-front desk and work-shifted administrator met with the erosion of the outside world, became diffused and awoken by fresh oxygen and an offer of the present.
"Looking to learn some history?" greeted the young and thin administrator, a 20-something girl with blonde hair and large glasses.
Reese approached the desk. "Just checking up on it."
- - -
Entering through a large hall toward six-meter high arches, Reese noticed several people, couples, parents and kids either sprawled across leather couches, or setting themselves up in open areas, getting ready for a day of museum trekking.
Passing into a large exhibit, Reese intended on ignoring the other sections of the building, much of it containing Anthropological recreations, dinosaur bone exhibits, and World War informational displays.
Almost instantaneously, he was surrounded by a quiet sea of boxed glass cases, containing artifacts from ancient eras from all over the world.
"Quite a fascinating object," a tall woman with red hair, dressed in business attire said, without looking up. It was apparent she'd be standing there for a while, staring at a glass case, against the near wall, containing an old, flat slab.
She didn't know who happened to drift near her, nor was she in present-enough-of-mind to care. "Uh, a tablet, right?" Reese offered, taking a quick glimpse at the artifact in an effort to catch himself up to the social queue and blend in with the setting.
"Yes, a curse tablet from the ancient world. The scratches depict a long, angry curse to someone deemed deserving of it."
Reese took another look and recognized the writing. "Hmm. Ancient Roman. Lead. Looks like it's describing some kind of love curse?"
"You know your stuff," the woman took a quick, passive glance at him, but then returned her gaze. "It's probably the curse for a man who cheated on the woman who wrote it."
Suddenly taking notice of her nameplate, Reese realized the woman he was talking to was named Leanna Boswell, and that she was one of the curators. "Oh, hello. I see you work here." He knew he had to get down to business so he could engage his Turkish mystery and return the object he had. But the best way was to do it discreetly.
"Huh? Ah, yes," Leanna snapped out of her daze from the sudden reminder of her reality. She spun on her heels in an attempt to return to where she came from, outside the exhibit hall.
Reese stopped her, momentarily, by vocal queue. "Actually, I have a question. Are there any new exhibits coming up?"
"To be honest, we're at a bit of a long stretch with our current exhibits."
He was shocked to hear that, as he had confirmed Martin's claim, through his contacts at Ravenwood University, that they moved their most recent research and artifacts from it to Trinity Museum to expedite the scientific analysis. He pushed. "No Sumerian discoveries, or recent tablets?"
"—How do you know about those?" Leanna was caught off-guard. Her team hadn't told anyone about their most recent project. At least, they hadn't had a chance to yet anyway.
Reese shrugged. "Just something I read in a magazine. It said a recent discovery was being worked on in this general area."
"Well," Leanna took in his explanation as a clear lie. Something was up. "I'm not sure how you really got that information, but they're being processed right now."
If he could just swing a sneak peek, he could return the artifact in his pocket, read the tablet and be on his way. "Oh, that's great! Any chance I can take a look? I find new discoveries fascinating. I studied Itzcoatl's last codex extensively."
"The answer is no," she began. "I appreciate your interest but you're just some guy with torn shoes. What are you, a landscaper or something?"
Reese blinked at her accuracy. "How'd you—? Never mind. My name's Reese Hunter, and I like think I appreciate antiquities possibly-as-much as you do." He extended his hand.
"Well, Reese Hunter with the torn shoes, let's play a game, then. We'll see how worthy you are, based on a little test. Are you ready? Riddle me this," she began, trying this one last, sure-fire attempt at getting rid of this potential spy: "To find my lab: Where a curse is a curse is also the work, but the work is its work, but lost in its myth."
Staring at her, at a loss of his own, his words, at what she just said, Leanna Boswell turned on her heels and walked away.
- - -
To Reese's right, not even realizing he was there, was an old man, snickering at the young treasure hunter's predicament.
"She sure got you, kid! Heh, heh, heh," the old, grey-bearded man chuckled, leaning against his crooked walking stick.
Taken aback by his sudden appearance, Reese jumped. "Ah! Where the Hell did you come from??"
"You were so enamoured with that woman, you didn't even see those kids that tied your shoes together." He pointed to his feet.
Reese looked down. "Dammit! What's with this museum and its obsession with my shoes? Also, what's any of this to you?"
"Nothing, you young whippersnapper! I just think you're way out of your league with that lady. She's a scientist and you don't stand a chance. I've had my fair share of women so I know what I'm talking about! Hehehe!" The old man attempted an Irish jig before his knees snapped him back into his crippled pose.
Shaking his head, Reese replied. "I can't believe I'm being baited by another old man? Even more, the fact that it's working?" And then, "I'll show you. I'll show you so good!" He pointed in gesture, like some 10 year old.
Untying his shoes, Reese re-approached the curse tablet display to do what he was best at. "A curse is the work?" he repeated. "There must be something on this thing she was referring to."
"Yeah, your failure! Hehehe!" the old man said, limping over.
Reese pointed at the tablet. "These curse things were like lead paper, so there is more to it than what's being shown here. These scratches at its edge indicate a name: Dido."
"Big whoop. You can read Ancient Roman. You know, I invented fortune cookies? An American company ripped me off and now I'm as poor as a rock! Not that grimy sedimentary rock, mind you."
Looking around, Reese could see that the other visitors were preoccupied. He needed more information somehow. "What?" he asked, passively. "Never mind. I need you to cover for me while I flip this curse tablet."
"Hah! What's in it for me, you young whippersnapping-jughead?"
Reese addressed him, needing to finish recruiting, as timing was everything. "Learning you're wrong when I finally get through to the Curator?"
"I'll do it for the opposite of that. Get to work," the geezer clicked-on, having been years since he'd had a job to do.
Eyeing a nearby security camera, while it rotated to another direction, Reese lifted the glass slightly, reached into the display and flipped the curse tablet. On its other side was a reveal of the continued written-curse.
"Hm," Reese mumbled while calculating through the scratches and putting the glass covering back in place. "It's reading like the person who wrote this believed she and her lover were reincarnations of past figures. Herself as Dido, an ancient Queen, and him as Aeneas, a Trojan hero. But how does that have anything to do with the lab?"
Turning to see an approaching two security personnel of Arab descent, the old man replied, regrettably, "Unfortunately, my neck ain't what it used to be, Sonny."
"Stop right there!" one of the security guards called out as he and his similarly uniformed partner quickened their pace.
Reese gritted his teeth in disappointment at his luck, the old man notwithstanding. "Dammit, man. You had one job!"
"Hey!" The first security officer reached to grab Reese, but Reese dodged back and tried backing away. "Don't move!"
The second officer reached out, but Reese instinctively knocked the incoming arm to the side.
"We are the law here," the first threatened as he and his partner rushed at Reese and pinned Reese against a nearby wall. "And as the law, we're taking you in for questioning."
Reese knocked their arms away and then multi-punched with enough force to push them back a few steps. "What? The law can't be personified. It's a protocol. Not a pair of glasses and mustachio."
The second officer took out a baton and swung for Reese, but Reese dodged it and grabbed his arm in mid-move, redirecting a second swing at the first.
Knocked across the face, the first security officer lost visual of Reese who was last seen running away. "Do you think he's going after the find too? Is he meddling?" the second asked, dumbfounded and trying to process what happened.
"Well, now I do. After him!" the first ordered.
- - -
Out of breath, Reese stopped his running when entering the Egyptian section of the museum. He took a seat on a bench next to a travel poster to collect his thoughts.
"So much for checking up on history. All I want to do is inconspicuously return this thing, read an ancient tablet and get the hell out of here," he said to himself. "Maybe I should come back."
To his left, the old man walked over, nonchalantly. "And let that curator off the hook? That ain't what we agreed on, hombre."
"You must do a lot of mall walking," Reese squinted at him, unable to rationalize how the other guy made it this far.
The crispy old fogey leaned in on his walker and addressed the young treasure hunter. "It occurred to me that those curse slabs may be referring to gods. Perhaps the gods of their time."
"Of course!" Reese said, turning his gaze away.
Sitting himself down on the bench as well, the geezer continued. "Like the ancient people that wrote those things, their reaches into things like gods and unattainable women were a long shot."
"Uh, thank you?" Reese looked at him again. "Also, what is the deal with security? They're a little more aggressive than I remember?"
The wrinkle-fest sighed. "New management, for several weeks now. Much like the new management you'll need in terms of finding a new girlfriend."
"Okay, that's enough," Reese cut him off. "The curse slab was written by that unknown woman, who thought she was a reincarnation of an even ancient-er Queen, Dido, to a god of the Underworld. In legend, Dido sealed her entrance into the Underworld, on purpose, by impaling herself with her ex-lover's sword." Sticking two and two together, Reese finished: "Therefore, the work is its work, but lost in its myth must mean the lab rooms here, the work, are named after mythological places, lost in its myth. In this case, the underworld, or, its Roman equivalent, Avernus."
Chuckling, the pile of bones, which was the old man, replied, "You sure can't swing a legitimate date, but cracking mysteries comes naturally to you."
"Well, if you're a lookout, then don't quit your day job. Otherwise, thanks," Reese replied standing up. In the distance, the sound of hustling security guards could be heard coming his way.
The man nodded. "I'll stall 'em with a story of how I climbed K2 and made it. Ohh, I triumphed over so many Swedes that day— not by choice, mind you."
"Uhh. I'm just going to go now."
- - -
Stepping into a long, cold and bland hall, Reese found doors and doors along the extraneous, eyesore of a backend corridor. In the modern abyss, none of the dark orange doors had numbers on them, but above each one was a name, and each name a mythological place.
"Agartha... Atlantis... Shangri-La..." he eased into a walk and began reading out loud to himself, curious as to what function each room was even for anyway. "Ah! Here we go: Elysian Fields... Asgard..." then, finally, "Avernus."
Opening the door, he came upon a cold and sterile lab, where a large metallic table displayed several pieces of an ancient Middle Eastern tablet, similar to the piece in Reese's pocket. The curator and a mineral analyst were standing over their work. They both turned in shock at the treasure hunter's arrival.
"You figured it out? You were never supposed to figure it out," Leanna said, her cold exterior wavering for a single moment.
Reese shook his head. "I also know why you were looking at the curse slab. In the last part of the Roman legend, that your ambiguous riddle eluded to, the hero Aeneas tried to reconcile his relationship with Dido by visiting her in the underworld, but she rejected him again for him leaving her years before. Like the Roman woman, centuries later, who thought she was a reincarnation of Dido, etching the curse for her ex-lover, you were concerned over someone close to you as well."
"My own ex," Leanna admitted, surprisingly, and passively, in a return to her drifting state from before. "Martin. He's an investor with Ravenwood University."
The young history buff dropped his jaw in shock. "Martin Groves?? He's absolute scum!" Reese then handed over his piece of the tablet as way of explanation. "He schemed to have his own property excavated for money, using this."
"Heh," she chuckled at the complete absurdity, taking the object. "I suspected it was him, but didn't want to believe as much. The university has been on my case for days about this tablet, and I knew something was missing. I just couldn't figure out what it was."
Reese crossed his arms. "You're welcome. So, about that date the old guy mentioned?"
"What?" she responded, distractedly staring at the piece before glancing up at him. "Oh. Let me guess. You think just because you crack my riddle and gain the slightest bit of insight into my life, I'm going to like you? Well, I'm sorry to break the fantasy, but not all women are what you think."
Holding up his hands, this time defensively, Reese replied, "Whoa. It's not like that at all! Except for the first part and the last part and all of the middle."
"—There you are!" SLAM! Suddenly both security guards forced-opened the door and entered the room.
The second one grumbled, while taking out his baton, "You're going to pay for your insolence, my friend! Whatever you came here for, you can forget it."
"Ah. Great." Reese pinched the bridge of his nose. "Your over-achieving security appears to have figured out the puzzle too."
The first guy folded his arms. "Uh, we just opened every door until we got here."
"Brother," the second guy tapped the first. "Look? They have the artifact we've been looking for?"
The other one dropped his arms. "Ya ibn el sharmouta! After all these weeks, you've had it in here? Give us that, immediately! Unexplained reasons notwithstanding."
"The tablet?" the other man, Carlin, an older gentleman, with curly grey hair and thick glasses said. "Why, you're not security at all? You're just a bunch of random guys??"
Reese threw up his arms. "That's what I'm saying!" And then to the two, "Oh, and you're not touching that thing, whoever you are. We don't throw out the baby or the bathwater here."
"That's a horrible analogy!" The second brother quickly charged at Reese with the baton. Reese moved to catch the swing of the weapon and returned a kick to the guard's abdomen. The first brother then ran in and grabbed Reese's baton-holding arm.
Holding position, Reese turned to a shocked Leanna and Carlin. "What the hell? Why are people after that? Where'd you get it?"
"A 19th century archaeologist named Nathan Davis, who kept it to himself for reasons unknown," Leanna answered, in continued shock, realizing she was still holding on to the new piece. She then went to the table and looked down at the other assembled pieces. "When the university finally got a hold of it, they discovered it was incomplete. As it is, the etchings talk about a 'utensil' or 'tool' or something."
The first brother shot a punch for Reese, but Reese leaned back and deflected it with his other arm. "An object with some kind of power, to be precise," added Carlin.
"Thank you," Leanna snapped at him, obviously meaning to keep that to herself.
BLAM! The second brother threw himself into Reese's lean-back and sent both he and Reese, backward, into the sterile floor. "Ugh! ...Yeah, you guys just do your thing. I'm cool here." With the second brother over him, Reese kneed for the stomach, knocked him out with a right-cross and threw him off.
"Fascinating," muttered Leanna, placing the piece down next to the rest and completely ignoring the ruckus. "It describes itself as a Tablet of Troy, and then mentions Carthage for some reason."
The first brother swung a kick at Reese as Reese was getting up. Then, frustrated with the day's events, including receiving a nearly broken nose, he said, "You'll never stop The Followers of —"
But Reese caught the leg, pulled the brother in and knocked him out with a force-palm to the face.
"Dammit!" Reese cursed. "I did that too fast. He was just about to say who he's with." And then, to Leanna, "Wait. Did you just say a thing yourself? Troy?"
Leanna straightened out of her lean and looked at him. "Yes. It's apparent no one at the university could figure this part out. Those hacks couldn't read a pirate flag. "
She then glanced at the two thugs knocked out, on the floor.
"I thought it was you who was a spy from the university. But it's more likely these two were hired by someone to sabotage our research. Being forced to hand this over must not have sit well with Doctor Corrigan."
Carlin sighed in fatigue of petty academic rivalries and began walking to the wall-phone to call the real security.
"Well, at least I didn't have a gun pulled on me this time." Reese reached into his pocket and took out the bronze amulet he recently found at Troy. "I believe there's a connection between your tablet and this amulet. Besides Troy, they both mention an object of great power."
Leanna shook her head in disbelief in finally realizing his capacity. "You're an artifact seeker? This whole time? Are you here to steal this tablet like these men were?"
"Not at all. In fact, I just wanted to return that piece and get out," Reese answered. "I do believe conserving history is important. I only ever got into this business to make a name for myself. So, dinner sometime?"
Chuckling, Leanna appreciated the mess her boyfriend had made, indirectly bringing this puzzle solver an answer to his own mystery. "As appreciative as I am of you returning that, I still haven't given up on Martin. Truthfully, I refuse to end up the same angry, jealous woman who wrote the Roman curse slab."
He understood now. She adopted a lesson from Roman history and would commission it, freely, herself. Looking at the amulet in his hands, Reese headed for the door. "Good luck, then."
"Wait. You'll share what you find?"
The adventurer smirked. "You know, not all artifact seekers are what you think." He then took off down the corridor to his next quest.