Editing City Series:Volume6b Chapter3 (section)

===Part 7===

A task was completed at the bottom of the Alfheim Meteorite Pit.

The light down there cast shadows that gave the bottom of the pit depth.

The sky sat overhead, the work was carefully organized, water was drained, and a large slab was uncovered at the bottom. A misshapen concrete slab covered the bottom of the hole.

It was about 40 yards in each direction and looked like a giant lid.

Two men stood atop it now: the site supervisor and the site commander.

The commander looked down to the concrete at his feet and kicked lightly at the bumps.

“I never imagined P Wagner’s lab was hiding something like this beneath it. This looks like a floor, but it’s actually a portion of a ceiling. This is an underground room.”

“It is hollow inside. Our acoustic survey says it is not filled with water.”

The site supervisor pointed east.

The slab grew narrower as it extended in that direction, but still maintained a width of around 20 yards when it vanished into the hole’s wall. The room narrowed into a corridor as it extended in that direction.

“Where does that lead?”

“That direction leads to the shrine that predates the discovery of the pit.”

“You mean it goes all the way there? So is this an escape route from the lab to the shrine?”

“That is one interpretation, but look at this.”

The site supervisor crouched down and rubbed at the concrete slab to clear away the dust.

A white color was mixed into the concrete like whitecaps.

“This has rocks in it, including some very large ones. This isn’t like the other concrete rooms that used rebar.”

“What does that mean?”

“This room might be part of the original hole reinforced from within using concrete. You do that when excavating ruins. With a home or cave made of stone, you cover the inner walls with concrete to reinforce them.”

“Then this isn’t part of P Wagner’s lab? It was already here?” The commander looked to the ceiling of the passageway extending east and chose his words carefully. “So the passageway to the shrine at the base of the mountain and this space are much older and P Wagner happened across it by chance when building his lab on top?”

“Yes, he must have wanted to preserve this place, so he reinforced it and then left it intact when he destroyed his lab.”

The commander thought about that for a moment and smiled.

“What’s inside? Could we use that eastward passageway to get in through the shrine? With a 20-yard width, the entrance has to be pretty noticeable.”

“Remember how there’s a giant stone at that shrine in front of the rock face?”

“So that stone I poured drinks on is sealing something inside?”

“If the legends are to be believed, it’s sealing a dragon.” The site supervisor laughed and stood up. “Or to put it another way, whatever’s inside might just blow that stone away.”

He looked up toward the round slice of the night sky visible far overhead.

“But either that all happened centuries ago or we managed to get this far down without breaking the seal. Either way, it is our duty to dig further.”

“I see. Then we have no choice but to open this room.”

He lowered his gaze again to the floor – to that ancient space more recently reinforced.

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