He looks down to see Jiron and Miko there looking up at him. “Be careful!” Miko hollers.
Waving back in response, he steps out gingerly upon the narrow section of hallway still usable. Cautiously setting his weight upon it, the board creaks but he finds that it will hold up under his weight. One step at a time, he slowly makes his way across.
He begins to think that maybe he shouldn’t be doing this, what with his leg in the shape it’s in and all. But he’s only a dozen feet away from where the collapsed section ends and the hallway once more is whole.
Taking it slowly, he makes it to the other side. Pausing a moment as he glances briefly down to the others waiting below, Miko gives them a smile and a thumbs up. Turning his attention back to the hallway, he quickly moves down to the only room left intact on the second floor.
He comes to the doorway and enters the room. Over upon one wall is a large bronze plaque. Crossing the room to where it hangs on the wall, he realizes that it’s engraved with a picture of the five small pyramids along the outer perimeter and the larger one with the buildings next to it.
There are lines coming from the smaller ones leading directly to the larger one in the courtyard outside. Must be showing a power grid or some such, he reasons.
He looks around further, but doesn’t find anything else of interest. Casting another glance at the bronze plaque, he leaves the room and comes back to the broken section of hallway. This time he steps out upon the broken section with more confidence.
When he’s almost across, a section of the floor cracks and falls away beneath him. Crying out as he falls, he reaches out and manages to catch hold of a section of the broken floor. Hanging there, he tries to keep his hands from slipping and dropping him down to the floor below.
“Hang on!” he hears Jiron yell as he bolts up the stairs, easily jumping the missing sections as he comes to his aid. Coming to where he’s hanging precariously, Jiron kneels down and holds out his hand. “Take it!” he says as he stretches his hand further toward him.
Afraid to lose his grip with the other hand, James shakes his head and says, “I can’t!”
“Yes you can,” Jiron assures him as he tries to stretch his hand even further toward him.
James tries letting go and grab Jiron’s hand but in so doing, causes his other hand to slip. With a cry, he plummets ten feet down to the rubble below. Landing awkwardly on the broken stone, his side is punctured by a sharp rock and severely cuts open his side. Crying out with pain, he grabs the wound as he tries to stop the blood from flowing.
Jiron gets up and rushes down the stairs to his side, but Miko is the first to reach him. “James!” he exclaims when he sees the blood oozing from under the hand he has clinched to his side. Not knowing what to do, Miko stands there in indecision.
He lies there, holding his side as best he can until Jiron approaches. Looking to him he says, “I knew I couldn’t hold on with one hand.”
“Sorry,” Jiron says as he kneels next to him. “Let me look at it.” Lifting his shirt, he sees scrapes going from just under his armpit to his waist. One cut looks deeper than the rest and is oozing blood, but it is already beginning to stop.
Putting the shirt back down, he says, “I don’t thing you’re going to bleed to death, but it’s going to hurt for a while.”
“Feels that way,” James says as he puts his hand back on the wound, continuing to apply pressure.
“Did you find anything?” asks Miko.
“There was a bronze plaque in the room up there,” he says, gesturing to the room. Grimacing from the pain, he gingerly puts his arm back down. “On it was a diagram showing the five pyramids and how they’re linked to the main one here.”
“And?” Jiron asks, urging him to continue.
“And, there may be another plaque, hopefully, that may tell us something else,” he explains to them.
“You’re in no shape to be searching for some plaque that may not even exist,” Miko says.
“No,” agrees Jiron, “but I am.” Getting up, he looks to James and asks, “Just what am I looking for?”
Shrugging, James says, “I don’t know, but you’ll probably know it when you find it.”
“Alright,” he says. Then to Miko, “Stay here and keep an eye on him until I get back.” When he sees him nod, he turns and hurries from the room.
James starts to get up and says, “Help me up, will you?” He reaches a hand to Miko who grabs his arm and helps him to his feet. Grimacing with pain as his side is stretched and pulled with the effort to stand, he finally gets to his feet. Then, as he stands there, he has Miko go over and retrieve his walking stick for him.
He takes the stick and begins to carefully move through the rubble choked room to the doorway leading outside the collapsed building. “Let’s move outside while we wait for his return,” he says.
Miko helps him along and once they’ve left the building, they find a block of fallen stone to sit on.
They’re not waiting long before Jiron returns in a hurry. The look on his face indicating he may have found something.
“You find it?” James asks.
“I think so,” he replies. “In a building over there,” he says as he points back the way he’d come. “I found a bronze plaque similar to the one you described.”
“What was on it?” James asks.
“I couldn’t really make it out,” he explains. “There were lots of lines and boxes, I’m not sure just what it was trying to show.”
Leaning heavily upon the staff, he gets up off the stone and says, “You better take me there.”
“Is it on the ground floor?” Miko asks, worried about James having to climb unstable stairs again.
Nodding, he says, “Yeah, it is.”
“Good!” Lending James a hand, Miko helps him as they follow Jiron over to where he’d found the plaque.
The building wherein it lies looks to have been but a single floored structure and still to be in fairly decent shape. Jiron leads them up three stairs to the entrance of the building where they enter through the doorway.
“It’s over here,” he says as he takes them through another doorway into an adjacent room.
When James enters the room, he immediately sees what Jiron was trying to describe. Having designed many dungeons for his role playing games, he instantly recognizes what he’s seeing. It’s a layered map of different levels.
“This is showing the layout of an underground complex,” he explains to them, as he steps up closer to the plaque. “Here,” James says, pointing to a set of squiggly lines, “this looks like it could be stairs leading down.”
“Does it show what’s in there?” Jiron asks, not able to see it for what it is.
Shaking his head, James says, “No, this is just a map of the layout, nothing more.” He turns his head to look at Jiron and says, “We’re going to need to get in there.”
“How?” he asks. “I found no entrance to a lower level during my search.”
“Hmmm…” James says as he turns back to study the plaque some more. He points to a section and says, “This here looks to be where the entrance lies.” He points to a pyramid shaped symbol and continues, “And I bet this is the main pyramid over there in the courtyard.”
He studies it some more as Jiron and Miko watch him. Suddenly he turns to Jiron and asks, “Did you find what looked like an empty pool or possibly a fountain while you were searching?”
“Yeah,” he says. “It’s over there a ways,” he explains as he points to where it lies.
“That is the entrance,” he states.
“You sure?” he asks, not really believing him. “How can you tell?”
“Practically one hundred percent,” James replies. “Here, look,” he says as he points to a circular formation near where he said the entrance is.
“I see,” Jiron says, still not convinced.
James turns from the plaque and says, “Show me where it is.”
With Miko helping James along, Jiron leads them out of the building and over to where the dried up pool is.
The outer edge of the pool stands two feet high and about six inches thick. The interior is bare, just the flat stone of the bottom showing.
James slowly walks around the pool as he examines it. “Here, look,” he says as he points out five triangles evenly spaced on the top of the outer edge. “I’d bet anything that these are the five small pyramids.”
