Sometime. . .

[Valdar and Astralis]

It started with a squeak. Two tiny red orbs moved in the darkness, darting this way and that, preceeded by a faint hint of a nose. The mouse scuttled forward in silence through long-abandoned cobwebs draped from monsterous shapes looming into the heavens. The pathway lay open before it, with death in the darkness to left and right.

 

A long moment passed with only the shuffle of ancient dust being disturbed.

 

THUD.

 

Silence returned, wrapped around the obelisk which had not been there a moment ago. A thin trickle of blood seeped from the hairline crack between the monolith and floor, but shades of gray in the gloom, and spread into the shadows.

 

"Frrztfwtpppfw-"

 

And there was suddenly light. A single spark of red enclosed in glass, flashing insistently. Darkness fled in strobes, revealing more of the ancient passageway. Colored tentacles snaking down the passageway suddenly gave a twitch, shrugging off an aeon's worth of dust, and went still. Silence returned while the world considered this. . .

 

"Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Thunk.

 

The world above the flashing red bulb exploded into monochrome brightness. The image wavered for a moment, then stabilized. It read:

 

. . .

 

The rustle of tiny noises slowly pushed back the overbearing silence - tiks, toks, faint humming as a battalion of capacitors took their first breath in an age. Ancient dirt crunched and slowly fell away as a gear trains started its intricate dance. Valves sighed as they vented stale air from a millenia ago. More lights came on with their own individual pops. Kinks in the system became undone with faint pops and creaks, and the shadows started to move. A loud buzz accompanied the magneto straining against the load, followed by the subsonic whooosh of a fan blade overhead. Below, metal started to crackle and pop, expanding slightly before a poppet valve screamed it's cry of agony. Water gurgled somewhere, and steam hissed through pipes and tubes as the first doubtful chug of the flywheel. The blast of escaping steam drowned out the caphacony of noise as the wheel continued it's turn. The second chug came with renewed confidence, and then another, and another until the noises blended together into an almighty ruckus.

 

Steam spiraled upwards out of the ancient contraption. A low rumble issued from it's depths as the ancient core came back to life. The device jerked upwards, rotated an arm sideways. Fingers closed around the skeleton of a quill, tore it from it's tar pit of dry ink. The arm rotated back. The device froze for a long moment, quill poised an inch above yellowed parchment.

 

 

The eyes began to glow as the quill descended. . .

Edited April 9, 2008 by Valdar and Astralis