The first few days....

Here it is. Tomorrow I plan on quadrupling the word count... the past couple days have been filled with sick and sleepy. Anywho here the start : ) Erm.. I think I'll post a word doc next time... thats formatted really nasty...


Underhouse.

“We look and we look for mysteries and wonders, but in doing so we overlook the obvious. Why point your nose to the sky in awe when there are many, many more marvels much closer. At times, it is those who stumble who find the greatest treasures, the ones right under our feet”
Old Gypsy Proverb.
It begins.
Light from power globes struck through the darkness, creating fantastic shadows on the cavern walls. It bobbed wildly, its owner running in the direction of a loud call.
“Jacob! Jacob! Here, come here, bring the tools man.”
“What is it?” Jacob yelled back, straining his voice to be heard over his breath. He was not a large man, but plump and far too old to have just run the amount of stairs he had without some ill side effect. He near collapsed with his load of tools when he came to the work site, the hat he'd taped a power globe to tipping down over his eyes and exposing a balding spot that was normally kept carefully hidden.
“What... is .... it?” Jacob gestured at the walls, “you know... you know its not safe to be so loud. Covert, thats whats needed... covert, silence.”
Robert shook his head without turning his face away from the wall, mouth moving silently as he made out the characters on the surface by the light that came from a hand globe.
“What is it? Its it!” He reached out and grabbed Jacob's shoulder, pulling the older man closer to the wall and the script. Shorter but fit from crawling through caves most of his life, Robert Dawn had little trouble dragging his tired counter part nearer.
“You're the academic, I never had a head for these things like you, what do they say? I think... I think they're important!”
“All that shouting for an 'I think' ?” Jacob frowned, “dangerous, just plain dangerous. Theres things in these caves that make loud people like you disappear.”
Robert finally turned, blue eyes bright in the old mans globe, “theres the mark Jacob, the door mark! And theres a map! I think, I think we've found it!
“Door mark? Where show me!”
“Here, and another, here!”
“I see... yes, yes its the mark they used for doors. Locked doors maybe. No, this ones for unlocking. And the map its... here take the light, shine it up there...”
Robert scrambled for a globe in amid the tools, fumbled with the switch and finally got it set on its stand so that soft illumination reached to the high ceiling of the room, some thirty lengths above them.
“Its huge...” Robert breathed in awe.
“Yes, its all here! Like you thought it wold be! Robert this is it! Or at least the first part of where it is! We've found the map! See, here, this must be us right here!” Jacob's finger brushed a symbol on the map. Even in the bright lights, the glow could be seen, a passing pulse that caught Robert's eye.
“What was that?”
“What was what?”
“That! You pressed something and there was a light, it glowed light it was lit.”
“By globes you mean?”
“No, something different...” Robert leaned closer and brushed his fingers against the symbol again, the light repeated.
“Its powered! It can't be...”
“It must be, here get the tools, the instruments. We need to take readings, pictures, this is the find of the century!” Robert brushed his hand against it again, a little harder. The pulse of light rippled and lit up four node around it. Jacob, half way to the pile of tools froze when the grinding began, like blocks of rock moving against each other.
Robert staggered back, looking around wildly, trying to find what had made the noise. A rush of sour air poured down over top each of them, carrying mold and dust and the scent of long dead things. In the next instant a shape darted past the lights, casting a fleeting shadow. A hunting scream sounded instants later.
“What is it?”
“Who cares what, where is it? Get the gun, wheres the gun?”
“I left it... back at camp, where yours?”
Robert crouched low, holding a pistol up in front of him in response. Jacob followed him, cowering near the light.
“If its a nocturn the light will hurt its eyes.”
“if it has eyes, some just use sound you know, nothing but sonar and teeth...”
“Shhh, it'll hear you.”
Overhead another whoosing shape passed.
“Two, or one? I can't tell, they're so fast!”
“Shhh!” Robert hissed again, “we need to make it back to camp. You go first, I'll cover you.”
“Age before beauty eh? Alright.” Jacob glanced around, then straightened, “if we don't make it, just remember. We found it. We really found it Jacob. If we don't make it, thats alright. I can die happy right now, knowing that i was right.”
“If you don't hurry our ghosts will guard it too you old fool, move!”
Bobbing his head, Jacob wound the power globe on his hat to full strength and started off sprinting in the direction he had come. They were too fast, too dark in the black of the caves shadows. Robert shot twice, sound fantastically loud in the cavern and then silence amid the dying lights of globes.

Chapter One

“The following is written in the Journals of the Rulers of House. ..And the Ancestors came to this planet with Pride and Dreams, aspiring to create beauty and mansions on earth that rival those of Heavens perfect world. They built and brought and, in the likeness of lesser gods, made their dreams realities. They sought to create a perfect place. Outside Heaven, no such place exists, and thus in their Pride they were destroyed and we, the survivors and pure of thought and mind, were spared.”
Angelo Vicindii

Prince

Appendix

Of House
House or, more correctly, 'The House of Our Fathers' is a strange city. The planet on which it resides has long since ceased to have a name, House's inhabitants simply call it dangerous, murmuring about the environmental (storms) and ecological (predators) horrors of outside, not even daring to create children's stories from them. The fears are very real and as such House has wards and defenses unique to its situation.
Most of the city lies underground, built into the walls and floor of a long and wide canyon, its foundations set firmly on the remains of am ancient city sunk there by the Apocalypse. Its roof, the most amazing part of House, is a clear dome that House's Towers reach towards like grasping hands. At the Apex of the dome hangs the Seat of Power for House, where a Dynasty of Emperors have watched faithfully over the city.
Cascading down on ridges and ledges and man-made steps lies House, from the tallest towers majesty to the lower shambles and the forbidden basements of ancient ruins where massive predators still hunt, House is magnificent. Still, it holds no place next to the cities of old, the remains of which still sit dormant, waiting to be discovered.

Of the Rulers of House

Of Free Running

Of the Ancestors
The ancestors, that race of men that were the fathers of those that now live in House, hold a strange place in history. As fathers they are respected, but as men they are reviled. They are both praised for their part in making life possible in House and blamed for the current state of the planets environment. It is said they aspired too much and because of their ambitions they and their children for always will be punished. History tells us that they created the planet that House occupies from dust and built their utopia on it with tools and science so akin to magic that they must have had the Devils help in it. For this, God punished them, causing their creation to be taken from them in the Apocalypse.
The men descendant from the ancestors have lost most of the science that their predecessors once possessed, usually destroying what they do find as it is still considered black magic and devil craft. The keepers of House will not bring on another Apocalypse willingly.