As daylight was left behind tactical LED lamps threw their distorted shadows into relief against lapidarian historical records on scarred passage walls alive with a rush hour of commuting troglobites: flightless flies, blind planthoppers, camelback crickets, thumb-sized bats, and more. Monotonous plashing of single droplets of water falling like lead bullets through unnumbered centuries ceaselessly repeated in an echoing soundscape, each one of their imperceptible atoms constantly building and eroding stalactites and stalagmites like surreal hourglasses.
The pair approached a set of double doors carved with raised patterns resembling a birds-eye view of a maze. "Your pops must have used old man strength to open these." They put their backs into it to open them, then took measured steps like the floor was made of lava to avoid pressure plates set in the tiles. An antechamber connected to a tapered hexagonal-shaped sanctum with support columns slanted inward toward the ceiling. Gemlike obelisks ornamented with hewn niches once undoubtedly occupied by sacred talismans, but long since empty were suspended seemingly impossibly balanced over a bottomless chasm.
The temporary custodian of the relic crouched on his haunches. Sweat stained his shirt between his shoulder blades, his palpitating heartbeat in his throat. To appease the ferocious idol he returned it on a lowering device that resembled an unequal-arm balance weight scale to the exact nexus of the ancient shrine in restitution. A three-inch glow-in-the-dark spider parachuted with lines of silk onto his boot. "Sounds about right."
He reverently opened the pocket watch lid. Reflected light cast shadows from the Roman numerals painted on the glass onto his face. The ticking treasure of Shard Mountain lost its impetus, the fiery inlaid crystal maze extinguished with finality as if restored to factory settings. "Stay gold, Doc," Northwest thought aloud.
The tiered stone plinth beneath the statue dropped down a notch as though the last piece of a puzzle activating a push rod hook-up. A series of rock slabs slid open in quick succession to let torrents of quicksilver flow into intricately engraved channels. "This is why we can't have nice things," he said.
"Mercury, the liquid that isn't wet," she said.
They closed the empty space between them to keep from getting washed into the abyss and ended up in each other's arms. Their eyes connected lost to the world. "Any ideas on how to get out of here?" Northwest put it out there.
"You're lucky I take after my dead dad," Angela smiled. A well aimed rock broke a ceiling tile lowering a drawbridge.
"Maybe we're the treasure that your father hoped we would find."
"Don't you still live with your mother?"
