The sudden pop of air rushing in to trade places with its ancient trapped counterpart was the first real sign of progress that the unknown tomb was finally open. Dr. Shore and his archeology team stood back as the breaching specialist, Dr. Ferason, took his time reading through the various air samples. "The air is stale as expected, but no signs of any spores or unknown contaminants. Make sure you've got your air and keep to the buddy system as we practiced. Anyone starts to feel odd, call out and return to the entrance immediately." Now that the seal was gone, moving the door was fairly simple effort and the team was quickly moving into the pitch black darkness.
Confirming the structure matched what we expected from the various external scans, Shore along with his triplet of grad students started recordings of just about every surface, cataloging the different symbols that were present just about everywhere. We know from the outside that this place had a completely unknown undeciphered language and gathering as many samples as possible, or lucking into some Rosetta stone was our best hopes for finding out who had lived here and what this burial site was truly for.
Focusing on her own role as lead archeological geologist for the entire dig, Dr. Cassandra Jentra pushed forward with her assistant Carry in tow. Together they collected their own photography of the walls, pillars, and any other structure made of rock or stone. As they went along, any pieces not nailed down, were gently bagged or swept up for retrieving to bring back to the main research post for further analysis.
Moving from room the room, a full outer ring of walls upon walls of symbols, they teams finally began to move towards the central area of stairways all leading down into what appeared to be an actual crypt. Two dozen large sarcophagi ringed the room, some in cleanly sealed state, while others had several sections smashed open. In front of each one was a large cube of what appeared to be quartz, except for a single one. Rather than being placed on top like the others, it lay smashed to the ground towards the center of the room, jagged peaces splayed out and a chunk of some purple crystal, about the size of a golf ball, lay amongst them. Following the same protocol as the outer rooms, Sandra and Carry took careful photos of each of the sarcophagi from the outside the rings before moving inward.
"The cuts on these seem far too smooth for the time period estimate we have. And these cubes are almost perfectly clear. I see very little warping around the corners, but fully transparent in the center. This culture must have had some advance method of cutting." Sandra commented as they worked through. "Let's leave the intact ones in place for now until they can be confirmed to not trigger anything by moving them, but let's grab the smashed one for analysis. Do you see any other samples of the purple bit?"
"No. Looks like that's the only one." Carry did a walk around once more to confirm before coming from the other side, take some additional photo angels. Bagging up the shards and crystal into multiple boxes, the did a final sweep before heading for the station.
---
"What are you?" Dr. Cassandra stared intently at the purple crystal as it sat on the table before her.
Every piece of the broken cube turned about to be exactly what she expected: clear quartz. The different rock samples from throughout the rock all matched the material of the nearby pillars and walls: all the same worked stone that matches geologic samples throughout the region. Even if the method of how they were all worked is still a mystery that will require weeks of documentation and theorization, they were all pretty simple to identify. This *thing* wasn't. Not a purple quartz like amethyst, tourmaline, or a garnet. The crystalline was oddly asymmetric and almost looked like a fractal pattern within an encasement. While there as some materials that manifest patterns like this, none of them did this kind of pattern or was encased the way this seemed to be. A mystery for sure and lead to Sandra taking as many small tests as she could to try catalogue what it could be or try and find some sibling material.
The different tests were coming up all over the place, fragile at some parts while extremely tough in others. Variations of light reactions depending on what parts are being hit. It made little sense, and she was begging to run out of tests. Pulling down the outer layers of their exploration suits, Sandra had wrapped the arms around her middle so she could get much needed airflow after working through most of the day. The under-layers were a tight tan camisole with a built-in bra to provided support for her amble chest and get away with having a thin shirt that can work in a casual setting. She'd sent Carry off to take a break while she finished up the final handful of tests. Finally exhausting all the common ones, she thought back to her schooling when she heard that some geologists could tell what a rock was by licking it. Figuring there was nothing really left she followed after her assistant, she pick up the rock and quickly took a lick of one of the smoother sides.
It was unlike anything she'd ever tasted before. Bitter, but in a pleasant manner, and soon after a light tingling sensation as the air hit her tongue. It wasn't anywhere near salt like she thought might be possible, and didn't have any of the earthy qualities. Bizarre. She brought it back up to her mouth to try again when she heard footsteps coming up the hallway, quickly dropping her hands down below the table's surface as embarrassment flooded her cheeks. Dr. Ferason rounded the corner with Carry in tow carrying one of the fully intact quartz cubes.
"We confirmed that there's nothing attaching them to each sarcophagus, but we're leaving the rest in place for now. I doubt there'll be a difference from the piece you brought in, but Dr. Shore said to bring it by anyways. Where do you want it?" He hefted the cube up to her, him arms flexing while Sandra eyed him up and down from the side, the flush in her cheeks moving south. She'd been flustered when she first met Sean in the prep for this dig, and had to remember every time she ran into him off duty that is was a bad idea to mix pleasure and a career. No matter how much she wanted to take a bite.
