The Artifacts Of Elios (Book 1)

by R N Skye

  As part of the research team he was allowed to view several of the new artifacts with hands on examinations. He was gaining high marks, was ahead in his requirement towards graduation; he could have graduated the last term but thanks to his warball scholarship he could continue taking classes through his final season - mostly due to continuing through the summer and winter breaks but also because of the tutor and testing benefits accorded to the warball team.

  Shane was excited to be nearing the end of his education. He often pictured himself discovering great artifacts; discovering items that would benefit others; cure disease, improve transportation, maybe even enhance communications. Most of all he dreamed of discovering a way to modify and even create artifacts of his own. Magetech scholars as of the present day could only duplicate and power intact artifacts – to some extent they could couple them but only rarely. One example was the visi-screen – a combination of coupled sound and video transmit artifacts that were now the standard in communication and entertainment.

  Lately he found himself often in the lab in company of an attractive blonde female student named Ava Desmond; she pronounced it ‘Ayvuh Daymoan’ - she told him it was an old Luion family name.

  Ava was very studious and like Shane was known for her high marks as well. At first Shane had suspected that she was just another rich girl warball fan looking for an opportunity to associate with a starting receiver, but when all she seemed to be interested in was study he soon dismissed that theory. In all honesty he wouldn’t have minded, he thought she was very pretty and that was an understatement he decided the more he thought about it; especially her intensely green eyes. Uncharacteristically he felt a little bit nervous around her because of the attraction that he had for her. She was “so good looking” a sentiment that he had confided with some of his fellow team mates. Socially however, in contrast to his somewhat pedestrian upbringing, she came from a wealthy family.

  He was slightly apprehensive; mainly concerned as to whether or not a beautiful socialite would be seen with a regular guy with a single parent upbringing, attending school only due to a scholarship. She was probably only working with him because hers were the only grades that were even close to his. On the other hand maybe she was a fan maybe she was interested - he began to convince himself more and more often that it didn’t matter; he should just go for it.

  How does one even talk to a beautiful affluent girl from a prominent family? He conversed with himself in his mind. Would she ignore him? She hadn’t made any moves toward him of a social nature – What if she’s waiting for me to make the first move, after all she does come from an old family of Luion descent – nah… she’d probably say no… I can’t believe I’m afraid to ask her out.

  He never had had this problem before, why was he so worried about Ava? There were several girls that were vying for his attention nearly constantly; not the least of them the feisty and attractive Alicia Newcomb who he had dated once or twice in his second year who also was in the artifact group. Those eyes are so intense – how are they so green? Then there’s that accent… and her smile… It was thoughts like these that were distracting him as the lights of the lab slowly brightened adjusting to the setting sun as Shane and Ava were presently examining and cataloging a newly acquired device with large golden etched glyphs on the base of a blue and white somewhat short and stumpy obelisk sitting on the bench in front of them.

  Whack!

  “Ouch!”

  It wasn’t so much that the smack to the back of the head hurt; in fact it hadn’t. It was the total unexpected surprise that startled Shane to the point of nearly falling off his stool.

  “What in the name of a ‘Long Legged Luion’ did you do that for?” Exclaimed Shane as he fell back barely catching himself from falling while at the same time catching the stool before it could crash to the ground.

  “Hello is there anyone in there?” his lab partner said in her light Luion accent as she poked him in the center of his forehead, where’s your brain?” Ava said with creased brow and an exasperated smirk. “I’ve been reading off the third row of glyphs for the last two minutes and you haven’t written a thing,” she added. “You kept staring at me. I waved my hand in front of your face and you didn’t even blink. Are you not feeling well?”

  “You just hit me,” he said still shocked that his lovely lab partner who until this moment had always seemed so serious.

  “They’ve got to get up pretty early in the morning to get anything past you, eh monsieur?” Ava said. “Perhaps you need another one?” She then uncharacteristically broke out in a fit of mirth as she started giggling; she immediately attempted to stifle them by placing her hand in front of her mouth.

  “Sorry,” Shane blustered. “I was just thinking about something.”

  “Care to share?” Ava asked; her giggles subsiding to a chuckle.

  Not wanting to admit that his mind was pondering the odds of a date with his green eyed lab partner Shane grasped at the first thing that came to mind. “I was just wondering if there was a reason for the three sets or rows of glyphs and if it was geometrically required,” he stammered trying to think quickly on his feet.

  Actually he had been wondering about the reason for the various numbers of glyph rows for months but had kept his own counsel on the matter in hopes that he could make the discovery, on his own. He had observed on numerous artifacts that various glyph structures came in rows of one through seven. Rounded artifacts had one, three, or five rows. Squared and rectangle artifacts seemed to have two or four rows. Various other shaped artifacts had five through seven rows. His limited exposure to any artifacts other than those in possession of the school prohibited him from knowing if there were others that had rows of glyphs beyond seven.

  Ava paused and became all serious. The smile replaced by a wrinkled brow. “Holy Elio,” she half said to herself. “I never noticed that before. Do you really think so?” she was suddenly enthused in a manner that Shane had never seen in his lab partner before. “You might be right, we should bring this up to the rest of the team or even the professor; I bet he would know.”

  “Actually,” Shane paused with a look of perplexity. “I’d rather not.” Shane looked around the lab to make sure they were the only ones present. “Chances are someone else has made this observation, but….” He paused again. “The thing is, I’ve been looking through all the notes the magetech department has on hand and haven’t found anything… yet, but if it is new, I think it could be really big and I was hopeful that I… now we… could maybe find out the significance on my… err our… own. We could be the youngest in the history of Wonstrowd to make a discovery that could unravel something that may unlock a way to design new devices using existing glyph structures. I mean seriously up until now no one has been able to do anything but duplicate and in a few cases connect artifacts. We could be the cutting edge of the next big thing!”

  Ava studied her lab partner for a moment. “You’re not just a muscle headed ball player are you?” Ava said with a mischievous smile. The conversation almost seemed to skid across Shane’s mind at the one hundred and eighty degree change in the direction of the topic. “I always thought that the only reason that you were put in this group was because the dean of magetech opened the door for you so that some of the athletic department’s money would find its way into the magetech department. “You’re smarter than you look.” Continuing on as if no insult had been spoken she added, “You seriously do think about the research, don’t you?” She now had a thoughtful almost cunning slightly predatory look as she seemed to studying him in a new light.

  “Hey,” he paused with a mock frown. “Ball players aren’t stupid you know I happen to have memorized and am able to adjust dynamically to a playbook over a half a hand thick, not to mention I have to learn the known defenses of the opposing teams every week. I don’t know where you ever got the idea that I’m a dumb athlete. That’s very biased-sheesh!”

  “Well if you are so smart Mister Warball Scho
larship, why have we been lab partners for nearly a year and you haven’t even asked me out to dinner?” she reposted with a thrust of verbal fencing. With a gasp she put her hand over her mouth and blushed as she realized the Luionese imposed impropriety of her words.

  Not immediately catching her accidental lapse in High Luion decorum, Shane quickly parried with “I didn’t think high society women from well-to-do families associated with low life scholarship people like me.” As he finished his sentence a voice in the back of his mind was yelling for him to stop talking before he burned a bridge that he had been hoping to build since he had first met her.

  “Now who’s being biased?” Ava immediately countered, simultaneously standing and glaring up at the taller Shane with a fierce expression.

  Realizing he was in need of immediate damage control, that and the flashing green eyes were causing his mind to wander again. He stood holding hands palm forward as if to slow her down to prevent a pending charge and sighed. “Ava,” he said calmly. “Touché’, it was bias of me. Please forgive me for my outburst. I would greatly enjoy dining with you. In all honesty it wasn’t your social prominence that held me back; truth be told I was scared out of my mind.”

  “Scared?” She calmed at his wistful expression. “Why would you be afraid of asking me out?”

  “You might have said no.” He said with a small bit of embarrassment. “What if things got awkward and you asked not to be my lab partner anymore? I would greatly miss it If I couldn’t look into those beautiful eyes anymore”

  Ava stood speechless. She thought she had been giving him signs for months of her interest. Men are sure dumb she thought to herself. Hey did he just say my eyes are beautiful? “Come again?” she said. “What was that you said about my eyes?”

  That night after closing up the lab they shared a late dinner talking the night away getting to know as much as they could about one another; an activity which was to be repeated quite often for the next several weeks with many more dinners and a few lunches as well - but not wanting to disappoint Shane’s mother and Ava’s family, they decided to keep their relationship such that it would not allow for shared breakfasts.

  Shane shared his life’s story and told of his single mother and how his father had passed away early in his life. How he had played warball practically since kinder school - mostly because a neighbor was a coach and his son was his same age - although the coaches son lost interest after a couple of years. Even so his neighbor continued to coach and support him because of his talent for the game.

  Ava told of her family and that her father while very successful as a merchant factor and trader was pretty much a regular guy. Even though he was very successful he had grown up with four other brothers from a farming community fifty milos outside the city of Gofain which was another three hundred or so milos north west of Jehhet on the border of Infin and Old Luios but she had grown up in the capitol of Old Luion in Lu Y Onton.

  As it turned out, Ava’s father was quite the warball fanatic and when Ava had mentioned several months previously that Shane Chason was in her magetech class and she thought he was kind of cute, unbeknownst to her he had offered some booster money to assure that the warball star was allowed to be a part of the artifact group. However it was her own machinations that had managed her convenient assignment as his lab partner.

  For the next several weeks they continued to catalog the glyphs on all of the artifacts that they could get their hands at the same time examining as much department research as they could find in order to learn if there was any validation to their glyph geometry theory. One night Shane sat by himself – Ava having left early to study for a test that she had to take in the morning – he was hunched over a list of glyphs of various artifacts that he had documented so far. Reaching for a new device he placed a box shaped artifact on the desk in front of him.

  When IDAD had submitted the artifact they had indicated that it was some sort of “non-crystal” light source discovered in what they suspected to have once been a school of higher learning. The research team had gathered it to be one of a kind because unlike previous light producing artifacts it didn’t use a power source nor required a crystal to produce the light. What seemed to jump out to Shane was that it had a square base with intricate scrollwork along the edges, but the glyphs were contained on only one side within a circular plate centered within the square. In addition to the glyphs contained within the circled section of the artifact, outside of the circle there was a thick line with smaller circle with an image of a finger next to it on the far right of the line. It had already been discovered that if you placed your finger on the small circle on the line a globe of light would appear above the box. Touching it again would extinguish the light. The light was cool to the touch; if he put his hand through the light he only felt a light tingle. There was no change in the light output –ones hand simply disappeared in the light. Additionally if you slid your finger along the line the image of the circle would follow your finger and the globe of light would brighten or dim depending on the direction that you slid your finger. As he cataloged the glyphs from the new artifact he noticed that there were several that he had not seen before. Deciding he wanted a copy of his own, Shane pulled out a piece of paper and began to draw the three rows of glyphs used for the light globe. As he stared at the three rows of symbols he drew a circle around the group of glyphs. Taking the artifact in his hand he looked at it from every side. He continued to stare at it admiring the detailed scroll work. While there were many other artifacts that had helped in the discovery of light crystals – a discovery that had been made fifty years ago. The light globe was the first of its kind known to produce light where no crystals were required.

  As Shane followed the intricate scroll work he noticed that each corner contained what appeared to be small pyramids with sun glyphs in the center on the square outside the circle. Taking a magnifying glass he took a closer look at the scroll work; to his astonishment he noticed that the scroll work was made of intricately connected glyphs. This made perfect sense now. The square base had four sides and that made four rows of glyphs, the circular plate was round and contained three rows. Everyone agreed that the circular plate contained the necessary known glyphs to produce light, but no one had been able to ascertain the power source or why no crystals were required. As he began to catalog the border glyphs it became apparent the power glyphs where contained on the square borders. Additionally there were glyphs that he had never before seen.

  An idea suddenly materialized. Shane stopped his cataloging and ripped the notations that he had just written from the catalog, stuffing it into his pocket. Going back to his paper where he had drawn the circle and the three rows of glyphs, he painstakingly began to copy the newly discovered scroll work glyphs.

  Shane had no sooner finished copying the last of the miniscule scroll work glyphs when he looked outside to see the faint light of dawn revealing the lawn outside the large lab windows. The pre-sunrise chirping of birds seemed suddenly loud. “Arrrgh!” He growled, “Practice!” Snatching up the artifact he quickly locked it away into its cabinet with the catalog book. Grabbing his personal notes and copies of the glyphs he sprinted to the dorms, hid his papers under his mattress, changed into his shorts and jersey, and sprinted to the practice field arriving just in time for morning practice.

  By the time Shane had finished warball practice he was near collapse. The coaches had picked up almost immediately on his tired state and took the opportunity to make an example of those who don’t take their curfews seriously. Arriving back at his dorm he showered and changed deciding since he didn’t have any classes until the afternoon and lab time later that evening he would catch up on his sleep. He was to meet Ava for lunch and would catch her up then. He was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

  Then he had the dream.

  Shane felt a cool wind on his face. Looking around he saw that he was in a green valley surrounded by mountains so tall they were still capped with sn
ow at the tops. As he pivoted around taking in the panorama he found himself facing a large pyramid covered in glyphs. His hand began to tingle - the same hand that he had placed into the light of the globe artifact. As he looked closely at the many glyphs covering the pyramid He saw “kero”; the glyph for knowledge or intelligence. Attached to the kero glyph were several glyphs that he had never seen before and like the light globe artifact there were many miniscule glyphs that formed intricate patterns that if one didn’t look closely would only appear as art. The Kero glyph began to glow.

  Shane felt the tingling in his hand again and felt it being drawn to the glowing glyph. Slowly, carefully, he reached out and placed the palm of his hand on the glyph.

  Suddenly his surroundings changed. He found himself in a spacious but sparsely decorated room. There were no windows but it was well lit from a light source that was not visible. The air felt as fresh as it had in the valley. Next to him was a chair with a short round table in front of it. On the table was a goblet filled to just below the rim with a clear liquid.

  “Do you seek the Laws of Wisdom?” spoke a voice that seemed to come from everywhere in the room at once.

  This is some dream he thought to himself. “I am just a student,” he said out loud in his dream.

  “You are correct. This is a dream,” the voice said. “It is good that you are a student. Many before you have been led to the Arc of Wisdom but you are the first since the fall of the Luion to activate the glyph to enter within. Do you seek the Laws of Wisdom,” the voice repeated.