Part I:

Kaili emerged from the stifling heat of the equipment tent directly into the baking sun. Shielding her eyes from the sun with the detail brush she was holding, she scanned the horizon. Drawing ever nearer was the supply caravan of camels treading ponderously onward. As the group drew nearer, she saw a flag listlessly stirring in the limp desert heat. Even without seeing the full insignia, Kaili knew she was in trouble. No one but her mother would bother to come out to the digging site. Everyone else in Veldt thought Kaili was crazy. Well, her mother thought this as well, but it just didn’t stop her from coming to try and persuade her daughter to come back home and focus on finding some nice husbands for herself.

Kaili swung her hand down, pocketed the brush and sighed. Scrubbing away the sweat from her forehead and shaking out her long sable hair, Kaili collected her thoughts. She made vague attempts at brushing off the worst of the dust and dirt from the work clothes she was wearing as began to head over to Micheal’s tent. As she drew nearer, she saw him emerge from his tent holding the work schedules for the week in one hand. He too glanced at the caravan. Kaili could almost hear him wince as the significance of the flag registered with him.
“My mom’s coming.” Kaili announced rather redundantly.
“Humph”, was Micheal’s reply. After a bit of finger drumming, he sighed. “I’ll let the cook know.”
This time it was Kaili’s turn to wince. The last time her mother had arrived. The cook had almost quit. Between all of the special orders and returns on things which did not meet with her mother’s approval, it was wonder cook had managed to have time to make anything for the rest of the crew.
“I’ll try to get her to leave as soon as possible,” Kaili offered with slightly wishful thinking.
Micheal’s eyebrows went up, but he didn’t actually say anything. Really, there wasn’t anything to say. For all that Kaili’s mother didn’t like that her daughter was grubbing around out in the desert, she was still a major contributor to the project as well as an extremely stubborn person, so there wasn’t a whole lot which could be done about it. Still, Kaili had inherited her mother’s stubbornness if nothing else, so Kaili began squaring her shoulders and stiffening her resolve.

Part II:

In the end the visit was both worse and better than she thought. Kaili’s mother swept in as if she was the Queen and certainly was unimpressed by any attempt to please her. She swept up to Kaili and kissed her cheeks. Holding her at arms length, she gave Kaili an evaluation. “What have you been doing to yourself?” her mother wailed. “Just look at your limp hair and your dry skin!” She grabbed Kaili’s hands. “And what did you do to your nails?” she screeched.
Kaili had to admit that next to her mother’s carefully manicured fingers, her own broken and sand encrusted nails did not look very pretty. Kaili yanked her hands free. “Oh, mother!” she exclaimed, rolling her eyes. “You can’t expect me to keep my nails lacquered and long out here at the digging site.” “Why don’t you come and sit down in the shade?”
Kaili’s mom was clearly torn between continuing to berate Kaili in a shady environment and keeping a micromanaging eye on the setup of her tent. Kaili took advantage of her indecision to drag her mother over to the nearest tent.
“I really should make sure that the houseboys get everything setup correctly”, her mother murmured, but allowed herself to be drawn into the shaded tent. She almost retreated again when she saw that Kaili had accidentally drawn her into the work tent where Kaili had been cleaning pottery that morning. Kaili desperately started clearing a space for her mother to sit before she made an escape attempt. “Sit here, mother” Kaili said brightly, practically shoving her mother onto the camp stool Kaili had cleared of books with a sweeping gesture.
“Oomph” Kaili’s mother said, picking at her skirts to put them back into their severe pleats. “There’s no need to be so rough. Sit down and let me tell you all the news.”
Kaili grabbed another stool which she cleared in a slightly less dramatic manner and prepared to hear all of the annoying gossip her mother had saved up for her. It was deathly boring, but at least it would distract her mother from bothering the workers.
Kaili’s mother droned on about this or that cousin who had snared husband number whatever or how successful this or that young man was these days at some other thing. It was very much the sort of thing Kaili had left Veldt and finishing school to avoid, but she endured it by tuning most of it out. Instead Kaili twiddled with her detail brush and made interested sounding noises.
“Are you listening to me?” Kaili’s mother’s voice cracked suddenly. Kaili blinked. “What?” she said defensively. “I said”, her mother drawled, “that your Aunt Elini is planning to visit this week and would like to see you.” Kaili sighed pensively. She really liked her aunt, but it was all part of her mother’s efforts to drag her away from the site. “Aunt Elini could come here…” Kaili ventured. Her mother frowned. “Your aunt is a very important person and I doubt that she would want to drag herself to the back of beyond just to see you.” Kaili stared at the ground trying to think of something to say.
Suddenly the tent flap burst open and one of the errand boys dashed into the tent skidding to a halt as he saw Kaili’s mother sitting daintily on the camp chair. He hastily bowed and stood shifting excitedly from foot to foot waiting to give his message. “What is it?” Kaili demanded in an irritated voice. “Begging your pardon ma’am,” the boy said bobbing his head toward Kaili’s mother, “the foreman asks you to come down the site right away” (this last addressed to Kaili herself). Kaili was annoyed. “What in the world is going on?” Kaili asked dragging her hand through her hair in her irritation. The boy was practically hopping up and down now. “I heard that we found it! The lost city is really here!” As the boy dashed away, Kaili and her mother sat stunned by this news.

Part III:

The words echoed in Kaili’s mind: “The lost city is really here!” She felt stunned. After all of this time, her father’s work would be justified. Kaili glanced over to where her mother sat obviously just as stunned. Finally Kaili’s body unlocked and she jumped up and began sprinting as fast as she could over the soft sand toward the digging site.
When Kaili arrived, the foreman Micheal was standing next to some of the other diggers working to uncover a flat plate which seemed to be set into the ground. It was large enough to be a door, but to what? As Kaili began to walk around the edges of the strange thing, she tried to imagine what it was made from. She rapped at it with her hand. It was some sort of metal, but not one she recognized. There was very little metal on the island, so she had a hard time even imagining who had enough metal to make such a strange door (if door it was). If this wasn’t a door to “the lost city”, it was something equally strange. By the time she had made her way around the entire thing, her mother had caught up to her and was standing underneath a shade held by one of the errand boys.
“It’s not a lost city”, Kaili’s mother announced as Kaili arrived at the spot. Kaili raised an eyebrow. “Mother, we don’t know what it is”, she said slightly exasperated. It was so like her mother to immediately dismiss the idea that Kaili’s father might have been correct. “We will have to clear it and figure out how to open it before we know what it might be.” Kaili’s mother frowned. “It is not a lost city”, she announced as if by repeating it, she would make it true. Kaili sighed and turned away to contemplate the strange thing.
The diggers and Micheal were working hard and the object was almost completely clear when one of the diggers gave a yell. Micheal and Kaili came over to see what he had uncovered. “It’s some sort of strange drawing or device inscribed in the thing”, the digger said to them. He pointed to the area he was clearing. It was almost at the bottom of the short side of the plate. It almost looked like a seal of some kind. The design seemed almost random with lines swooping around and strange dots indenting several places. It seemed vaguely familiar to Kaili. Suddenly Kaili gasped. She dragged a thong necklace which had been hidden underneath her shirt over her head and held up the heavy ring attached to it. “Micheal, look at this. It’s very similar to the patterns on the ring my father found.” Micheal took the ring and held it near to the pattern on the plate. “It does look similar”, he said, “Maybe this is associated with the ‘lost city’ your father was searching for all this time.” Kaili’s eyes began to shine with excitement. “Do you really think so, Micheal?” Kaili asked. “I can hardly believe we might have found something which proves my father was right! I wish he could be here to see this.” Micheal said quietly, “I’m sure he would be proud of you for continuing his work.” Kaili felt her excitement fade. “Micheal, you carried on my father’s work after his death just as much as anyone else. He would be very grateful for all of the help you have given me.” Micheal stood up and handed Kaili the ring again. “Now we just have to find a way to open this thing”, he said. Kaili stepped up to the edge of the pattern. The ring was so large it was obviously sized for a man, but Kaili wistfully slid the ring onto her own finger. “I wish it was open now”, Kaili mused.
Even before her words were complete, a large boom sounded and a crack appeared in the plate splitting the design in half. Slowly the two halves began to slide apart. “Watch out!” Micheal shouted. Kaili threw herself to one side to avoid tumbling into the opening which was slowly being revealed. After the opening had stopped sliding, a pit several feet across was revealed with shadowy stairs leading downwards. Michael and Kaili stared at each other and the gapping hole. What could be down there?

Part IV:
Kaili knelt at the edge of the opening which had appeared at her feet. Michael was talking to the other workers to try and keep everyone from getting too close and falling inside. Kaili’s mother stalked over from where she had been watching the progress of the digging. “What is going on here?” she demanded in a rather breathless huff.
Kaili glanced up, “I don’t really know mother,” she replied with a frown. “I was simply looking at the design etched into the slab. When I put on the ring father left for me and wished for the door to open, the ground suddenly slid open.”
Kaili’s mother was the one to frown now. “Why in the world do you still have that stupid ring? It was what got your father into all of that trouble in the first place. Well, that and his obsession with the past. Your father should have given up his idea that men once were rulers no matter what he thought he had found. Between that ring and the map, he probably…” her eyes began to tear and she turned away.
Kaili brushed away her own tears. It was probably true that someone had killed her father in order to stop the investigation of the history of Veldt and its people. It was radical enough that some held the belief that the Amazons had been their ancestors, but to think that before that this had been a patriarchal society was considered a true blasphemy by some. Was it one of those people who had managed to stage her father’s death? The idea was terrible. Kaili turned to the problem at hand.
“Even if this man’s ring somehow proves that men held some sort of authority in the ancient past, we won’t know the real history of our people without going down into this pit” Kaili declared. “I’m going down there.”
Kaili’s mother gasped, “You have no idea what is down there. It could be infested with monsters and …” she trailed off.
Kaili gave her mother a glance. “I know that my summoning skills are very weak and I would have trouble defending myself against anything large, but I will be careful. I can’t simply walk away from this. This is my legacy from dad.”
Kaili turned back towards camp. “I’m going to gather some supplies and a beast whip and then I’m going down these steps.”
Kaili’s mother began to chew on the fingernail of her right thumb (an ugly habit she only indulged in when she was truly upset). “Take Michael with you” she called after Kaili, “and good luck.”
After packing some dry food and water into packs, Michael and Kaili once again stood at the top of the stairs leading into the darkness below the slab. Kaili was strapping her beast whip onto her belt even as Michael strapped his sword to his own waist.
“Do we need a torch?” Michael asked peering into the darkness.
Kaili wasn’t sure how well a torch would work down in the stair. “Let me take a look at how steep these stairs are” she said takes some steps down the stairs. To balance herself, she brushed her palm against the side of the stairs. Suddenly the ring she was still wearing flashed and the sides of the stairwell began to glow softly.
Michael whistled. “Well, that answered that question” he gulped. “Was that magic?” he asked her.
Kaili tried to sense any magical traces in the wall. “I don’t know” she said. “I’m not sensing anything, but I’m not that sensitive. This ring certainly seems to hold the key to this place. I’ll try not to set anything off accidentally. Follow me.” Kaili began following the glowing walls down beneath the sand with Michael behind her.

Part V:
The walls continued to light the way down the deep stairway as Kaili and Michael cautiously descended through the mysterious opening. After descending for some time, a landing appeared before them. “I see an opening with brighter light to the left”, Kaili said as they stood catching their breath.  “Should we try it?” Michael asked, “We don’t want to get lost down here.” Kaili thought for a moment. “I’ll start making notes and build up a map so that we know where we have gone” Kaili announced rummaging through her pack.
After noting their position in the notebook, Kaili and Michael started down the short tunnel. Suddenly the tunnel ended at an overlook, Kaili and Michael squinted against the brighter light which streamed from above. As their eyes adjusted, they could see a vast chamber with a rock ceiling which emitted light which was almost like sunlight and sprawling beneath their feet was a swarm of buildings and walls. They stared at empty market squares and dry fountains, ornate towers with arched windows, and lifeless houses and shops. Kaili grabbed Michael’s arm in her excitement. “We’ve found a lost city! My father was right.” Michael squeezed her hands on his arm in acknowledgement. “I can hardly believe it,” Kaili gasped, tears filling her eyes. “I want to get down their and explore right away,” Kaili said finally, releasing Michael’s arm. As Kaili set her hand on the railing, the ring she was wearing suddenly flared and a beacon of light began flashing from one of the high spires in the city.
“What happened?” Michael demanded staring at her. “I have no idea,” Kaili said nervously. Kaili snatched her hand away from the railing covering the ring with her opposite hand. The light beacon remained, but no other changes manifested as they waited to see if this was some sort of security reaction. “I thought you were going to try not to trigger things accidentally with that thing” Michael complained. Kaili slowly pulled off the ring and reluctantly dropped it into her pack. “I guess it’s too dangerous for me to continue wearing this thing down here. We will wait and see if we can understand what is going on here before trying the ring on things.” Kaili declared, “Are you ready to go back and continue down to the city?” Michael nodded and the two returned to the main passageway to start down the rest of the stairs.
At the end of the stairs, Michael and Kaili emerged at a city gate standing open. The total silence of the empty city was unnerving. Both Michael and Kaili stood fingering the grips of their weapons. “Now what?” Michael asked glancing about indecisively. Kaili looked up at the still winking tower light. “I want to see what that light is about,” Kaili decided marching through the tall gateway into the city proper. Michael hurried after her. “Is that a good idea?” he asked, “What if there is someone here after all?” Kaili shrugged and kept walking.
As they continued to walk through the city, Kaili and Michael peered into the buildings they passed. The interiors seemed almost preserved from time, no dust, and no movement, nothing out of place. The exteriors showed some repair work which seemed recent to Michael, but he could not think of who could have done it since there was no sign of life.
“Is it preserved by magic?” he asked Kaili. Kaili closed her eyes and extended her senses. The city seemed enveloped by a strange energy to her higher sight, but seemed to have no source or dilution over distance which was typical of magic. The tower seemed to wink even to her third eye. Kaili frowned. “I don’t think this is magic, but there is something very strange going on here. We should be careful.” Michael grunted.
Finally, they reached the base of the strange tower beacon. Both Kaili and Michael stared at the large ornately carved doors. “Think the doors are locked?” Kaili asked. Michael glanced at her and then reluctantly gave the tall doors a shove. The doors swung open easily and Michael gestured to Kaili. “After you,” he said.

Part VI:
Kaili stared into the shadowy hallway beyond the now open door to the tower. Michael was still waiting for her to go first, so she rolled her eyes and stepped over the threshold. Lights flickered on above her head and she was now able to see a circular entryway with spiral stairway off to the right and several closed doors radiating around the room. Suddenly a small hatch at the bottom of the wall opened and a metallic disk the size of a small dog suddenly shot out from the opening. It stopped in front of Kaili and she braced for an attack. Michael jumped forward and slashed at the thing with his sword. The sword made a loud crashing sound and dented the metal disk. The disk began emitting a wailing sound and retreated.
Suddenly the light in the room turned red and several large, spindly metallic beings charged from the doors in the room. Michael jumped to the right side of the doorway so that his back was at the wall. Kaili placed her back to the left side of the room and released her whip. A bright flash emerged from a round aperture at the end of small cylinders the strange automatons were holding and landed near Michael’s position. As Michael swept farther to the right, Kaili could hear and smell the beams scorching the wall. Alarmed Kaili flicked her whip at the cylinder held by the nearest of the metal creatures. Kaili managed to rip the weapon away, but it flew through the outer door. The metal warriors turned toward Kaili.
Michael yelled, “Leave her alone!” and rushed at the thing nearest to him. He neglected to watch his feet however, and tripped over the small disk so that he fell and struck his head on the bottom of the stairs. Kaili screamed and began to rush to Michael, but was grabbed by the tall metal fighter whose weapon Kaili had removed. Kaili struggled, but was helpless as she watched two of the other metal beings pick up Michael and began to take him up the stairs.
“Let us go!” Kaili pleaded. The metallic creature holding her did not respond, but the lights in the room returned to a normal color and the other mechanical creatures left the room. As Kaili was beginning to think that she had been forgotten, a disembodied voice called out: “Let her come up to me”.
The metal thing released Kaili and for a moment she considered making a dash out the front door. In the end, however, she could not think of leaving Michael behind and reluctantly began climbing the stairs.