The Proverbial War

Why would there be holes unless…….I swallowed as realization came to me as to what those holes could be for.

Colt was watching me with a sage grin and he nodded and said, "Pays to scout out the lay of the land ahead sometimes."

He'd saved my life yet once again it would seem.

There was an entrance on the other side and he stepped into it. He paused for a moment and then turned to me, "Smell that?" He asked.

I shook my head no.

"It's the sea. We're close. This probably comes out near the beach."

Colt stepped back toward the scroll and got up close to it without touching it. He wasn't really looking at the scroll so much as that he was looking at its base.

"What do you see?" I asked curiously.

"I'm not sure, but I think there's an electrical connection of some kind between the pedestal and that node wire hanging down from the ceiling."

I looked up and for the first time I saw the black cord that hung down from the ceiling of the cavern. Colt slung his pack off and started to rummage through it. His hand came out with something. It was wire.

"What are you going to do?" I asked even more curious than before.

"I'm going to make a connection and in the process bypass this nasty little alarm they have set up. You better move over to the tunnel in case this doesn't go well and we get inundated with little poison darts."

I swallowed down my anxiety and quickly obeyed, but Colt stayed where he was.

"Colt?"

"What?" He asked glancing over at me.

"Be careful."

He cracked a smile and turned back to the scroll, "Don't worry babe! I've got this under control!"

I watched him attach the bared ends of the wires he'd pulled from his pack to the base of the pedestal. I couldn't help but think that we were taking an awful chance. Was an alien looking artifact no matter how beautifully mesmerizing it was really worth this much risk?

"Colt why do we even need this thing? Why don't we just go on and leave it here?"

He paused in his work and was silent for a moment, which surprised me. I thought he would roundly dismiss my objections to the task at hand, but to my further surprise he nodded in agreement with me.

"I'm inclined to agree with you Kim, except for one thing. Here in this sunken world we are decidedly outnumbered by who knows what and without virtually any offensive or defensive moves of our own, we have very little to ensure a positive outcome for ourselves. This scroll looks like a game changer to me. Something like this has got to at least be worth something to somebody and it just might buy us out of a hole some day."