Once again, for perhaps the fifth time this quarter, Acenath finds herself lost. After following her nose along a lovely trail of rumors and urban legends…she’s stranded.
At least it’s a nice planet this time, if a bit humid. SAIL claimed it’s a warm planet in the star’s Goldilocks Zone, and that the part of the world Acenath decided to beam to is in its dry season, but the moisture in the air is still more than a desert native like herself is used to. Not that she’s complaining—thicker, moist air makes it easier to smell things. Just makes her fur feel a bit damp.
Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea after all to follow those admittedly shady Humans’ claim about a signal booster over the hill. But they had been incredibly eager to help her out after her warp got thrown off-course by some weird signals…if only after she handed over a compact of Pixels she was planning on using to barter for something later on. At gunpoint. Yeah…probably not the best idea. Acenath can practically hear the Grand Archivist nagging her over her lack of foresight again.
No matter, though. Acenath shakes her head, itches the premonition of the Grand Archivist’s voice out of her long ears, and takes a good look and sniff around. It’s nighttime currently, but the local star clusters above and glittering puddles of healing water below more than make up for the planet’s lack of natural satellites. So with her own flashlight and her natural low-light vision, navigation isn’t much of a chore.
The ecosystem she finds herself in as she crests the hill is lovely: rolling plains absolutely covered in flowers still displaying their vibrant colors, even in the starlight; spiraling vines reaching to the stars with their leaves; the odd tree here and there standing like shepherds over their flocks of thriving shrubbery. All the pollen and scents of grass almost makes her sneeze, while the aroma of the healing water reminds her of the oases of home and almost draws her into a nostalgic lull. But beneath the fragrances is the scent she’s been looking for: a musty whiff, the smell of old stone and petrichor from eons past. To most it might be an unpleasant smell, or perhaps just dusty and uninteresting. But to Acenath, it’s a perfume most alluring.
Her ears perk as she swells with excitement, but she adjusts her large glasses and focuses on the whiff before the thrill can make her lose composure too much. It’s incredibly faint from where she is, but…
There! She finds the direction the whiff is strongest: just upwind and beyond the next hill. Like a silken thread, Acenath follows it, taking extra care to not step on the fragile flowers nor disturb the sleeping hypnares in the process. It takes more time than she would like to crest this next hill, particularly as the overpowering scent of ripe sugarcane nearly throws her off her desired musty trail, but finally she crests it.
And just past the hill is a strange tower. It’s not entirely unusual to find towers or other buildings on planets like this: the climate is conducive to many dominant species’ survival in most places, so it’s not uncommon to find dirt, wood, or even stone dwellings erected by a dwindled endemic civilization or even the passing interstellar traveler.
But this tower is distinctively none of those. Acenath can tell that even from this far away. The stone that forms its walls, despite being a climbing surface for ages’ worth of local ivy and grasses, still absorbs and reflects the glow of the surrounding pond of healing water strangely. The tower’s structure is too square. Its angles are too perfect. And the blocks of stone are impeccably uniform save for the occasional engraving.
It’s not the biggest of towers. It doesn’t even reach higher than the hill. But it still has an imposing presence bigger than itself, especially when Acenath climbs down the hill and circles the tower’s base. Rubbles of a relatively newer structure—a mound of sorts supported by a few crumbling stone pillar; a ritualistic construction, or perhaps a burial site—flank the tower’s side. Normally the newer structures in an archaeological site are more preserved than the older ones. Here it’s the opposite. The tower stands as if untouched by time while rubble collects around it and nature grows atop it.
But despite its perfection, the building is not symmetrical: the south end of the building has a lower overhang like a balcony open to the air while the north end’s overhang is higher overhead and is enclosed. Two obelisks stand guard in front of either entrance, radiating a light from their peaks as warm as the noonday sun. It’s a small comfort, but it reminds Acenath of her home desert and that reminder isn’t one she finds often. She finds herself smiling a thank-you and bowing to the obelisks before moving past them to inspect the interior.
Inside the tower, strips of cold blue light, partially obscured by the overgrowth, run up the walls, paralleling the angular windows and framework in the corners. Acenath hovers her hand over the end of the light strip, but does not touch. Not that she needs to: the strips radiate a scent of ethereal ozone as much as they radiate a cracking, yet harmless atmosphere that makes her fur tingle and her breath catch in her throat. It’s an aura of mysterious arcane magics that not even the greatest Thaumaturges the Arcanians have to offer have been able to harness.
Plenty of civilizations favor blue-ish lights—her own people included—but this kind of blue light, powered by this energy, is one she’s only identified one other place: the Ark, framing those ancient stairs and tracing that ancient dais. That alone, not even including the mysterious yet iconic engravings or distinctive architecture, identifies the creators of this tower beyond question:
The Ancients.
The Grand Archivist and some of Acenath’s peers often questioned her nigh-exclusive fascination with the Ancients. These structures seemingly from beyond time—from beyond space perhaps, given the Ancients’ apparent mastery over dimensional manipulation—are so unknowable that even decades of study may never be enough to decipher their secrets. But Acenath’s an archaeologist: adding her years of curiosity and drive to her people’s gradual study of the Ancients is her dream. She’s already uncovered more secrets and identified more trends about the Ancients and their culture than any of her peers and predecessors have ever managed; imagine what discoveries can be built upon hers going forward!
And despite her misgivings, even the Grand Archivist would have to admit the value in what Acenath is discovering, surely. The slit in the roof northward, an air vent, perhaps? Even the Ancients needed good air to breathe. And the writing on the walls, although not any of the symbols Acenath has come to recognize, perhaps are claims to the Ancient’s history? Or marks left by the builders to identify themselves? It’s an incredibly common practice, she’s found, for the Ancients to leave uncountable engravings on their walls. Not the graffiti sort of mark, nor a tribal patterning like the Floran’s.
Acenath makes sure to scan the unique markings and save them to her ever-growing database before moving on.
And these pots, tucked away in the corners. Oh, if only Acenath could take them home to her museum for study! But she is afraid to even touch them for fear of damaging these precious artifacts; even cupping her hands around the smallest is enough to make her bite her lip and wish she could will her heart to stop racing so much—she’s almost shaking the tiny pot. Taking them with her isn’t an option here. But the fact that the Ancients even had such pots, in a number of intricate styles that Acenath has been able to map like anyone else would map out styles by period, shows they had a thriving culture. A history. Needs and wants. Art.
Things worth preserving and studying.
And that’s not even considering the raw power the Ancients had access to. Even the Grand Archivist has to admit that studying the Ancients and their mastery over what their people deemed the arcane is vastly important. Any discovery Acenath makes in that sphere can have massive implications. It already has. Connecting the Ancients’ essence to the Astral essence suffusing the Arcanians’ home worlds…
Acenath shivers from the thrill at the thought.
Or…perhaps from the chill in the air.
A few droplets of water peck her head and make her ear twitch while she’s studying the triangular windows, thoroughly derailing her train of thought and making her blink at the sky.
The sun is rising, its light tinted a deep scarlet by the gathering clouds. What few rays of dawn manage to pierce the clouds, however briefly, disperse into streaks in the rain.
Looks like Acenath is stuck here until the rain passes.
Sure, she’s in her field outfit, complete with a Havencrest-peach jumper and faux-leather boots specifically treated to be hydrophobic and easy to clean. And the rain gifts the lush environment around her with the delightful scent of life and water…
But Acenath really doesn’t favor getting soaked at the moment.
So instead she sits under the northern overhang, just past the threshold, near the obelisk shining outwards. She’s in no hurry to get home right now. The more she studies the Ancients, the more they feel like home, anyways.
…Although she still has to figure out how to warp back to her ship. Ah, she’ll get to that later.
Apparently there was a Tumblr glitch that was causing my messages to disappear, my settings to vanish, and was hiding my reblogs from other people in the notes.
If this happens to you Support responded really fast and fixed it!
