While mumbling curses, I got up and moved on through the passage. If I could not come up with a way to increase my strength safely, I could only move on and experience whatever trials and tribulations the fate had prepared for me.
I was already lucky enough not to get dropped into the middle of the battlefield or rapid development with divine revelations, quests, politics, assassinations and other fun that most novels, games and movies mentioned when describing sudden transmigrations through arcane means.
But as I advanced, just in case, I formed the spike from my energy to act as a weapon and walked with a martial arts gait, with lowered hips to steady my center of mass and steady steps. I was ready to defend myself at a moment’s notice.
And I constantly monitored the ceiling. Anyone who has wasted hundreds of hours on DOOM and Half-Life knew to watch his above, and I really disliked surprises. Especially if they were of head-crushing, web-dropping, slime- or oil-drenching kind.
—
As I reached the turn, I carefully peeked over the corner and first ran through all the vision filters I had earlier come up with.
No heat signatures, no radiation, no movement. Nothing potentially autonomously locomotive and aggressive through the whole radiation spectra that I could understand.
And I could not make any use of more advanced radiation readings, with physics involved being way over my comprehension level. All because at some point my whole vision turned into a solid mass of chaotic particles speeding through the space, which was not very useful for me.
But what I could perceive with my basic skills, was another stretch of the corridor, opening into something like a larger hall from the shadow of a carved stone pillar.
—
As I approached, I could make out that the pillar was actually more like a cauldron, with large blocky faces carved onto sides.
What was unsettling, was the familiarity I had when looking at the object.
I had seen images of such things before, and soon I remembered where – the carved faces looked similar to Aztec art. That meant that the stone cauldron was likely a brazier or something functionally similar.
I sincerely hoped, that wherever I was, local culture had nothing to do with sacrifices, hearts and such.
Well, considering my situation, I could have well come to Aztlán, a mythical origin of Aztec. If I remembered myths correctly, depending on source and interpretation Aztlan could be a paradise or as well a tyrannical land with some really nasty attitudes from local elite.
Old legends were funny like that with such inconsistencies. You could never rely on them for reliable data.
The fact that the mage who pulled me here did not wear skulls, pelts or feathers was reassuring though. Same with the different language forms and the lack of characteristic religious references in the books which I had read earlier.
Hopefully, either the passage of time, evolution or social progress got some changes going, and I was not going to be chased by hordes of religious natives. That is, if my amateurish evaluation of a single, worn-out piece of stonework could actually be used for such long-winded theories.
The art could well be from Olmec, Teuchitlan or Incan or whatever Mesoamerican culture I could remember, as I was rather unsure about the details and differences between them.
That could place me into Mayans’ Xibalba or some other equally nasty place. Potential tour over the scorpion rivers, houses of moving razors and searing hot seats was not appealing at all.
I forcefully shut down my fantasy train and made myself to deal with cold, hard facts, while allowing a few possibilities to affect my future plans. I sighted, more out of habit than anything else, and stepped past the brazier into the hall.
—
The hall was rather small, with massive columns made of hewn stone blocks supporting the ceiling. The ceiling was forming an oppressive dome approximately 15 meters above me with no crossbeams or decorations.
As I reached the middle of the hall, I determined the whole space being 20 meters wide and close to 50 meters long. That made it quite an impressive closed structure, considering that the only material I could observe were basalt blocks of various sizes.
There were no windows, but I noticed faint light coming through narrow shafts near the ceiling – those were likely ventilation ducts to guide away the smoke from torches, lamps or braziers.
The floor was separated into several levels, with lowest having a doorway leading out, and highest at the opposite side being cluttered by objects, covered with a thick layer of dust.
As any true RPG fan, I was determined to search through everything before moving on.I approached the debris, randomly sweeping the dust off the encountered things.
Initially I only found a lot of broken crates or wagons, bits and splinters of planks and boards, now brittle with age.
As I moved on, debris gave way to once-solid chests full of grey dust and bundles of fragile cloth and leather remains, which broke down into flakes as soon as I touched them.
Then, as I passed the last of the big pieces of debris which formed a circle at the highest floor level, a cluster of low mounds could be seen in dust.
I had my suspicions as I approached, and confirmed them as I bent down and carefully swiped the dust away.
Lying together for who knows how long, were the remains of almost 40 people.
Circle of Shards 