Colour. That was Mark's first thought. It was one thing to hear that the ancient temples and palaces had once been painted in vibrant living colour instead of the bone white that covered what was left of the more intact sites he had visited but it was another to see it. Bright sky blues mixed with deep blood reds and energetic greens and yellows making the figures on the walls and columns seem alive and lifelike in their movements. Heroes chased monsters around the walls and up the columns to the ceiling where ancient deities and angels looked down from ivory clouds. Mark moved forward hesitantly, not wanting to get the sea green tiles dirty with his boots, and followed the images on one of the central pillars as they wound their way towards the ceiling telling the story of a great warrior in glimmering silver and gold armor.
This was an amazing find and one that he had not been expecting. As far as he knew the entire site had already been surveyed and documented. And it wasn't as if the doorway that had brought him here had been hidden behind a wall or fallen timbers. Stepping away from the column Mark looked around the giant room that made up the main part of the temple. The other pillars all told similar stories of this warrior and their feats. Of victory after victory against man and monster. The monsters and artstyle were familiar enough even though Mark couldn't quite place the stories they were telling. Though in his defense he felt that after a while all of the stories about ancient heroes and their battles start to run together.
Walking past more of the large stone pillars Mark made his way to the back of the temple looking at the star lit sky painted on the ceiling. As he walked a stray thought tried to catch in the back of his mind. Something about the stars and the paint, something important that he was forgetting. Art History had never been his forte in school and one of the subjects he had passed by the skin of his teeth. So he wasn't too worried if there was some bit of random art trivia bouncing around in the back of his head trying to make itself known.
But while art history hadn't been his favorite subject in school the mythology segments had and what he was looking at now was presenting a number of questions for him. Standing on top of a raised dais was a tall bronze statue of what he could only assume was some warrior goddess. Her long black hair fanning out behind her like a lion's mane before falling around the same silver and gold armor as the figure on the pillars.
Mark couldn't place the goddess, at least not into any of the major pantheons that had been worshiped around this area. And the temple above had been dedicated not to a goddess of war but to a god of construction. Maybe, Mark thought, the temple had been built to honor some local warrior or minor demigod and the temple above had been built overtop of it. But the briefing he had been given had said nothing about sublevels to the temple or any local myths concerning warrior women in silver and gold armor.
Looking to the bottom of the dias for an inscription or name the ricocheting thought in Mark's mind finally hit home and shot Mark's brain into the front of his skull. It wasn't that he couldn't place the artwork, it was the fact that there was artwork. Even underground most of the colours should have been faded. Instead the columns looked like they could have been painted in the last few years. And the fruit in the offering plate certainly weren't from a thousand years ago. Mark doubted they had been on the plate for more than a day.
"Ohh K" Mark let out a concerned breath and started to circle around to the back of the statue. It wouldn't be the first time he had ran into a cult or group of aristocrats who liked to dress up old temples and play make believe. And judging by the lack of blood and dead animals this seemed to at least be the second possibility. While at bit away from what passed for a city in this region it wasn't too far for some bored barons or politicians with too much time and money to come out and play secret society. Even with the security on the digsite they could have bribed a guard or two to let them by. It wasn't like these were the Emperor's elite troops.
The area behind the statue refused to give up any more details about who the figure was or who was upkeeping the temple. Giving up Mark thought that this would be something better left to the leader of the expedition and started his way back up the center of the temple and the stairway that he had come down. Counting the columns Mark rounded the seventh one and came face to face with a solid stone wall.
Stepping back past the column Mark counted the pillars leading back to the statue from where he was standing. Then just to make extra certain he wasn't losing it he walked forward to the wall and placed his hands on it feeling the dense stone that made up the outer wall of the temple. The stairs he had come down had ceased to exist, in fact the only thing even hinting at any sort of doorway was the presence of some slightly smaller stones in the approximate shape of a door.
Before he could question what was going on a loud crash echoed from the front of the temple. Turning towards the noise Mark noticed for the first time the large bronze double doors that sat flanked by two smaller statues of the unknown warrior goddess. The appearance of the doors didn't startle Mark as much as the disappearance of the stairs did. He knew that he had a problem paying attention to his surroundings when he got fixated on some new book or relic. The startling part though was that the banging was coming from what should be the inside of a mountain and as far as he knew there were no dwarves or other subterranean species in this area.
With a deafening crash the large doors split and slammed inwards knocking the statues to the ground. Brilliant golden sunlight streamed into the chamber followed by five burly men in mismatched armor. The only thing the men had in common were the blue sashes of fabric that crossed their chest and the wicked looking swords that sat on their belts.
"Well." Mark said as the five men started to walk towards him "I take it you guys aren't here for mass?" The remark didn't get a response from the men. Instead they fanned out, two of the men walking deeper into the temple as the three in the middle started to flank him. "If you're looking to make a tithe I think the offering plate is that way" Mark said pointing a thumb in the direction their companions had gone. Either his joke was lost on them or the three men didn't speak his language.
The gruff questioning voice of what he assumed was the leader of the group quashed that theory. "Are you the priest of this temple?" The buff man asked, yellow teeth flashing behind a greasy beard.
"Hey boss, I thought they only had them pretty lady priests here?" Said a lanky scabrous man trying to work his way around to Mark's left side. Mark raised an eyebrow at that. Not the female priest part. Some women were known to join the priesthood, especially in the last few decades. But that anyone could get his blue and ivory uniform mixed up with a priest's suit. Though he supposed the dark green cloak did bear some resemblance to the more earth coloured robes some of the more traditional priests preferred for the high holidays.
"Yeah." The 'boss' said, eyeing Mark anew and moving his meaty paw towards the sword at his belt, "If you ain't no priest then what are you doing in here?"
