FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

At the back wall, Saul opens the utility area access door and holds it for everyone else to walk in.

Inside is a maze of pumps, pipes and maintenance equipment. The ceiling is low compared to the pool room. Crammed into remaining space are a few shelves with cleaning supplies and tools. A narrow path runs through the large room. At the back is a cramped spiral staircase that leads to the pool filtration area below.

"Sometimes I think the palace wasn't very well designed." Bastao says.

"You'd think they would have saved space for the utilities instead of shoving them together like this." Archie says as he tries not to knock things down in the narrow walkway.

"What's through that door over there?" Aspen asks, pointing to a door that's almost hidden behind a shelf.

"I have no idea, that's not even on the floor plan..." Saul replies.

The group reaches the staircase and hesitate at seeing the state it's in.

"Um, I think we should go one at a time, this doesn't look very sturdy." Brackston says, eyeing the amount of wear on the stairs.

"How old is this? Don't tell me they never replaced the stairs." Minus says.

"Yeah... I think these are original... Archie, go first. If it can hold you, it should hold us all if we go one at a time."

The big bear frowns but steps onto the first step. The old metal groans and creeks, but it holds. Archie carefully goes down the stairs and calls from the bottom. "Ok, uh it's a mess down here."

Saul motions to Minus and the tiger goes down.

"Do we really need this armor?" Brackston asks.

Saul and Bastao turn around to see the stallion has gotten jammed between a large pipe and the wall.

"How did Archie get through here?" He says as he struggles.

"Aspen, see if you can get him out, I'm going down with Bastao."

The wolf walks past them and starts tugging at Brackston.

The big alligator walks in front of the bat and goes down first.

When Bastao gets to the bottom he sees that the lower level is literally full of junk!

"Uh, what is all this?" He asks.

"It seems to be broken tools and dismantled equipment. Just what has the maintenance team been doing?" Saul replies.

"It looks like they've been collecting worn out and broken appliances. I wonder if they want to sell them." Archie says.

Brackston and Aspen come down the stairs and look at the mess.

"Well, this is unexpected." The big stallion says.

"Where is the staircase that leads down?" Aspen asks as he surveys the room.

"The stairs should be to our right behind that pile of scrap metal. I have no idea why all this junk is in here." Saul says.

"Can we even get to the stairs? Or is there too much of this in the way?" Bastao asks.

"I'm pretty sure that me, Archie and Brackston can clear a path." Saul says.

---

The three large guys begin shoving things out of the way. However, it's not long before the sound of something breaking is heard.

"Um, maybe we should be more careful." Brackston says.

They look back at Bastao.

"Well, all this stuff was supposed to be sent to a recycling center, the janitor and the maintenance crew should have asked if they wanted to do whatever this is as none of this belongs to them. So just shove it out of the way." The bat says.

The three largest guards go back to moving the appliances and scrap metal around, Aspen and Minus join in.

The five of them soon clear the way to the door on the right. But when Aspen tries opening it, he finds it locked or jammed.

"What do we do now?" He asks.

"Well, since it won't open, I guess we just have to leave and find another way sometime." Saul says.

Bastao looks surprised and sad, he fidgets with his armor and looks like he's thinking of what to say.

"I'm just joking! Archie see if you can open it."

The big bear walks to the door, grabs the handle and yanks. With a metallic screech the handle rips off the door! Archie looks at it and then tosses it into the piles of junk.

"Does the door even open outwards?" Minus asks.

Archie examines the old-fashioned hinges.

"Yeah, looks like it is supposed to."

Then the bear takes hold of the door frame and starts pulling. Saul gets beside him and starts pulling on the other side. In a moment the two large males rip the old door frame off. Seeing that they can get a grip on the door itself now, they get to work on it. Something snaps and they almost fall as the door is ripped open. A cloud of dust billows out of the darkness within and everyone backs away.

"Alright, get your helmets on, it looks like there's toxic mold in there." Saul says.

The quantum nano tech suits build custom fitting helmets and faceplates from extra nano bots.

"We didn't have this problem when we went down the other way." Bastao says.

"True, I wonder if pool water ever leaked down here? This door has not been open for a very long time; moisture could have been trapped back there causing mold to grow here but not on the other side of the foundation dome where we were." Saul says.

"That makes me wonder if the foundations of the city are crumbling." Minus says.

"Well, that's another reason someone should go down there and see." Bastao says.

Saul takes a look at the cramped spiral staircase with his suits built-in light.

"Well, it is rusted but the metal looks thick and should still hold us."

"I'll go first." Archie says.

The bear steps through the doorway and onto the stairs. The metal creaks and groans, but holds. After maneuvering his large body around, he finds an area where he can look down with his light.

"Um, how far down does this go?"

"Well, according to the floor plan it goes four floors down to the water filtration and pumping area in sub-basement two. From there we can use the regular stairs to sub-basement ten where the access to below is." Saul says.

"Won't someone notice us though?" Aspen asks.

"Heh, nobody ever goes below sub-basement two. And nobody's going to be in the basements at all today! At least there's not supposed to be anyone..." Brackston says.

As Archie stars going down, Aspen looks thoughtful.

"When I was a child, I thought the parks where natural ground! I never would have imagined that I was standing thousands of feet and maybe even miles above the planets real surface."

Brackston looks down at the floor and sways. He leans against the wall.

"Hey are you ok?" Bastao asks.

"Yeah, fine. Just got dizzy imagining being miles off the ground..."

"Are you sure you can do this? We don't need someone to cause an accident down there." Saul says.

"I can do it, just needed a moment." Brackston replies.

"Well, if you're sure then let's go." Saul says.

Brackston nods and walks through the door and down the stairs. Minus goes next and then Aspen.

Saul takes hold of Bastao's gloved paw and says, "alright, stay close to me."

"I will. Let's just try to find the old archive and library before we think of going deeper." The bat prince says.

"Good idea." The alligator replies.

Together they start the climb down the cramped spiral staircase.

---

It is cramped and musty in the staircase, there is no light besides the utility lights built into the suits. There appear to be light fixtures set into the walls at regular intervals that if lit would provide a nice amount of light. But it seems they have been neglected for many years. At the bottom the door is stuck.

"Guys I think something is leaning on the other side keeping this shut." Aspen says.

"Wait the door above opened outward, so shouldn't this one open inward?" Minus asks.

"Why would it open in?" Saul asks.

"Oh, never mind, I was thinking of something else..."

"I'm pretty sure it opens out, let me try." Archie says.

As the big bear pushes against the door, Brackston gives Minus a weird look. The tiger just shrugs.

"I think it's just stuck, it kinda moves."

As Archie continues to push on the door using his weight, there is a sudden snap and the door flings open. The bear stumbles foreword into the dusty corridor beyond.

"You alright?" Minus asks he walks through the doorway, the others following.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Ok, which way to the stairs?" Bastao asks.

"To the left. I'll lead." Saul says.

The sub-basement corridor is strictly utilitarian, there is no decoration or even carpeting. The ceiling, walls and floor are gray concrete. There are plane steel doors on each side from which the sounds of pumps can be heard. The group walked down the dim corridor and passed a number of intersections. Finally, they reach the end and find the landing for the regular stairs. Saul opens the double doors and looks inside.

"All clear." He says.

These stairs are much wider and even though they are dusty and dim, it's much more comfortable for the group to descend them.

As they descend through the sub-basements the stairs get dustier and the lights get dimer. At each landing they stop and look out of the doors. The corridors beyond are increasingly neglected the farther down they go. The basement and first two sub-basements are fairly well maintained, if dusty and clutters in some places. But below that the corridors abruptly become neglected, and have inches of dust and debris on the floor from fallen ceiling panels.

At sub-basement landing eight, Aspen is frowning at the decayed corridor beyond the doorway.

"Um, are we sure the palace won't collapse?" He asks.

"Well, the actual supporting structure looks fine, you can see one of the primary columns through that collapsed wall over there and it looks fine." Saul replies.

"Maybe we should go take a closer look?" Minus says.

"Yeah, I think we should." Bastao says.

Saul sighed and wrenched the door open all the way with a screech of metal.

"When was the last time these doors where opened?" Archie asks.

"Probably five hundred years ago if not more." Minus replies.

"Come on, how could nobody be down here for that long?" Brackston asks.

"There's... some weird theories..." Bastao says as they carefully walk across the crumbled floor.

"A lot of people say they don't feel right when they're below the modern ground level. And people who live in basement apartments claim they hear strange sounds coming from below, even though they're on the lowest inhabited level."

"But there's never any good quality recordings and the inspectors never find anything out of place when they go look down there." Minus says.

"They don't actually go deep though, only to the upper sub-basements of the buildings. What we call the undercity is only a few floors down." Bastao says.

"Well, is it really that strange to not like being underground?" Brackston says. "People like to see the sky and--whoa!"

They had been too busy talking to really notice what is on the other side of the collapsed wall.

"Wow, how is it that nobody heard anything when this fell?" Brackston asks.

"I don't think it collapsed all at once, only like one wall at a time and yeah..." Bastao says.

"There's like five collapsed floors! This whole section of the foundation is hollow!" Saul says.

Bastao and Aspen carefully lean out over the edge of the floor and shine their lights around. Saul promptly gets a hold of the bat prince.

"Hmm, it looks like all the walls and floors just gave out over time. The actual supporting structures look intact, I can't see any place where there is a missing column or crossbeam." The prince says.

"There's no dust in the air, I think it's been this way for a while without anything else falling." The wolf says.

"Well, we should continue." Bastao says.

They go back to the stairs and continue down the last two floors.

---

"Well, this is a mess." Aspen says.

"I guess everything gathers at the bottom." Minus says.

"Why is the other side almost clear, but here it's a disaster?" Bastao asks.

"The only thing I can think of is that the pool water must have caused all this." Saul replies.

"Think about it, we saw how rusted the maintenance staircase is from pool water leaking. So maybe the water has trickled all the way down this side of the palace, and since nobody ever goes down here it never got repaired."

"Won't this eventually cause the palace to collapse?" Brackston asks.

"No, the actual supporting structures are all corrosion resistant titanium alloys. The nano structuring should make them last pretty much forever." Bastao says.

"But the floors and walls still gave out!" Brackston replies.

"Yeah... Someone overlooked that when they designed the palace." The bat says.

"I really think the upper city was built in a hurry. There are not really any records, but it seems like everyone wanted to get higher and then they pretty much sealed off the old city."

"Alright, so which way do we go from here?" Archie asks.

Saul takes a look at the map he made, "To the right and through the storage section. It should be a lot less cluttered over there." He says.

As they go, Archie, Brackston and Saul move large debris out of the way of the prince as Minus and Aspen walk beside him.

"I can't imagine how the old palace can still be intact if this place is falling apart. How bad do you think the old city is?" Aspen asks.

"Well, it was probably built with the same or similar corrosion resistant alloys, and all the stonework is just decoration. I have no idea about how well the old city is holding up, if at all." Bastao says.

"So where do you get your information about all this from?" Minus asks.

"Oh, just on the social networks. I've been anonymously asking people who live in the under city about things that they hear and such. There's never mention of any huge crashing sounds, but a lot of people who live in the lowest floor claim to hear wind and thunder coming from below."

"Are we really above the weather systems? That must mean we are at least twenty thousand feet over the natural ground!" Aspen says.

"Yeah, that one of many questions I want to find the answer too." Bastao replies.

"What are the other questions? The wolf asks.

"Well, is the old city hollowed out? What's holding up the upper city? Why was the new city built in such hurry and why did everyone totally abandon the old city? Why are there so few ways to get down there? And why was the base platform of the new city made with minerals that block our remote sensing technologies? Those are just a few of them." The prince says.

Suddenly there is a loud crash from ahead of the three.

"Oops..." Brackston says as he looks at the newly collapsed wall.

"What did you do?" Bastao asks.

"I just leaned against the wall and it caved in!"

As the dust cleared, they can see the room is full of large metallic cubes arranged in rows.

"What are those?" Minus asks.

"I think these are mainframe computers." Saul says.

They step over the remains of the wall and take a closer look at the objects.

"Wow, these are seriously old!" Archie says.

"I wonder why these where just left here?" Bastao asks.

"Well, they must be long obsolete and I guess nobody wanted to move them, the must be heavy." Aspen replies.

"Oh, well yeah... I wonder if they still work? There could be interesting stuff on them." Bastao says.

"It looks like there is no power here and we don't have anything to test these with, so another time." Saul says.

"You're right, so let's go."

They leave the abandoned computers and continue down the dilapidated hallway. Soon the number of debris thins out. Although the place is still a mess.

---

A last they come to the partly collapsed storage room. Bastao leads the others inside.

"So, this is it then? Why would someone build a wall that blocks stairs?" Aspen asks.

"It's one of several things that make me think people are or where afraid of the old city." Bastao replies.

"Maybe you're thinking about it the wrong way." Saul says. "Maybe the old city was sealed off because its dangerous down there? I wonder if there where toxic gasses leaking up so everyone hurriedly build the new city at a higher altitude so they could get away from the gas?"

"Um, what? Why do you think there was a toxic gas? Where would it come from, this planet is geologically inactive. There's no active volcanos or tectonic plate movement, and there hasn't been for who knows how long." Bastao says.

"Well, it sounds like a better theory to me than an unknown fear of the old city." Saul replies.

A silence falls as they look into the opening of the spiral staircase.

"Come on you guys, are all of you spooked now? I've been down there a few times now and I'm fine. Saul was down there too."

"Well, now that I'm here it really is strange that this was sealed up. I could understand locking the door to the staircase, but building a wall in front of it? That's weird!" Minus says.

"Maybe the answer is in the old palace library? We've got the floor plans for it." Bastao says.

"We've come all the way down here, so we might as well go down to the old palace and see if there's anything in the library." Saul says.

The big alligator takes hold of the bats paw and they enter the staircase.

Minus frowns and follows. After looking behind at the dark hallway, Aspen goes in too and the rest follow.

At the bottom, the stairs open up into a vast dark space. The group set out onto the old roof tiles and look around with their lights.

"Whoa, I thought the new palace was built right on top the old one. Why did they build this huge space?" Aspen asks.

"I assume that this giant dome is supporting the new palace." Bastao replies. "I guess they didn't want to demolish the old one, so they built the dome around it."

"How old is this palace? These tiles look very traditional, is this the original palace?" Minus asks.

"It can't be, we're only thirty feet or so below the under city. And we know for a fact that the real ground is more than two thousand feet down from it." Saul says.

"Alright, so the entrance is this way." Bastao says.

They follow the bat to what looks like a much smaller palace on top of the old palace.

"This is the penthouse." The bat says when the reach it.

Since the door has fallen off, they just walk inside. The interior is dilapidated with a thick layer of dust on the floor and cobwebs spanning the room. Fragments of glass shine in the suit lights.

"Wow, that was a big chandelier. I wonder how long it took before it fell?" Archie asks.

"No way to tell. The stairs are back here, lets at least check out the library." Bastao says.

"Let me go first, the stairs could be unstable." Saul says.

The big alligator points his light down the stairs. The light illuminates many cobwebs and a landing below. He sets his foot on the first step and it makes a loud creek, but holds. Each step creeks and groans as Saul brushes cobwebs out of the way. Bastao carefully follows and the others go down one at a time. After the landing, the stairs continue and open up to a dark hallway.

"Wow, look at this place!" Brackston says when the hall is illuminated by their lights.

Even through the dust and cobwebs, the ornateness of the hallway is still visible. The ceiling is made of interlocking tiles with floral designs on them. Every ten feet there are small chandeliers, although some of them are now on the floor. The walls have decorative paneling and frames with detailed wallpaper. Even though its faded and peeling in some places, the wallpaper still intricate designs of many colors and shapes. The floor is hidden by a thick layer of grey dust. The doorframes are made of carved wood with scrollwork, although some of them have fallen down.

---

The group carefully walked down the hallway and tried the doors. Some of them seem to be locked, but others are not. Inside they found mostly empty rooms. All very ornate, even in their decayed state. A few of the rooms have furniture such as collapsed bedframes and dressers, old chairs and nightstands.

"I think these are all bedrooms, but I wonder why some of them are locked?" Bastao says.

"Yeah, that's a bit odd. Unless the doors are actually stuck. "Saul says.

"Hey, there's a light!" Minus says.

They all tense up as the tiger peers into the nearby open door.

"Oh, it's just a mirror. A big one."

Bastao and Aspen look into the room behind Minus. They see an ornate cheval mirror just beyond the door.

"Wow, it's in great condition. But why is it there?" Bastao asks.

"I think someone must have been moving it and gave up on it." Aspen replies.

Saul looks over at the mirror and says, "it does look heavy, especially if bats were moving it."

"But it is strange to just leave it. I really think everyone left in a hurry." Bastao says.

They continue down the hallway.

"Yet they had enough time to build a new palace and city on top of this one." Archie says.

"My guess is that if they really were trying to get away from something, they must have known about it long in advance and had an estimate of when it would be a direct threat to them." Brackston says.

"Uh, I think you guys are jumping to conclusions." Saul says. "Maybe they had to hurry because they might have gotten sealed down here? And what exactly do you think they were getting away from? Toxic gasses aren't likely, and if there where mutant creatures like you hear about in urban myths, why hasn't anyone captured one? Surly they would have come up to the new city. And look at this dust, there are no footprints. We're the first people to be down here in a thousand years!"

"Sounds reasonable, but still seems strange." Minus says. "Like why are there no records about the old city or when the new city was built? There's also nothing about when everyone moved. We only assume everybody moved up into the new city, what if it was some kind of colonization? Like the new city was placed on top the old one by our ancestors?"

"What? That doesn't make any sense." Bastao says. "So, nobody in the old city protested or anything? Don't forget this planet was already allied with the ursa minans before the new city was built. You would think they would have done something if that happened."

"Wait, even if all records here on Umbria where lost or destroyed, what about records on ursa mina?" Saul asks.

"Oh, that's an interesting thought. We might have to go there and look." Bastao replies.

"Is that kind of trip even feasible? We don't really have intergalactic capable starships of our own, that's all the ursa minans doing." Aspen says.

"Yeah, I don't know how we would go about doing that. Let's just focus on what we're doing now." Saul says.

---

They come to the staircase and see it choked with cobwebs.

"Well, at least the stairs look intact." Bastao says as he shines his light down the stairs.

Saul, Minus and Archie go ahead of the others and clear the cobwebs.

"Are these stairs carpeted?" Minus asks.

"Uh, I think that's just how think the dust is." Saul replies.

"Good thing we have these suits, I don't think we could breathe with all this dust here." Brackston says.

Just then as the big stallion leans against the railing, a section of it gives way.

"Whoa!" He shouts as he scrambles back against the wall.

"Be more careful, a lot of stuff in here is made from real wood so it's going to be brittle." Archie says.

"I wonder where they got it from?" Aspen asks.

"Good question." Minus replies. "Could they have had tree farms?"

"Maybe, but I've never found any reference to them." Bastao says.

They come out to a lower floor and with their lights see that is mostly the same as the one above. The chandeliers seem to be a different style though.

"Ok, do you want to take a look around in these rooms, or should we just head to the library?" Saul asks.

"No, it would take too long to explore this who place. Let's just check out the library." Bastao replies.

"Ok, so where is the next staircase?" Minus asks.

"To the right." Saul replies. "I wonder why the stairs are offset from each floor? It's like they intended it to be difficult to navigate this place."

"I have no idea." Bastao says.

When they reach the staircase, they stand speechless for a moment.

"Wow!" Bastao says.

"What a mess!" Minus says.

"Damn!" Archie says as he shines his light over the disaster.

"I wonder what happened?" Brackston asks.

"I guess the wood had dry rot or something and crumbled." Aspen replies.

"I could fly down there." Bastao says.

"No, you're not going to!" Saul says. The bat frowns. "Sorry, but I won't let you go down there alone. There is another staircase just around the corner, we should check that one."

The prince sighs and follows the alligator.

Saul shines his light into the staircase and looks for anything wrong. "Alright, I'm going to test the steps." He says.

He takes a step and even though the wood creaks it holds. He carefully goes down the stairs to the next floor.

"Alright, let's go one at a time." He calls up.

Once everyone is down, Saul takes a look at the floor plans and finds the next nearest staircase. Once again, they walk down the dark, dusty hallway and step over fallen chandeliers. Some of the doors are open, but all they see inside are empty rooms. The find the staircase and examine it.

"Oh, there's a missing step." Minus says.

"I'll go first." Saul says.

The alligator carefully climbs down the stairs. When he reaches the missing step, he crouches down and shines his light into the dark space.

"What do you see?" Bastao asks.

"It's a storage room, its full of boxes and the step seems to have disintegrated when it fell."

The alligator stands up and continues down the stairs. When he's at the bottom, he calls for the others to go down one at a time again.

Archie is last and as he nears the bottom; a stair breaks when he steps on it. He gasps and stumbles. He grabs the railing, but it rips right off the wall! The bear falls foreword and is cought by Saul and Brackston.

"Are you alright?" Saul asks as he helps the bear to his feet.

"Yeah, just wondering if it was such a good idea to be down here Afterall."

"It will be worth it if we can find answers to the mysteries of the city." Bastao says.

The fourth floor is different than the two above, the decoration is more elaborate and the doors have gold inlay.

Once again almost all the rooms are empty. A couple of them have furniture such as a dilapidated bed or a desk in them.

When the reach the next staircase, Saul shines his light over the stairs.

"Ok, these looks good." He says.

"The third floor has the royal apartments and at the end of the main hall is a balcony that overlooks the library." Bastao says, looking over the palace floor plans.

After they carefully climb down this staircase, they find themselves in a much wider hallway.

"Oh, wow the ceiling is vaulted." Bastao says.

"Do you think the columns are just decorative or actual supports?" Archie asks.

"Looks like they're actually supporting the floor above. Look at the arches, that's solid marble." Saul says.

"Minus shines his light over the doors, metallic reflections appear.

"The doors have gold plating on them!"

Bastao tries opening the nearest door, it opens with a creak to reveal a much larger room then the ones upstairs.

The bat shines his light around the room.

The walls are covered in frescos and the ceiling is a mosaic!" He says.

Everyone goes in after him and looks at the ornate room, besides the dust and cobwebs there is nothing.

"I wonder if this was the emperor's bedroom?" Aspen asks.

"No, it's not big enough. This would be for a relative. The emperor's bedroom is the biggest one on the other end of the hallway." Saul says.

"Alright, we should get to the balcony." Bastao says.

When they reach the end of the hallway, Archie tests the balcony.

"It seems very sturdy; it's not creaking or anything. The railing is wobbly though." He says.

Bastao walks across the balcony and shines his light into the huge room.

"Whoa, I don't believe it!" The bat says.

Everyone shines their lights across the library.

"They left everything here!" Saul says.

"This is an incredible find! All those books!" Aspen says.

"Amazing to think all these have been here for so long! Does anyone know how many?" Minus says.

"I've never found any number mentioned, only that the library was large." Bastao says.

"There must be at least ten thousand books in here!" Brackston says.

"How could the books last so long?" Archie asks?

"Well, they must be made of long-lasting polymer paper, only the books written by Astral would-be traditional parchment, and those won't decay because of, well him." Bastao says.

"There must be history books, we could actually find out what happened down here!" Saul says.

"Yeah, let's get down there. If I wasn't in this suit, I'd just fly down."

"There might still be mold in here, so let's just walk down." Saul says.

"I guess so... Well, which way to the next stairs?" Bastao replies.

"There should be one right around the corner, it goes to the top floor of the library." Saul says.

The big alligator leads the way.

"Watch your step here, the chandelier is down." Saul says.

They carefully avoid the smashed chandelier as they go down the stairs. Brackston is the first down and as he is pushing the massive cobwebs out of the way, he accidently kicks something on the floor. The object clatters across the floor. The stallion shines his light on it to reveal a vaguely "L" shaped metallic object.

He walks over and crouches down over it.

"Hey it's a gun!" He says as the others exit the staircase.

"What? That's weird!" Saul says.

"Somebody just left a gun on the floor?" Minus asks.

"Sure did. It's an ancient model, so it must have been left when they were moving out." Brackston says.

"They were in such a hurry that someone apparently dropped a gun and just left it?" Aspen asks.

"Well, that's the only logical reason I can think of for it to be here." Saul says.

"This really doesn't make sense. Our ancestors had the time to build a completely new planet spanning city, but then had to move out of the old city so quickly that they left all the books here and someone lost a gun? Something isn't right about this." Bastao says.

Brackston gingerly picks up the gun, careful to point it away from everyone and removes the power pack.

"I think this has lost its charge a long time ago, the status indicator won't come on." He says as he examines the powerpack.

Bastao gently pulls a book out from the nearest shelf and opens it.

"Whoa, what language is this?"

Aspen looks over the bats head at the book.

"That doesn't even look familiar, those are totally different letters then we use today."

"Did they speak a different language back then?" Minus asks.

"Not really, there would be differences but we should be able to understand it. I wonder if this book was imported from some exotic planet?" Bastao says.

"Hmm, I wonder if the library is organized in some way or if the books are just put wherever?"

Aspen scans the bookshelf with his light.

"There doesn't seem to be an order here, there is a dictionary in-between two novels and next to that is... Oh, a history book!"

Brackston puts the old gun in his pack and Bastao puts the strange book back.

Everyone gathers around to look at the history book.

"It's in our language, its called 'The history of--' How do you pronounce that?" Aspen says.

"How odd, I've never seen that name before or that kind of spelling, it breaks several spelling rules." Bastao says.

Aspen flips through the book and sees there are pictures.

"Ok, its about some colorful bird people. I've never seen this species, anyone recognize them?"

"No, I've never seen avians like that. What does the book say about them?" Minus asks.

"It looks like this planet is in a system with a yellow dwarf star with eleven planets, only one habitable. Hmm, this gives articles about the major events in the planet's history, inventions, wars, religions and first contact with us! Or rather our ancestors. They became a trading partner with the empire, it seems there is evidence of an unusual catastrophe on their planet in prehistoric times. Um, in modern times they are or were considering joining the empire and establishing colonies in a couple nearby solar systems." Aspen says, flipping through the big book.

"Does it give any coordinance for their star system?" Archie asks.

"No, it looks like this planet was very well known. There are photos of bats apparently touring and vacationing there." Aspen says.

"Wait! It says here that the closest star to them is the star of planet Vispa!"

"Strange, I've never heard of a planet of Avians near Vispa! Well, maybe a couple thousand lightyears, but that's certainly not the closest star." Bastao says.

"Could there really be a forgotten planet and species? We might have to go to Vespa and survey nearby star systems." Minus says.

"An abandoned planet? Wow, I thought I'd be finding the secrets of Cetune, but now we're talking about going to ursa mina and Vispa, and looking for a lost planet?" Bastao says.

"Well, maybe those can be left for someone else. Honestly this library by itself is a major find! You're the prince of archeology!" Saul says.

"So just what were we looking for in this library? It could take days to look through all these books! Archie asks.

"I was hopping that Astral had left a journal or something here, maybe it would tell why the old city was abandoned?" Bastao says.

The bat shines his light into the massive room and starts panning it across the dusty bookshelves. Suddenly there is a bright reflection from the lowest floor.

"Hey, what's that?" The prince asks.

Saul looks down at the light.

"Its hard to tell with all the cobwebs, but that's on a bookshelf. Is it a... silver book?" He says.

"Well, that sounds important." Minus says.

Aspen puts the history book in his pack and everyone looks down at the object.

"I think we should go and see what is it." Bastao says.

"Yeah, this could be something big." Saul replies.

---

The group carefully navigates down two flights of stairs and through the dark library. They notice many interesting books, but decide to locate the reflective object first. On the lowest floor they use the bright reflection to guide them.

"That's the most--I don't know what to call that!" Saul says.

"Are those diamonds in the cover?" Aspen asks.

"It's so shiny! That's not silver, it would have tarnished. Could it be platinum?" Archie says.

"Who would make a book with a platinum cover with diamonds? Brackston asks.

"Let's find out." Saul says.

The big alligator carefully pulls the book from the shelf.

"This is really heavy!" He says.

They all gather around and look closely.

"It's titled, 'The evil under Umbra'. It--It seems to have been hand written and bound by Astral!" Saul says.

He opens it up and looks at the writing.

"I feel like I shouldn't be reading this or even touching it! Bastao here take it."

"Hey I can't hold that, its too heavy! And come on you're a reptile, Astral wouldn't be angry at you for reading his book." The bat replies.

Saul had been holding the big out to Bastao, and now brings it back close to himself. In doing so he flipped a page.

"Hey look it says there are floor plans for the old palace, but we're in the old palace. Does that mean the one below this one?" Saul asks.

Bastao reaches over and turns the next page.

"That's very different then the floor plans we have." He says.

"So does this mean there really is another city under the old city?" Minus asks.

"There is at least another palace under this one." Brackston replies.

"Guys, Astral wrote that he will be exploring the old city, at that time what we call the old city would have been the new city! And he wrote that although records are incomplete, it is believed that there are at least two more city layers under the old city!" Saul says.

"That's amazing! Is the whole book filled with writing?" Bastao asks.

Saul flips through the book.

"Yeah, it is! Look at the last page though. Astral wrote that he has no explanation for the phenomenon he encountered at ground level besides calling it evil."

"What sort of phenomenon was is?" Brackston asks.

"I don't know, we have to look through the book. But what could Astral not understand? He's far beyond our understanding, what wouldn't he understand and call evil?"

Everyone nervously glances around the dark library.

"I think we should leave; we could be in danger." Saul says as he closes the book.

To be continued...