The water only grew deeper with every step. If things kept up, she might have to go back to her boat and bring her diving gear. She slowed, hoping the Alpha Explorers wouldn’t hear her coming.
Shay’s lights caught sight of a smaller tunnel that ran off to the side ten feet before the back of the drill. Thinner cables ran into the smaller tunnel as well. The other treasure hunters had used a similar drill. She approached the sub-tunnel, her gun raised, wondering when she was going to run into the men.
This far underground they would not have been able to get decent radio reception. The Alpha Explorers might not know yet that Shay finished off their guards.
The tomb raider stepped into the narrow sub-tunnel, her light revealing only more mud, water, and rocks. No treasure hunters.
What the fuck? It’s not like there’s a lot of room to hide down here.
Shay continued forward movement. Some splashing was unavoidable in the calf-deep water. The sound of running water was reaching her ears and coming from the distance. She jerked her gun up as metal blinked in the beam from her light. Closer examination revealed it was an inactive tracked multi-armed drilling platform the size of a large person, rather than a two-legged enemy. She knelt down and felt under the water, finding the submerged cables supplying its power.
As Shay approached the equipment it became obvious why they’d stopped drilling in the smaller tunnel. The Alpha Explorers’ efforts uncovered an older large vertical shaft, complete with a set of rusted metal handholds. They had moved on to the bigger prize.
A look above her revealed a mass of dirt and rock. It remained unclear why the obstruction didn’t continue farther down until she spotted the rough outline of a metal platform that was providing a nucleus for the blockage. The handholds descended further into the darkness. Entrances to other narrow tunnels dotted the path down in the darkness, with irregular spacing. It looked like hobbled-together giant ants had pushed their way into the Money Pit.
Water poured from the Explorers’ shaft, accounting for some of the noise she heard, mixing with water from several other tunnels connecting to the shaft.
Shay furrowed her brow, considering the implications. Whatever the Alpha Explorers had done, it must have punched a hole to a tunnel leading to the ocean surrounding the island, or tremors had shifted the soil, allowing the same result.
“That has to be the case.” Shay’s voice echoed in the narrow passageway.
Otherwise, the entire tunnel system would have already been filled with water. Playing around in an underground tunnel system filling with water wasn’t on Shay’s list of fun evening activities.
Need to find this shit and get out of here.
Shay killed her lights and lowered her AR goggles over her eyes. She activated infrared mode and desperately hoped the Alpha Explorers didn’t toss a flare in her face. She stuck her head farther into the shaft and peered down. No thermal traces on the handholds or walls, but thick enough gloves might account for their absence.
Shay zipped her phone into an inside pocket. She didn’t want to risk losing her phone down a moldy old shaft. She reached up to tap a button on the side of the goggles, changing over to night-vision mode. “Voila.”
The goggles only magnified existing light. In true absolute darkness, she could only see pitch black but, in night vision mode she could make out the handholds glowing in a faint, eerie green. A patch of light emerging from an opening twenty feet down was the likely location of the Alpha Explorers.
Shay holstered her pistol and pulled gloves from her backpack, slipping them on as she made a descent on the grime and rust-encrusted old metal handholds.
These are still here. Damned good craftsmanship. Congrats, you magnificent Canadian bastards.
The tomb raider approached the source of the light and paused just above it. She deactivated her goggles, turning her headlamp back on and pulling out her gun. Even though she couldn’t hear the men, she suspected they were laying right inside the lip of the tunnel.
Okay. One… two… three…
Shay leapt into the tunnel, almost banging her head, still ready to shoot anyone stupid enough to have a gun fight 100 feet underground. Except the Alpha Explorers weren’t there. A faint greenish glow suffused a mound of dirt at the end of the tunnel.
A few cautious steps brought Shay forward, and she frowned, glancing down at the pile and back over at the entrance to the tunnel. She shined her light on the edges of the entrance and spotted the rotted remains of a wooden door.
Did the Alpha Explorers pick the wrong tunnel? Are they above me? Below me?
Shay gritted her teeth, her arm began to ache again. The whole environment was perfect for ambushes. She didn’t hear any hint of the Alpha Explorers, though the water draining from the tunnels into the bottom of the main shaft might have been covering up their voices.
None of that changed the fact that a suspicious pile of glowing dirt sat right in front of her. Shay unzipped her pocket and pulled out her phone to check the coordinates but couldn’t get any bars, which meant no way to calibrate the GPS.
Fucking great. I should have seen that one coming. Singleness of purpose. Go get the glowing weird artifact in this pit.
Shay knelt in the dirt and reached out her hand, jerking it back. No one found a powerful artifact sitting in a side tunnel all these years. That suggested some sort of trap or magical protection.
She stood there in the tunnel, staring down at the glowing dirt, trying to decide the best course of action. The sound
