<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-style: italic">“How long does a building stand before it falls?<br/>How long does a contract last? How long will brothers<br/><br/>share the inheritance before they quarrel?<br/>How long does hatred, for that matter, last?<br/><br/>Time after time the river has risen and flooded.<br/>The insect leaves the cocoon to live but a minute.<br/><br/>How long is the eye able to look at the sun?<br/>From the very beginning nothing at all has lasted.”<br/>― David Ferry, The Epic of Gilgamesh </span></span></div><br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="text-decoration: underline"><div style="text-indent:1em;">Kanna &amp; OM, Ascot &amp; Dzel, XIII &amp; Helen</div></span></span></span><br/><br/>XIII led the way, his fire would light the dark passage, toward that other less natural flickering light. As they came closer they would notice that the light pulsed at regular intervals. He’d notice along the walls the ancient artwork, lines woven in knots and intricate patterns… They would also notice something else there, something that would blend in to the artwork but up close and in XIII's torch was clear. Cables.<br/><br/>The passage was only wide enough for them to walk one at a time, so XIII would be the first one to see the shape of the thing creating the pulsing light. The hall opened up into a slightly larger room, half of it had caved in as well. In the middle was the source of light laid on the ground. It was a black box, with black cables stretching out from underneath it like tentacles. It was wood and metal, with large bolts, the bloody blinking light they had seen on the hallway glared like a keen eye, and there was a clock stuck to the side, with tiny wires protruding from that and into the box.<br/><br/>To those with more savvy with earth-like technology… might suspect that this was a time bomb.<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="text-decoration: underline"><div style="text-indent:1em;">Lilly, Morgan &amp; Damien, Kwatoko, Bodzil, Merin &amp; Kenman</div></span></span></span><br/><br/>The zombies fell like wheat against harvest, they were dumb animations, senseless, instinct-less. After they fell they would stare idly on the ground, and twitch quietly until the magic inside them finally faded away. Then they would be only corpses as they were before.<br/><br/>After that the party would have a choice to make. Remain where they were, was of course, always an option. The wild sandy yonder was another. To the south they had heard gunshots, but would have no way of knowing if it was friendly or enemy fire. If they did choose to follow it they would find three soldiers, a young boy with a strange back pack, and an old man with too many pockets and a smirk...<br/><br/>... Or they might avoid danger and follow Morgan back to the MERCY helicopter via the north-side of the temple away form possible danger.<br/><br/>If they managed to reach that place unscathed they would find the thing completely decimated. The camouflage ripped off, the insides crunched and gutted seemingly by claws and teeth… but no sign of the creatures that had done it. It was uncertain if the thing would fly with so much damage done to it.<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="text-decoration: underline"><div style="text-indent:1em;">Cornelius &amp; Wolfe</div></span></span></span><br/><span style="font-style: italic"><br/>The stick was chosen</span>by the feline man. Lifted from its pedestal<span style="font-style: italic">then </span>it…<br/><br/>… did<span style="font-style: italic">nothing</span>. It was a stick with thirteen notches carved into it. Seemingly innocuous. But if it was so insignificant, why was it placed in such a prestigious room?<br/><br/>If they were to go back into the hallway, for this room lead into nowhere else, the two might notice lengths of dark cable on the walls that they had not noticed before…<br/><br/>The cable sometimes ran down the hall, and sometimes in and out of holes in the wall, recent, man-made holes.<br/><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="text-decoration: underline"><div style="text-indent:1em;">The soldiers, the boy and the necromancer.</div></span></span></span><br/><br/>Whomever was brave enough to touch the eye would be instructed by Twain to close their own and take a deep cleansing brea---<br/><br/>They would be seized by a strange feeling, and their own vision and sense of place would leave them. It would seem as though they were blinking and seeing what was before them. They saw a river and the sun, though did not feel its warmth or hear the trickling water. They did not see<br/><br/>Things were a bit blurry, and sometimes the scene would jolt, jarring them, as if they were skipping seconds or minutes.<br/><br/>It was as if they were walking with someone, through the wood, someone tall with pointy ears, pale hair, and beads of amber strung around her brow. Their lips moved, as if speaking, but what she said could not be heard, for it was only a vision-spell.<br/><br/>Things began to jolt and jar, there was fear in her face, a soundless scream as her mouth stretched out, there was rain, then fire, fire everywhere, a wold of fire, then something huge with red-scales flashing-white-teeth... it was all so disjointed... it would make their own eyes sore and tearful...<br/><br/>If they did not touch the eye, like Zesiro who took a few steps back and watched with a somewhat dour look upon his face, would see the others close their eyes and become very... Very still for several long moments.<br/><br/>Then movement and vision would return to them as normal. And they would all be as they were before. Twain with a satisfied smirk.<br/><br/>They eye would be changed, however it was now dry and blackened.