Next: Chapter 2

Kamchatka Peninsula - Wilderness - Afternoon.

Clay and Nithya have been hiking for days now with little to show for it but dwindling supplies. A few rumors from the rural locals, clues and legends, but no guides, nothing about this trip should have gone this direction except that Clay had a 'gut feeling', a hope of finding something.

But as they have descended the mountain trail into the wooded valley, they've found nothing but herds of deer, and no signs of anything that might lead to an archaeological dig.

Clay sighs, hefting his pack and readjusting a moment as he takes in the scenery. "At least it's beautiful... but I've definitely wasted the last of our time and money on this hunch. I really thought this was it."

Nithya sighs. The tan, dark-haired, well-built woman is not on her first expedition with Clay, and it's not going to be the last either.

She smiles: "I did hope so too. But you have to admit we have no tangible evidence there might be anything here." She looks around the pine forest around and downhill from them. "It's quite possible there has never been permanent human settlements in this wilderness."

Clay himself is a fit, white male, not quite as bulky or muscular, but strong enough for a long hike through the Russian wilds. "I still don't think those people were lying... even if they wouldn't guide us out here." He smiles back at Nithya, "Sorry, I just... I really felt like this was it. I can practically feel it, you know? But you're probably right as usual."

Nithya gives a weary smile, the one she always gives after Clay's optimism has led them to coming home empty-handed. "I know. I can kind of feel it too. Like there should be something here, even if the local stories are vague at best as to what. Something about deities long forgotten, once worshipped."

Clay chuckles tiredly, always trying to see the bright side of things, but he has certainly leapt before he looked more than a few times. "Just stories and folklore, I guess. No gods here, just deer." The herds have kept their distance, but never seemed to panic or run from the pair. "So, should we call it for today? I think it's my turn to set-up the tent. We can get a bit of extra rest, and start the hike back to town in the morning?"

Nithya smiles, wiping a bit of sweat from her brow as she glances at the sun peeking from behind the trees and soon starting its' rapid descent. "Sounds like a plan. I'll get the fire started once we have a spot. Last thing we need is another bear scare."

Clay shrugs off the hiking pack he's carried along, unpacking the tent, a modest sized hiking tent that fits their two sleeping bags comfortably. He unrolls the fabric and retrieves the tent spikes and the hammer, "Yeah, no thank you to the bears. I still swear that I tied the food up that night."

Nithya shrugs as she looks around for a good spot for their fire. "Happens. And at least we don't have to worry about territorial bull elephants up here." She starts picking up and digging a spot for the camp fire, at least as much for drying their clothes and keeping wildlife away as it is for warming what's left of their food.

"You know, I really want to have a big greasy diner breakfast or something once we're out of here."

Clay gets everything set up and grabs the first tent spike, looking over the ground. He runs his hand over the grass, and stands, stepping over not too far from his first choice of spot for the tent, seemingly at random, and starts to hammer the spike in, "Now that I can go for. My failed hike, so breakfast is on me once we're back to civilization. The full spread, eggs, bacon, sausage, chocolate chip pancakes, all of it." He swings the hammer down at the tent spike and is surprised when it goes straight through the ground, "...the hell?"

Nithya looks up: "Huh? What is it?" She's instantly a bit wary, sudden statements like that out in the wild sometimes means running within a minute.

Clay stands back up, looking down at the perfectly round hole in the ground, "I don't know. I just hammered the spike in and it-" He doesn't get to finish as the ground gives away beneath him, dropping him out of sight in an instant.

Nithya blinks, then gets up: "Clay!" She makes her way to the hole, swallowing a breath. "Clay!"

Clay moans from the bottom of the hole, a nearly fifteen foot drop down along with the earth beneath him into what appears to be an old circular antechamber.

In the waning sunlight, Nithya can make out a raised plinth with a statue upon it of a naked... well, not quite a woman, but not quite a deer either. Something in between, or both.

Clay is resting on a bed of thick bushes that have grown around the base of it. It takes him a moment to recover, though his faint moaning and slight movements are evidence enough that he's alright. "Fuuuck... what happened?"

Nithya carefully leans over the hole, relieved to see her friend is in one piece and the drop wasn't that big. "Clay! You okay down there? You..."

She pauses, actually taking in what her companion landed next to. "Whoa. That's... Carved stone, isn't it. And old. Very old."

Clay struggles a bit to sit up in the tangle of bushes, "Yeah... yeah I think... I'm fine? What are you talking abo-" He looks up towards the light pouring down into the chamber, and notices the statue looming over him, "-th-that's... whoa... Whoa! Nithya! We found it! Or... we found something!" His struggles to disentangle himself from the bush gets more immediate at the excitement of the discovery, and soon enough he's gotten out of the little garden around the statue, albeit with quite a bit of rips in his clothing.

Nithya swallows, then nods. "I'll get the rope. And the camera!" She scrambles back to her backpack, just careful enough in her haste to not set off further collapses. Picking up the rope and tightly tying it around a tree next to her friend's unfortunate and unintentional dig site, she starts talking as she makes her way down.

"You're okay, and since I am seeing this as well, I'm not even going to ask if you hit your head." Once she's standing on the stone floor, she flicks a light towards the statue: "Oh wow. How impossibly long time has this been here?"

Clay doesn't stray too far from the garden, taking a moment to check himself over, making sure he's not got any broken bones. "Yeah, I seem to be just fine... lucky I fell there and not onto the statue itself. It's... in such good condition too. I don't recognize the figure from any myth though."

He turns away from the statue, squinting into the darkness. Around them in the circular chamber, the walls of the room are covered with murals depicting herds of deer similar to the ones in the woods above. He follows the murals until they reach an opening, and in the faint light, it seems to connect to a deep hallway tunnel. "...this place is more than just this room? Th-this is a full temple! And it's ancient, and wholly unknown! This is a huge discovery!"

Nithya swallows a few times, her heart starting to hammer in her chest. "I-it is. It really is!" She is definitely starting to feel a bit giddy as she moves her flashlight from the statue, to the murals and eventually at the hallway ahead of them: "We... Oh wow, we really did it."

Clay laughs aloud, feeling almost winded as he drops back onto his rear to sit down, overwhelmed. "I just... I can't believe it." He glances at Nithya, watching the flashlight's beam and trying to take it all in. "What now? Do... we go in deeper?"

Nithya looks about the antechamber, with the stone floor and the earthy walls seemingly made out of thick pine roots. "Let's make our camp down here, t-then figure out how deep this goes."

Clay nods, still sitting on the floor. He pats the stone, thinking, "Yeah... yeah, good plan. And bonus, definitely no bears coming down here."

Nithya winks: "Well now you've gone and jinxed it." She looks about the room, then nods, satisfied. "I'll go back up and lower our stuff down. Then tie another rope to a different tree, just to be sure, before I come back. We make fire, eat something and then figure out how we proceed. Sound like a plan?"

Clay chuckles, "I accept all responsibility for bear watch tonight then. Yeah... I'll sit tight just to be sure. You just be careful, it's not a long drop, but long enough. Thankfully, I probably landed on my head, and we both know how hard-headed I am."

Nithya gives Clay a slightly amused look: "Yes, but if you start seeing things like in Kenya, I remind you that the nearest doctor is at least fifty kilometers away." She makes her way back to the rope tugs on it hard to be sure, then starts climbing back up. "Be right back. You try to make sense of the murals."

Clay groans, "Hey, it was a 'spiritual journey' or something... And definitely not spoiled trail mix." He takes the flashlight from Nithya before she starts climbing up and turns to study the murals. The images of people and deer recur throughout, with a depiction of the deer-headed goddess standing amongst them, with people and deer all bowing.

Nithya is able to gather up their backpacks pretty quickly, given that they didn't unpack much of anything yet. She ties up a second rope as she said, then lowers one the packs with it. "Stuff coming down. Find anything interesting yet?"

Clay hums, "Yeah, I don't know... I think these murals sort of show pilgrimages to the Temple. The deer are a big part of it... I sort of thought maybe the deer were worshipped too, considering, but they also show the deer as part of the pilgrimage? Like, the deer are coming in alongside the people, and worshipping alongside them." He walks over to the rope and catches the packs, carefully setting them down and making sure the rope is secured. "Okay, stuff received."

Nithya: "I'm gonna get a bit of firewood for us. At least it's dry down there. But I'll stay in hearing distance, holler if you find something super-neat alright?" After getting the confirmation from Clay, Nithya disappears from view.

Clay rummages through the packs to set up a campsite, and as Nithya returns, the two are good for the night, getting a fire started and getting something cooked up for dinner. Now, they sit together in the lit temple antechamber as night falls above.

Clay's investigations revealed the antechamber was once filled with water around the center stone floor, and a quick scan with the flashlight down the central hall shows it going on for quite some ways, deeper than the light can go at least. The part of the ceiling that caved in was once exposed to open air, and the soil and rock that buried this temple was likely part of a geological shift, or even local volcanic activity, though how it covered the temple while still leaving it so pristine is beyond him.

It's enough to convince them that the temple itself is unusually stable. "I think we go in as deep as we can without disturbing anything, or until it starts to feel unsafe. We photograph it all, and... maybe see if there's something simple we can take back as a sample. We're the first people to see this place in literally thousands of years... it's humbling."

Nithya takes a sip of the campfire-boiled tea made into melted snow as she stares at the walls. "It's... weird. I know it's what we have been searching basically all our career, and now that we're standing at the precipice of maybe finding an antirely unknown ancient temple and its' religion... I don't know what to think."

In all actuality, she does know what to think. Entirely too much of it. Something about this place is giving her the heebie-jeebies, even as someone who has stepped into plenty of places someone somewhere once upon a time probably held holy. Maybe it's just the... feeling that it is not related to any other ancient thing the two archaeologists know of. Maybe it's the unsettling humanoid deer statue keeping them company, like it's welcoming them there.

Maybe it is just her nerves getting to her as they're on their big break if they play their cards even remotely right.

Clay seems oblivious, either from the adrenaline of the discovery, or a lack of any kind of sixth sense for this place, for him, the excitement of the moment overrides any undue caution, "I know what you mean. It's almost like something out of a dream. If you weren't seeing it too, I'd think I'd gone delusional. A Deer Cult? Really?"

Nithya hums, then shrugs a bit: "I don't know. It's not exactly unusual for ancient people to have worshipped animals important to them. Imagine living up here some couple thousand years ago, Clay." She looks about the murals: "If whatever deity wasn't blessing your deer hunt, you were dead pretty quick."

"What I don't understand is how such, probably nomadic people would have had the time and energy and tools to create something like this..."

Clay glances at the murals, humming curiously. "Yeah, that's what I thought too. But it's weird there's no depiction of hunting in any of the murals... And no evidence of farmland in the valley either, unless it's all buried too."

He ponders, "Nomadic people seem the most likely. But you're right. Why build this? Why build it here? Makes me wonder if there's something they built this temple on? Like a hot spring, or like the stories of the Temple of Delphi being built over volcanic vents that granted the oracle her visions."

Nithya blinks, and looks at the murals again. "... Dang, you're right. None of these depict hunting. More like these deer are with people, like... Like horses for a lot cultures, I guess? But that doesn't make sense either, does it."

She glances at the statue, looking somewhat eerie in the light of the flickering campfire. She turns her gaze away after a moment, embarrassingly realizing she was for a brief second eyeing the very human curves of the statue.

Clay thinks for a moment, "Maybe they were like... Pack animals? But... No, that doesn't make sense either. Maybe they were sacred to them somehow? I feel like I'm missing something really obvious..."

Nithya shrugs, sipping her tea: "Perhaps going in will enlighten us more. Or we may not find out at all. I can't imagine the odds of such a remote and unknown culture leaving behind any writings that we could decipher, being all that great, after all."

Clay slumps a little, but laughs good-naturedly, "You're probably right. I'm just a bit excited. The mystery of it all! But we're probably not going to find any answers for a long time, at least not for a couple years when an actual full team has worked this site."

Nithya smirks: "That's the spirit. Think long term fascination, we don't need to find out everything right now." The lady gives a sigh that turns into a yawn.

"Should we take a peek inside now to satisfy our curiosity, then do a more proper search in the morning?"

Clay laughs, "Ahh, you know I want to! I won't be able to get some sleep until we at least walk down that hallway, at least a little."

Nithya smiles warmly: "I admit I am pretty curious myself. But guess you knew that." While she outwardly shows less explosive enthusiasm than her companion, she is just as curious about anything resembling ancient, ruins, or ancient ruins.

Clay moves to douse the fire, definitely not wanting to leave it unattended while they wander off into the temple ruins, "I promise to temper my expectations. Well, as best I can."

Nithya smirks as she gets up: "As you always do." She picks up her flashlight and camera and gives Clay a nod.

Clay clicks his own flashlight on and grins with a clear lie, "Oh, you know me, I'm not easily excited."

He Walks around the statue with Nithya towards the tunnel. He shines his light down again, the hallway lined with sconces that once would have held lit torches, it seems to descend quite a ways, the angle not uncomfortable to walk, but just enough to make it impossible to see where the next room begins.

Nithya follows Clay's lead, happy to let his enthusiasm show them their way, just keeping their steps in mind when they inevitably need to retrace them. Because she's pretty sure Clay won't do that.

"Obviously not. You would never feel like this over a discovery of this potential magnitude."

Clay gives an exasperated laugh, "What? No! of course not. I'm the logical one here. I would never let emotion lead us astray. And I would certainly never think irrationally in this kind of situation." Clay's heart has always been his guide, for better or worse.

Nithya laughs softly, although feels weird and a bit self-conscious about it in the echoing tunnel. "Yep, you do keep me and my irrational ways in check." More often than not it has been Nithya's job to point the obvious when her friend fails to see the forest from all the trees in the way.

That's not to say she thinks Clay is any less smart than she is - just very differently so. She wouldn't follow him to the ends of the Earth if she thought he was never going to find anything with his instincts.

Clay laughs, "Clearly so. Nothing irrational about descending an unexplored tunnel in the middle of the Russian wilderness at night..." His talk is half self-deprecation, but half his real nerves showing through.

In truth, his instincts are usually pretty good, and have led the two of them to a lot of little successes, but it's never paid off on anything 'big'... until now, anyways.

"Besides, it can't go too much longer... right?" True to his words, the tunnel opens up soon into a small chamber that forks off into three more paths, one to each of their left, right, and one more that continues straight ahead into what appears to be a large amphitheater. The rooms to the other sides are much smaller, and shining his light through, doesn't reveal much out of hand. But that center room seems much bigger than it should be...

Clay turns to shine the light back up the hallway past Nithya, "How deep did we go...?"

Nithya glances back: "...I'd hazard a guess that we're maybe two or three stories underground now. Pretty deep." She looks about the space they're in: "Whoever built this here, knew to account for a lot of time durability."

Clay walks towards the large amphitheater and shines his flashlight up to the domed ceiling. "This is... beyond just 'well preserved'." He shines the light around the room, studying the architecture, "There was water running through these canals around the edge of the room. It's long gone, but otherwise, I'd swear this place is still being maintained somehow..."

Nithya glances around: "...by whom? If there was someone, somehow, down here, pretty sure we'd have found them already... or rather, they would have found us." She shakes her head slightly: "Though I will give to you that this place is almost eerily pristine in some ways."

Clay nods, "Yeah... it's completely deserted, but otherwise..."

The room is tall, with a domed ceiling, and large pillars in the corners of the square floor. Around it is a sunken channel, where Clay noted water once surrounded this island. At the center is a shrine, like a miniature version of the temple itself, with a wooden throne that almost seems to have grown out of the ground, and sitting atop it is the same deer goddess figure, also carved from wood, covered in various clothing and jewelry. An offering bowl sits at her feet, along with stone tablets covered in some kind of text.

Nithya stares at the wooden statue for a long moment: "That... that can't be as old as this place otherwise must be. Wood... and cloth? How?"

She then picks up on the fact that there's writing in there. Her curiosity over that perks up instantly and she steps closer. "...I gotta take a closer look."

Clay chuckles at Nithya's own sudden excitement, following after her as they cross over the canal and onto the central island of the inner temple. "Well, if it's in any language that can be translated, I know I've brought the best person for the job."

Nithya glances at her friend: "Flattery will get you everywhere." She turns forward to get close to the tablets, curiosity certainly getting the better of her now. "Now let's see..."

Clay follows close behind, keeping his flashlight on the tablets to aid Nithya's investigation. He's very serious in his confidence, holding Nithya in high regard for her intelligence and field of study.

Languages were never his specialty, having taken enough classes to speak passable Russian and Hindi, but reading most foreign languages was beyond him, especially ancient ones.

Nithya picks up a tablet carefully, tracing a finger at the... markings, one could call them, on the stone's surface. "This does not resemble any language I know of," she says quietly after a moment.

She glances at Clay: "...I can't translate any of this." She looks up at the statue, frowning. "Whatever the meaning of all this, I can not tell. But these... I think these are instructions of some kind, just no idea for what. Worship? Behaviour? Befriending deer? No clue."

Clay hums curiously, "Well, that fits with the rest of what we've seen. Our weird deer cult here certainly has a theme going. You're awesome to even be able to figure that much out. I guess take photos and we can puzzle it out in time."

Nithya puts the tablet gently back down and nods. She feels the slightest of jolts as she does, but brushes it off to klutzing her hand because of tiredness. "Yeah. Best to head back up for tonight, I think. Not like all this is going anywhere."

Clay nods, looking over the room again as Nithya puts the tablets down. "I uh... my excitement has not been tempered, I admit." He walks to lean in towards the shrine, and looks the wooden deer idol in the eyes. "The irrational part of me almost feels like we should leave an offering..." He laughs off the impulse though, shaking off the eerie feeling that something is watching them, the same creeping feeling he got with the deer above ground. "Err... yeah, let's head back up."

Nithya nods slowly: "Maybe this all will make more sense in the morning." She looks about the room, frowning a bit. "...assuming there is much sense to make. Ancient people worshipped deer, for whatever reason. But why?"

Clay chuckles, taking a deep breath, "Long term fascination, right? I think we've found a very deep, deep mine for it."

Nithya smiles before turning back towards the entrance: "I think we did. We've done good today, even if it's just starting. Who knows what this place hides, right?"

Clay nods, following behind Nithya to head back up to their camp, "We have... I almost can't believe it, still. But if it's all still here when we wake up, I think we've done it."

Nithya smirks: "Afraid that we'll just wake up back in our camp and not in the front room of this amazing place?"

Clay laughs, "I'm half convinced I'm still lying unconcious at the bottom of a pit I fell into."

Nithya prods Clay on the shoulder: "Want me to pinch you? For science."

Clay mrphs, rolling with the poke, "Heh, I just might."

Nithya laughs a bit: "Maybe later, if I really feel you need it." She motions with her head towards the entry tunnel: "Come on. Let's go sleep on this."

Clay nods, "Yeah, a bit of shuteye will probably give me time to process this all, do a world of good. If I'm still having a crisis in the morning, then you can pinch me over breakfast."

  Next: Chapter 2

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