The bend around a corner and lead to a few more rooms, then another flight leads to a few more, then they go up in a zigzag completely alone without any buildings. It is just as well. Lancaster can smell the salt water below. It is continuing to rise, covering all of the rooms he was searching through.
He has to stop several times, resting to catch his breath. But he rises again each time and continues up the stairs.
At length he reaches a dead end, just a top. A bit of fear creeps in. What if the ocean rises to his level? There will be no way out!
He feels the roof, and quickly comes upon a hatch, which he is able to open. Lancaster opens the hatch and crawls through.
He is at the entrance of an oval room with unusually shaped seats that face a platform at the front. A round ray of light beams in through a hole at the top of the roof as dust and insects dance in the pale light. Lancaster steps forward into the room, looking it over. The hole at the top of the roof was apparently a window, as evidenced by pieces of an intricate frame that once drew designs in the glass, or plastic, or whatever opaque material they used.
Along the inside of this window are designs of both carvings and painting that show a myriad of stars and planets. There is something very specific about these drawings that cause them to look less like imaginations, and more like realities that have been witnessed. Perhaps it was their dream to travel to these distant places?
At the front is a pulpit, and behind that, a wall which protrudes slightly in the center where it has more carvings and drawings. But these are different. Faded in the background are the stars and planets, but carved in the foreground are a series of images of important symbols with descriptions written below them in the Zeborno language. Some involve politics, others are religious, while still others are more about Zeborno culture.
Lancaster will have to spend some time studying these words later, comparing them to the notes he has on their language. But for the time being, he believes this is evidence that the Zeborno spread out onto other planets, and these relics are probably on those settlements. If he can find these artifacts, they might prove that the Zeborno were indeed a star faring race. And who knows what sort of powers might be inside them, if they came from such a mysterious group of beings.
Lancaster turns his attention to the pulpit and looks it over. It rises up out of the ground like waves of an ocean from all sides. There is a slit half way up the pedestal that goes all the way around it which almost looks out of place. It is clear that something was supposed to adorn the top, but has been broken off. Another relic, perhaps?
What should Lancaster do?
