Pizza, theft and ancient artifacts – Part 2

Chapter 2 – Theft

Maxime’s car was as cramped and chaotic as her apartment was. Truth be told, part of the reason that Akane gave in to her request to join her investigation was due to the fact that Maxime had a car and Akane did not. This way she saved herself a bus ride and a long walk, and that was worth something.
“I will play some music. It will be from the 1980s. You will get sick of it by the end of this trip.” Maxime said.
Akane chuckled. “That’s fine by me.”
Maxime turned on the radio and some old rock song that Akane didn’t recognize at all started playing. It was still dark outside although the first signs of the sun were on the horizon. She’d spent the night on Maxime’s couch and although it was much, much more comfortable than a train station bench, it still wasn’t the most amazing night’s rest she’d had. She was a little bit sore from it all and the cold wasn’t helping. With 80s rock blaring they left the artificial lights of the city behind and they found themselves at their destination no more than an hour later. There wasn’t a soul around which would make their work much easier. You’d almost think they’d hire security for a place like this, even if the company that was keeping tabs on the underground facility had gone bankrupt, someone must still know about it right. That or the thing that Akane was looking for was no longer here. That would be a shame, if she’d come all this way only to find out that someone beat her to it. Shaking off that thought she stepped out of the parked car and let the cold air wash over her. At least she was very much awake now. There was a fence lazily circling the abandoned shopping mall but it was easy enough to slip through it with a little bit of effort. The building was mostly collapsed with a wall of dirt covering a decent chunk of it. Around it were abandoned forklifts and a few trucks, likely part of an excavation project that was abandoned halfway through. Just to be safe, they’d parked the car a little bit of a distance away from the actual abandoned building, but it seemed so far like no one was anywhere near this place. This wasn’t the first time that Akane snuck into an abandoned building or a digsite, but it never stopped being eerie. “So,” Maxime said, the cold air turning into smoke as she breathed out, “where do we start?”
“At the front door.”
“Makes sense.”
The two of them walked across what was once the parking lot and made their way to the entrance. There were even a few abandoned shopping carts still around, strewn across the parking lot. “I guess someone forgot to return it to the right place,” Maxime joked.
The front door to the mall no longer worked but that was no problem as the glass had shattered a long time ago and Akane and Maxime could quite easily step through it, carefully stepping on the broken shards of glass that were inside.
“What do you have with you?” Maxime asked, looking at the heavy backpack that Akane had brought in which they could hear metal rattling.
“Nothing special, just some tools that could be useful.”
“Like what? Consider me a total amateur that doesn’t even know what kind of tools would be useful.”
“Torch, crowbar, hammer, chisel, brushes, that sort of stuff.”
“Oh, I see. I thought you would just use the flashlight on your phone.”
Akane rummaged through the pack and took out a large torch. She turned it on and an impressive beam of light filled the space. “I don’t think most phones can produce that much light.”
“That’s so much light you could cook an egg on that.” Mazime said.
Akane chuckled. “Somehow I doubt that, but perhaps once we’re done here we can try.”
The now lit torch revealed just how much destruction had washed through this place. What was once a central plaza filled with tables and chairs was now a pile of rubble and dirt with the odd table legs sticking out of the pile. The doors to many of the stores had caved under the pressure and damage and even most of the windows were shattered. Some mannequins had managed to stay upright, standing menacingly behind broken glass as if to guard the store they were in.
“Now comes the difficult part,” Akane explained.
“What exactly are you looking for?” Maxime asked.
Akane took out her phone and put on its flashlight, preserving the battery of her big one. She put a map of the building on the floor and shone her light on it, Maxime leaning gently on her shoulder to observe with her. “This is the entire building we’re in. It’s large but not enormous. Somewhere in this building should be a staircase that leads down into an underground facility. That’s what we’re looking for.”
“And I don’t suppose this staircase is just sitting out in the open?” Maxime asked.
“Maybe the earthquakes and damage revealed it, but somehow I doubt it will be that easy.” She stood back up and stretched. “Let’s get to searching, shall we?”
Maxime nodded. “I’ll do my best too.”

The abandoned shopping mall was eerie to say the least. Even if Akane didn’t suspect there to be some ancient things hidden below ground, it would have been creepy. With part of the building caved in and dirt and rocks covering several stores it felt dangerous to just walk here. After walking past some toy stores, several clothing shops and one of those coffee shops where the barista probably wore a plaid shirt and had a big beard and a man bun Akane was starting to get a bit worried. She had no idea where to look for this place. She was examining a long defunct fountain with stale water in it when she heard footsteps approaching. Whipping her flashlight around she quickly realized it was just Maxime. “Did you find anything?” She asked her.
Maxime shook her head. “I didn’t find anything, but I did have a dumb thought.”
“Do share,” Akane said. “It’s not like I’m getting anywhere at this rate.”
Maxime grinned. “Follow me.”
Akane followed her through the hall to one of the stores. “What do you think?”
“Now’s not the time to shop for lingerie,” Akane said.
“What’s the store’s name?”
Akane looked at the sign and a smile crept on her face. “There’s no way, right?”
“We never did find out what her secret was. Perhaps the underwear empire was built upon something much more ancient. It would be a good joke at least.” She shrugged. “If you’re right I owe you big time for saving me a lot of hassle.”
“Imagine,” Maxime replied.
The store was mostly destroyed but not caved in so with a bit of care it was still able to walk through the space. Several scantily dressed mannequins were strewn along the floor and broken and dirty strips of cloth were everywhere. Akane kicked away some broken glass and moved behind the counter. If there was any place where a ladder to the basement was hidden it would likely be in the back, but perhaps there was something behind the counter. Unfortunately she found nothing more than a few burnt banknotes and a rotting candybar. No signs of a ladder or stairway to any basements yet. After checking the store, Akane checked the door that led to the back. Upon inspection it didn’t seem to be locked, but something behind it seemed to be blocking it. At the very least Akane wasn’t able to open it. That got her curiosity roused. “Let me see if I can get some eyes on the other side of this thing.” She had already spotted that there was some part of the nearby wall that had been damaged. The opening was about the size of a coin, but that was more than enough for what she had planned. She opened up her bag and took out her tablet as well as her small drone.
“What is that?” Maxime asked.
“It’s a small drone that looks like a mouse, isn’t it adorable?” She showed it off to Maxime.
“To each their own.” She smiled. “And you can control that remotely?”
“I can, although I have to admit I’m not very good at it. It’s quite fidgety and although it has a light built in, it’s not very strong.”
“Want me to try? I play a lot of games on the tablet with my nephew.”
“Sure, why not.” After setting everything up, she handed the tablet to Maxime. “You use this to move it, and you can turn on and off the light with this button here. Finally, you can aim the camera with these controls here.”
“Easy enough, let’s see how it feels.” She took the drone for a spin, moving it around the space they were currently in. Both of them were hunched over the screen. “You were not lying when you said the light wasn’t very strong, it’s really hard to see.”
Akane nodded. “It’s the best they could while keeping it this tiny.”
“I guess that makes sense.” Maxime cracked her knuckles overly dramatically. “Let’s do this.”
She deftly maneuvered the mouse shaped drone through a small crack in the wall and soon the vision of the room behind it became more clear. Despite Akane’s high expectations, there didn’t seem to be much special going on. The door wasn’t barred with something special, it just seemed like there were things lodged behind it that kept them from opening it. “Can you move it through the room to see if there’s anything of interest?”
“I’m on it.” Maxime circled through the room until the camera picked up something. “Doesn’t that look like a hatch?” She asked Akane.
Akane leaned her chin on Maxime’s shoulder and looked at the monitor. A smile crept on her face. “I think we might have found something.”
“Now how do we get in?” Maxime asked.
“That’s not too difficult now that I know what the other side looks like. It’s not a heavily guarded door from the looks of it, so a good old fashioned dismantling should work.” She opened up her bag and lined up several tools.
“I love watching a girl work her tools,” Maxime said.
“Stop it, you’re distracting me.”
“How do you think I feel?” She chuckled.
Using a specialized screwdriver she picked up a few years back, Akane managed to quickly whittle away the wooden frame until she reached the screws that held the door hinges in place. Because the door swung open into the room, it was a bit more difficult to get to the hinges, but if you knew what you were doing you could still break in. It would take a while and be very conspicuous, but who was going to see them down here in an abandoned shopping mall. After a good forty minutes of working on this she could finally hear the sound of metal falling on the other side. “That should do the trick.”

After breaking open the door, the duo made their way through the narrow opening. The other side of the door was a complete mess with things strewn about everywhere. “It’s almost like someone already beat us to it,” Maxime remarked.
Akane nodded. “Let’s hope they didn’t find what they were looking for.” She looked around until she spotted the trapdoor. There were burn marks on the lock that spread out across the floor. Following the trail she saw that there was a blackened and burnt body crumpled amongst the rubble. “Well, I think you were right about someone beating us to it, but it doesn’t seem like they got what they were looking for.”
Maxime gasped when she saw the corpse. “That’s horrible.”
“Yes, but it’s a very nice warning sign for us that there is something dangerous about this lock.”
She handed her bag to Maxime to hold open and took out several tools. “Go back through the door opening and stay there until I call upon you.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Undo whatever mechanisms are on this trapdoor so that we can safely open it. I just don’t want you to be within a blast radius when I fuck up.”
“But you’re not going to fuck up, are you?” Maxime asked nervously.
“I’m not planning on it.” She closed the bag and patted it. “I’ll call on you soon enough and if you hear a loud explosion, just go home.”
“Don’t say such scary things.” Maxime said, but she did as Akane said and made her way through the broken down door.
Akane watched her leave and waited until she was certain there was enough distance between her and Maxime. “Well then, let’s see if I can figure out how this works before it kills me,” she muttered to herself. She nestled her torch on a nearby piece of rubble, aimed at the trapdoor. At a glance it didn’t seem to have any strange traps on it and if there wasn’t a clear sign of something going wrong here already Akane might have made the same mistake as the other person. Knowing there was something to find made her job easier and not long after investigating the lock and handle without touching either she noticed there was a bit of string tied to the handle itself. Following where it led, she found a nearby canister of gas. “Bingo.” It was a very simple trap and honestly terrifying that someone would have this sitting in the back of their store. One mistake and a bunch of minimum wage workers would be turned into barbeque. But maybe it was only enabled at night when this place was empty. Akane shrugged, it wasn’t her problem. She checked the string several times to make sure she knew how it worked and after a moment of hesitating used a small pocket knife to cut it. Bracing for impact she let out a relieved sigh that nothing happened. She removed the remaining string from the trapdoor to make sure it wasn’t attached to anything else and then shone her light on the lock. It was a pretty simple lock all things considered and although lockpicking wasn’t her specialty, she had gotten quite good at in preparation for missions like this. She held the torch pressed under her chin and went to work until a satisfying click happened and she opened the trapdoor. Below it was a ladder leading down. Satisfied that most of the danger was behind them she stood up again and called Maxime back into the room.
“So, how did it go?” She asked.
“The trap was surprisingly rudimentary. Having said that, I will admit that if there wasn’t a clear warning sign that something already happened here once, I might have fallen for it myself. Its simplicity was its strength, but it should be safe enough now.” She stood between Maxime and the trapdoor. “I will warn you, I don’t know what to expect down there. You’re free to come along with me but I cannot guarantee your safety.”
Maxime nodded, her expression giving away that it was suddenly getting more real than she had initially suspected. Despite that worry, she still went with Akane as the duo descended the ladder down into the shopping mall’s hidden basement.

After descending the ladder they found themselves in a much more rudimentary place. Where the shopping mall was modern before it turned into rubble, this place was clearly much older and possibly built before there even was a shopping mall here. The bricks turned into hard rock and the floor that they stepped on was also carved out of rock and not paved with anything. Ahead of them seemed to be a tunnel that was just wide enough for two people to walk through at the same time. There was a dim light ahead of them which confused Akane. Was there some sort of electricity down here that was still working? The mall above seemed to be completely without electricity or running water, so why would there be light down here.
“That’s an eerie light,” Maxime noticed as well.
Akane nodded. “No choice but to head towards it,” she said, stepping forward. Maxime followed close behind her. Eerie as the tunnel was, it wasn’t particularly long and after a minute or so they found themselves in a bigger room where they had some space to walk. The source of the light here was a glowing gemstone embedded into the floor. “This doesn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen before,” Maxime said.
Akane had to agree. The light at the center didn’t look like it was using electricity so it must be using some other source that she wasn’t familiar with. Besides the light that shed dim light on the entire area there were some other odd things. There were four large tombs as well as a statue that was on the far end of the room. “This is someone’s grave,” Akane said.
“So we’re graverobbers?” Maxime asked.
“It pays the bills,” Akane said. “Besides, dead people tend to be less angry about theft than living people.”
Maxime chuckled. “Fair enough.”
Akane inspected the statue at the far end. It had decayed quite a bit but it didn’t look ancient either. If she were to make a rough guess it was somewhere between 300 and 500 years old. She could be off by a bit, but not by much. The facial features were mostly gone but the form itself was still there. A tall knight holding a large sword and posing heroically with his or her boot on a tree stump. Below it, a name was carved into the rock. Dariel Forsworth. Akane took out her phone to look up the name but she had no internet in this underground tunnel. She turned around and saw that Maxime was crouched down next to one of the tombs. “Did you find something?” She asked.
Maxime peeked over the edge of the tomb and nodded. “There’s some sort of poem or verse carved into the biggest of the four tombs.”
Akane hadn’t noticed it yet but one of the tombs was indeed a little bit larger. It was the one in the far right, next to the statue. “That must be where this Dariel Forsworth is buried then. What does it say?”

Laying here lies our father and friend,
bravest of warriors, wisest of kings.
Rest here for a little while,
for your memory is like lightning.

“Sounds like a riddle almost,” Akane said, a smile already creeping on her face. “But it does confirm that I’m in the right place.”
“How so?” Maxime asked.
“Well, we’re here now, so I might as well explain what exactly we’re looking for. There was a passage in an old book I found back in university. It spoke of an old king who was an incredible warrior. It spoke of his boots which were said to hold the power of lightning in them. That’s what I came here to find.”
“And you think those boots of lightning might be here somewhere?”
Akane nodded. “Look at the statue. See how there’s a pattern in the boot that’s standing on the log?”
Maxime looked over and saw that there was an odd looking scratch in the boot. “It looks more like someone keyed the statue,” she commented.
“Well they do say that art is subjective although this is probably just the passage of time being cruel. But I’m pretty confident that it’s supposed to be a lightning bolt. This tomb might hold the boots of lightning I’ve been searching for.”
“So now the million dollar question, how do we open this thing?” Akane said.
“Can’t we just push open the lid?”
Akane shook her head. “For starters, if the door leading to this place was already trapped, there’s a decent chance this thing may also be trapped. If it isn’t trapped, then that likely means it’s locked enough for them to not need to trap it. Either way, it won’t be easy to get into this thing, I think.”
“But you have a plan right?” Maxime said with a grin on her face. “There’s no way you’d come this way without a plan.”
“Well, yes, as a matter of fact I do have a plan.”
“Enlighten me.”
Akane walked over to the wall where the tomb was built against. She took out a credit card and slid it in between the wall and the tomb. She did so in several places until they heard a clicking sound. “Bingo.”
Something seemed to have changed in the sarcophagus. “Now it should open.”
Maxime looked at her bewildered. “You’re joking, right?”
“Why?”
“An ancient tomb, hidden for generations and you open it by pushing a credit card around for a minute?”
“If it helps, it’s a library card. Robbing graves isn’t hard when you’ve got a library card.”
“And to think I closed down the shop for this.”
Of course opening the lock wasn’t as simple as Akane made it seem. Maxime might have thought she was just randomly searching for a switch somewhere behind the tomb but in reality it was more complex. There were a number of switches, four to be exact, hidden between the tomb and the wall. By activating all of them in a certain order, some of them even requiring multiple activations, you could loosen the locks that held the cover of the tomb stuck to the rest of it. It was a complex puzzle and Akane had to dig deep into some very old and boring books to get the solution to it. It was based on a poem that Dariel Forsworth’s wife had written for him. In it she talked about the four seasons and the different joys the two of them experienced in each season. Each verse mentioned a different season and there were a total of nine verses with the final line referring to winter as being north. This caused Akane to believe that the top switch represented north and the bottom switch represented south. The hardest part was reaching the bottom switch which was quite far behind the tomb and took some effort to reach with the card. After that it wasn’t a particularly difficult thing to figure out and she was very pleased with herself that she was correct.
With enough effort by both her and Maxime, the heavy lid slid off the tomb and the inside was revealed.

Inside the now opened up tomb they saw a sight that didn’t surprise them. Neatly preserved was the body of what looked like an old knight. Not mummified at all meant that most of the body had long since decayed and the armor laying there was only filled with bones. On the corpse’s feet was a pair of very well kept boots that had a lightning strike carved into the leather.
“That was easy,” Maxime said.
“The hell it was,” an unfamiliar voice said behind her. Maxime turned around and screamed. Akane jumped as well at the unexpected sight. Behind Maxime wasn’t another person but instead a spectral being that looked like a person.
“A ghost,” Maxime exclaimed, quickly taking several steps back and putting Akane between her and the threat.
Akane was not quite as scared but the unexpected sight did rattle her for a moment.
“Who the hell do you think you are, coming in here and disturbing my rest.”
“And who might you be?” Akane asked, having recovered from the initial shock.
“How rude to ask a name and not give your own first.”
“Very well. I am Akane Sato, who might you be?”
“I am Dariel Forsworth, the lightning knight.”
“Is that your body?” Akane asked, pointing at the bones in the tomb.
The ghost of Dariel nodded. “So it seems.” He looked around. “I see that my family has passed on as well.”
“Well, it has been far more than a century since you died, so that’s unsurprising.”
“Did they live good lives after my untimely death?”
“I don’t know much. I do know that you were honored after your death for a long time, so that tells me your family was probably prosperous.”
The ghost smiled. “That’s good.” His smile faded. “So, what are you two doing here then, are you grave robbers or something.”
“When you put it that way you make us sound like bad people,” Akane responded.
“You are!” Dariel exclaimed. “You woke me up just to steal from me.”
“In my defense, I didn’t think there’d be a freaking ghost here.”
“What did you just call me?”
“A ghost.”
Dariel looked down. “Holy…” he proclaimed. He moved his arms forward to lean on the tomb, but instead his hands went right through it. “If I can’t interact with anything here, how am I not falling through the floor?”
“Don’t think about that too much, that can only go poorly,” Akane said. She changed the subject quickly. “We’re here to take those boots of lightning, I’m afraid.”
“So you are grave robbers!”
“I never said I wasn’t.”
“I can’t believe this, first you wake me up and then you tell me you’re just here to steal my shoes. You’re a horrible fiend.”
Akane shrugged. “I’ve been called worse.”
“Probably for good reason.”
Akane saw the ghosts’ eyes shift. While the two of them had been in conversation, Maxime had recovered from her initial shock and moved closer to the tomb. She was now carefully removing the shoes from the remains of the knight. “What the hell are you doing, weren’t you just pissing yourself?” He yelled at her.
Maxime smiled at him. “You scared me, but once you demonstrated that you can’t touch anything I realized you probably can’t hurt me.”
His face turned sour as he reached forward to grab Maxime’s arm. To both of their surprises he was able to grab her arm, but he had almost no force in his arm so it was easy for her to get loose.
“Huh, so you can interact with people, but not with stone. That’s weird.” Akane said.
She walked around him and reached out to his back, touching it. It felt like touching a freezing street lamp. She took a step back. “I’ll put it to you bluntly,” she said to Dariel. “We mean you no disrespect, but we did come here for a reason and I’m not leaving without those boots.” She nodded in Maxime’s direction who was holding on to one of the boots after the ghost’s sudden touch had spooked her before she could grab both. “There’s two way we can go about this. You are bound to this grave, so once we leave you’re stuck here. Either you let us take the boots and we’ll properly close your tomb again, allowing you to rest once more, or you don’t cooperate and we’ll just leave you to roam this cellar until someone else finds this place.”
The ghostly knight’s face sagged in defeat. “You will face retribution for your evil deeds one day.” He said.
“That’s what I’m counting on,” Akane replied. “So, are you going to cooperate then?”
The knight nodded. “Very well, you are free to take my boots, just don’t desecrate my family’s tombs as well.”
“You have my word.”

Darield retreated back into the tomb itself and after Maxime removed the second boot from his feet, being careful not to break anything, they put the lid back on. Akane hit all the switches once again to close the lock again. Having found the boots and laid the spirit back to rest, the two women let out a deep sigh at the same time, before making their way out of the abandoned shopping mall and back to the car.