Treasures of the Forgotten City (Ultimate Ending Book 1)

by Danny McAleese

  152

  You continue along the shadowy corridors until they spill you into a long, narrow hallway. The floor is different here. Instead of the smooth mortared flagstone you've been walking on the entire time, this floor is made up of square clay tiles.

  "Hang on," you say as Waif moves to step into the hall. "Something's up here."

  Holding the torch low, you can see the tiles come in three colors: white, black, and red. They seem randomly distributed along the length of the hall in no distinguishable pattern.

  "We have to go through here," your partner shrugs. He points to a dark exit at the opposite end. "There's no other way."

  Looks like you'll need to tread carefully. Lift your leg and make a choice:

  If you step on a white tile, TURN TO PAGE 170

  If you step on a black tile, TURN TO PAGE 61

  If you step on a red tile, TURN TO PAGE 113

  153

  You push your palm against the obelisk key and begin to turn counter-clockwise. The stone shifts beneath your hand...

  "Wait!"

  Waif's hand slaps itself over your wrist. You stop.

  "The right way is NOT the left!" he exclaims. "That means you should turn it to the right!"

  You pause in confusion for a moment, and then the answer hits you. Waif's right! Whew! Good thing he's here.

  Turn the obelisk key to the right by GOING TO PAGE 47

  154

  You continue on through the darkness (who would've thought?) feeling your way around the room. As you explore the area for some sort of way out, you find the chamber you're in is little more than a great big cave.

  "Look," Waif says. "Stuff."

  A heap of old tapestries is the only indication of human presence down here. They rest in a large, rotting pile, so far gone it's impossible to tell what they once represented.

  "Do you think the--"

  Waif stops talking as something shifts in the darkness. A smell washes over the room. It's a powerful earthy smell, all mold and funk and putrescence.

  "Watch out!"

  Like something out of a living nightmare, an enormous subterranean slug looms over you. Somehow, down here in the darkness, the creature has grown to gargantuan proportions. Its tentacles probe the air blindly, reaching for something. Anything...

  If you've picked up something to use against the giant slug, use the chart below to add up all the letters in that word. Once you have the total, you can GO TO THAT PAGE.

  If you don't have anything, you'll have to fight the slug off! Roll two dice (or just pick a random number from 2 to 12).

  If the total of your roll is 7 or lower, TURN TO PAGE 35

  If the total of your roll is 8 or higher, TURN TO PAGE 168

  155

  "I'm not guessing which gems go where," you say. "Let's just take the left hallway."

  Waif casts a hungry look back at the jewel-studded wall, but still doesn't protest. Together you enter the leftmost corridor. As you walk side by side into the darkness, the air gets colder. The walls take on moisture as well.

  All of a sudden Waif halts. "Wait," he says warily. "I think I heard something."

  "Heard what?"

  "I'm not sure. Some kind of--"

  BOOM!

  An ear-splitting crash precedes a gargantuan stone block dropping straight down from the ceiling. It lands a mere six feet in front of you, sending up a plume of grey dust and totally blocking the way.

  "Donovan! You okay?"

  A chill rockets through your body, causing the hairs on your arms and neck to stand on end. If your partner hadn't stopped when he did, you'd be a pancake right now.

  "Uhhh... thanks?" Even in the orange torchlight you're pretty sure you're white as a ghost.

  Waif puts a consoling hand on your shoulder and turns you gently around. "Let's pick another hallway."

  You can take the hallway on the right BY GOING TO PAGE 68

  Or you can take the center hallway OVER ON PAGE 149

  156

  You look from one glyph to the other. At first glance they all look the same. But there has to be something. Something to distinguish the one right answer from the five wrong ones...

  "Wait!" You practically throw your rucksack from your back. Waif watches as you rifle through it and produce your grand-uncle's journal.

  "Remember what it said on the back of the map?" you cry. You find the page and flip it over. "Here: 'It takes nine lives to find the Hall of Kings'."

  Waif still looks confused. "So?"

  "The cat! That's what Murdoch meant!" You point up at the smooth curves of the feline glyph. "The cat's the one who has nine lives!"

  Your partner's face curls into a sly grin as it finally sinks in. One by one he points to the other openings. "From six less five..."

  "Exactly!"

  Shuddering with excitement, you pass beneath the cat glyph. The hall is simple, undecorated. It ends in a plain stone door, covered with more glyphs.

  "They're names," Waif says. "The names of all those who ruled Atraharsis."

  Just as he finishes his sentence a hollow boom echoes from somewhere deep below. The door grinds open. Centuries of dust and dirt fall away, revealing more darkness.

  The torchlight flickers, probably because Waif's arm is shaking. Silently you take it from him and hold it out before you.

  "Come on," you say. And without another word you disappear into the wide, sweeping chamber...

  The room is enormous. It goes on for as far as you can see. Light flares as Waif ignites a second torch from his pack. Suddenly the illumination is reflected everywhere... by polished shields, glimmering jewels, and long stacks of gleaming gold!

  You found it! The Hall of Kings!

  157

  158

  "I... I don't belie--"

  "Oh you'd better believe it!" you cry exuberantly. The slap on the back you give him almost knocks Waif over. "We're finally here!"

  You practically dance down the center of the enormous hall. Tall statues line both sides, beautifully carved in the likeness of men and women. The rulers of Atraharsis, you realize. The founders, the scholars, the kings and queens. All of them are here, preserved in marble, their names and deeds engraved on stone tablets beneath their feet.

  And that's not all. Each king and queen has been honored in other ways too, as gifts from the people of their reign litter the floor around each statue. You see coins, gems, jars of spices and incense. Idols of gold and silver, ivory and jade. Chests overflow with totems and trinkets. Waif picks up a jeweled dagger, chased with precious metals. You blow the dust from something nearby, and a diamond-studded tiara is revealed.

  The walls behind each ruler are set with mosaics and other great works of art, presumably spinning tales of the highlights of their life. There's more than you could ever take, or carry, or even spend. It's overwhelming, yet humbling at the same time.

  "This... this is crazy," you say. "I don't know what else to say."

  Waif places a bag of jewels in your hand, each one so big and perfect it doesn't even look real. "Say you'll take what you need," he tells you, "to save your grand-uncle's estate. Say you'll honor his memory, as the people of Atraharsis honored the memory of their own ancestors."

  You nod quietly. Once again you find yourself wishing your grand-uncle could be here. Perhaps he is, you think fondly. At least in spirit.

  Waif's voice breaks you from your thoughts. "Donovan. Come over here." At the other end of the room, a simple pedestal rests against the far wall. Waif is huddled over it, pointing to a series of glyphs just above.

  159

  "What does it say?" you ask.

  Waif translates: "Place here man's greatest treasure."

  There's silence in the room as you pause, considering.

  "Greatest treasure?" Waif repeats. He glances around the room. "That could be anything. I mean, just look at all of this!"

  You rub your chin. "Or maybe it means something else," you say.

 
"Like what?" All of a sudden Waif's eyes light up. "Water!" he cries. "We're in the desert, maybe the greatest treasure is water?"

  "Could be," you allow. Your friend stops in the middle of grabbing his canteen.

  "Life?" Waif offers. "After all the danger we've been through, maybe man's greatest treasure is life itself?"

  His new answer sounds better, but still you're not so sure. How could you put 'life' on the tiny pedestal? It must be something else...

  Do you have the answer? If you know man's greatest treasure, use the chart below to add up all the letters in that word. Once you have the total, you can GO TO THAT PAGE

  If you don't know it, you can always try something else. Offer up another treasure by GOING TO PAGE 165

  160

  For some reason you have a good feeling about the hawk glyph. "Let's take that one."

  Passing beneath the great bird you walk a dark corridor for what seems like a very long time. The floor feels like it slopes upward in the darkness, or maybe it's just your imagination.

  "This doesn't seem right," you wonder aloud. "I think--"

  You're rocked as the ground beneath you suddenly shakes. Dust and debris crumble from the ceiling, filling your eyes, shrouding your vision as the rumble grows to an almost deafening roar.

  Waif points frantically upward. "Light!" Sure enough, sunlight streams in from several cracks in the masonry above. Then a tremendous rushing sound drowns out everything else, and you're being flung down the corridor by a torrent of icy cold water.

  "The river!"

  Darkness swallows you as the torch is snuffed out. You can't fight it. There's nothing to do but keep your head up as you roll with the churning, swirling rapids. Thankfully, the river isn't pulling you down. It's pushing you up instead, faster and faster, until you crash hard against the ceiling and break through, into the blinding light of the desert sun.

  Atraharsis is behind you... but the city is sinking! A cloud of dust swirls high into the air as the broken walls and towers are once again swallowed beneath the sands. You and Waif are deposited on the bank of a temporary oasis, by waters that recede even as you stumble to your feet. Eventually you're left standing at the edge of a rubble-strewn field. Only a few scattered pieces of marble and sandstone give the slightest indication that a city once stood here.

  161

  Waif is the first to break the silence. "I wonder if we made the right choice?"

  You think of your lost star gem, and the other star jewels that you missed. About all the treasures hidden throughout the city, and of course, the Hall of Kings. "No," you tell him. "I'm pretty sure we messed up."

  Lying in the sand nearby you notice your rucksack. At least you still have that, and whatever other valuables you may have found. It might not be enough to save your grand-uncle's estate, but you also have the most important treasure of all: your life.

  As you lift your pack the obelisk key rolls out. It stares up at you playfully from the sand.

  "Come on Waif," you smile. "Looks like Atraharsis is done with us... for today at least."

  THE END

  162

  Waif points to a door that wasn't there before. Beyond it you find a tunnel, long and straight and ending in a patch of blue sky. The walls shake as you sprint down its length, holding your breath against plumes of thick, choking dust. A good part of one wall caves in right in front of you, but you manage to hurdle it without breaking stride.

  There's one last violent tremor and then you're through; the tunnel spits you out into the desert, to bake beneath a blazing yellow sun. You want to flop down in exhaustion. But as Waif pulls you free of the opening, past the broken remnants of the hidden door, he points backward. "Look! The city!"

  Somehow you're already beyond the shattered city walls. Yet Waif is still tugging you along, ushering you frantically in the opposite direction. And then you see why:

  Atraharsis is sinking.

  Long, sweeping dunes collapse around it as the city is sucked beneath the desert floor. You watch it all go -- every wall, every stone, every shattered home and palace. As the last of the broken towers are swallowed a great cloud forms in the air overhead. It looks like the sandstorm you encountered last night, only much thicker and a lot more concentrated. The ground still rumbles beneath you. The sand still shifts under your feet.

  When the dust clears you're standing on the edge of a bleak, barren plain. Broken bits of marble and cracked sandstone are the only indications that anything once stood here. A few hours from now, these too will be swallowed by the dunes themselves.

  "Back where it belongs," Waif says solemnly. "The city beneath the sands."

  You stand there for a long while, just staring back at the void where Atraharsis used to be. Then it's time to go. Climbing back up the cliff face is hard, especially in the mid-day sun with canteens that are nearly empty. But you make it. You make it all the way back to your camp, when all of a sudden...

  "Young!"

  163

  You whirl at the sound of a gruff voice. Standing between you and your tent is the hulking, mustached form of John Sullivan.

  "What was all that?" he demands. The big adventurer is flanked by another two men. They're both as sun-bronzed as him, but not nearly as huge.

  "What was what?"

  His face goes sour. "Don't give me that! The rumbling! The shaking! All those tremors -- don't tell me you didn't hear any of that!"

  Slowly you turn toward Waif. His face is the picture of innocence. "Did you hear anything?" you ask him.

  "No," Waif says. "Not that I recall."

  Sullivan goes red. He scans your campsite, which at this point is nothing more than a few smoldering coals and single tent shredded by last night's storm. "Well what the heck have you been doing up here?"

  You give a casual shrug. "We were going to have a breakfast, actually," you say. "A bit late, but if you wanted to--"

  "Forget it!" Sullivan cries. His mouth curls into a snarl. "Looks like you're done here anyway. Have been for a while." He turns to stomp off. Before he does, his eyes shift to your partner.

  "C'mon Waif," he spits. "We need every man today, so I guess you're--"

  "No." The word is firm. Unmistakable. But from the look of confusion on Sullivan's face, you'd think Waif was speaking an entirely different language.

  "Did you just say no?"

  "Yeah," you say, stepping forward. "He did." You stand tall now, beside your friend. "Oh, and one more thing. His name's not 'Waif'. It's Renn."

  Sullivan's eyes flare. He almost says something... almost, but not quite. Then he shakes his head and storms away. You watch silently until he and his men disappear over the next ridge.

  "Thanks," Waif says. His voice is low now. Choked up and full of emotion. But you shake your head at him.

  "No," you tell him. "I should be the one thanking you. None of this would've happened without your help. I would've never found Atraharsis, or the Hall of Kings. I would've never recovered the star jewel. Or rather, almost recovered it..."

  164

  Waif smiles. You can't help but notice it's a weird smile, though.

  "Yeah..." he says. "About that..."

  One hand fishes into his pocket. When it comes out, he's holding the star jewel. It's even more beautiful in the sun. Blinding, even.

  You just stand there. Dumbstruck.

  "What! I... I... HOW?"

  Waif holds out the jewel and drops it into your hand. It takes up your entire palm. He turns sideways, gesturing with one hand to accentuate how small and thin he actually is.

  "You're right," he says. "I am Renn. But sometimes, it's good to be Waif too..."

  You found gold, gems, treasure. You located the Hall of Kings, won a star jewel, and recovered the long-lost knowledge of Atraharsis.

  CONGRATULATIONS!

  YOU HAVE REACHED THE ULTIMATE ENDING!

  In recognition for taking up the gauntlet, let it be known to fellow adventurers that you are hereby granted the t
itle of:

  Adventurer Extraordinaire!

  You may go here: www.ultimateendingbooks.com/extras.php and enter code

  ST17490

  for tons of extras, and to print out your Ultimate Ending Book One certificate!

  And for a special sneak peek of Ultimate Ending Book 2, JUMP TO PAGE 171

  165

  "Maybe it just wants our biggest treasure," you say, "before allowing us to leave. You know, as a kind of sacrifice."

  Waif scans the chamber again as if seeing it for the first time. "You could be right," he says. "Now that you mention it, I don't see any sign of an exit anywhere."

  Together you search for the best possible offering. You settle on a magnificent scepter of gold, studded with sapphires, rubies, and emeralds. It must've belonged to someone very important. One of the more beloved rulers of Atraharsis.

  "Here we go." Gingerly you lay the jeweled rod on the plain stone altar. An area beneath the object begins to sink, lowering the scepter smoothly into the floor.

  You wait. For an agonizing minute, nothing occurs. Then a series of noises begins -- hollow booms, deep in the earth, far beneath your feet.

  A door opens. Light streams in. You see a tunnel that slants upward for a long while... and a second door near the top, open to the sky.