The Lost Treasure Map Deluxe Book Collection (2017 Edition)

by V Bertolaccini

  He gasped at the fact that they could end up going miles into the wood with those things there, as his footprints were guaranteed to be there and force them into getting him. Yet if they moved far faster than him they might capture him first before anything happened. It had only just turned dark!

  As he rushed on he studied the walls of the tunnel amazed at the workmanship and that it had been manufactured like the other tunnels that they found there, and he wondered if the guy knew the people that had made it.

  As he grew tired he thought the police in the tunnel would just give up. Yet he was sure that they could catch him! He wondered what he looked like, and what he was up to? He also knew that the police would be using helicopters and wondered what would happen there, and if he used a hideout?

  From one of the communicators behind him he learned that it was now snowing heavily above and over the whole region, and he happily knew it would cover his trail in the wood, if they could not get there before him entering deep into the wood. They had to be as fast as they could! This could be the only chance to get him!

  As he heard the police not that far ahead of him he realized that they had not been in a tunnel before and that they were going slow, trying to see what was ahead, and he gasped as he suddenly heard the police communicators stop work, from the disturbances in the wood.

  Bryson regulated his breathing, blowing out steam through beams of torchlight, and rushed on and on, as he searched for obstacles ahead.

  He felt surprisingly awake now, with no need to sleep, and he felt things could be successful and he intended to increase their pace further.

  So when the police ahead of him in the tunnel appeared, now going very slowly, they allowed them to pass, almost not believing that they could capture the killer, probably put off by the length of the tunnel.

  While they continued Bryson saw that they were following them, at the back, and he realized that he was now at the front and that the killer could even be nearby, and suddenly realized why they had been so happy to allow him to pass and he realized that he never even knew if the police directly behind even had guns.

  It was hideous! It could be anyone and the guy could be far more different from what he accepted, especially going by what this place had come out with so far.

  He definitely did not want to confront him in the tunnel as he could easily shoot him as there was nothing to give him any cover, and it was better to wait until they were outside. Even though that could mean him escaping or dragging them through the wood in something like a gun battle!

  His eyes stayed on the most distant part of the tunnel, searching for him, waiting for him to take a shot at them or to attempt to ambush them.

  When he recognized the steps to get out the tunnel he sprinted there, and when he approached them he considered what to do next and realized how easily the killer could be waiting for them to climb out of the tunnel. He knew that they were chasing him, and had to have heard them as they had not tried to conceal them being there, and going by the distance the police in front of him were he considered him not far ahead.

  Bryson rushed up the stairs and waited, and the others appeared behind him with startled faces, and he realized that at least he might have talked them out of doing something stupid, and was amused to hear some of them wondering who the hell he was.

  “Well, what will we do now?” one of them asked, panting slightly, looking at him as though he was crazy.

  “We’d better have the police with guns here! We don’t know what this guy could do!”

  Once the police moved to his side Bryson climbed out into an immense blizzard, with the snow blanketing his entire surroundings, almost in complete darkness, without any lights, shifting into deep snow, considering everything that he was up against, attempting to observe any place he could see, and wondered if the killer could possibly see him.

  He listened through the howl of the wind and all that he heard was the trees being blown around, and he looked for a place to take cover and move over to, and one of the policemen appeared at his side and shone his torch about, and though the wood became visible, he could barely see anything else.

  “There is part of his footstep!” a policeman announced, pointing, and they realized that they could not follow him, as there was only part of one footstep there.

  Chapter 23

  The Space/Time Gateway

  Once Bryson arrived back at the top floor that night after resting and having a meal he instantly realized that they had found something else, and he saw Mitchell and his men standing around a large hole in the floor in front of the bookshelves.

  “We just dug through,” Mitchell announced, in excitement, as Bryson arrived, glaring, and Mitchell shone his light around the large hole, where they had removed floorboards and smashed in a stone entrance slab.

  “When did you find it?” he replied, wondering what was there, realizing it probably was what was marked on the map, and that the bookshelves were covering it up.

  “We found it only an hour ago!” Mitchell replied.

  “How did you find it?”

  “Some of the men, who were still exploring the chamber with the tomb, found the area below here was surrounded and hidden by a thick wall ... And we found a sealed entrance over it ...”

  “What’s down there?” Bryson asked, trying to see in it.

  “There’s stairs ... They go down below somewhere!”

  Mitchell entered first, using his light to see the ancient steps going straight down, and Bryson followed, surprised that the tunnel and stairs fitted into the massive walls in the floors below.

  Bryson watched Mitchell moving down making sure he never slipped, and a deep thud echoed down from behind, and he saw that only one other man followed him, and he realized that it was a good idea only having the three of them as the ancient derelict castle steps might not be able to support more weight.

  The ebbing radiance of the light was not enough to allow more than three to go safely down either, and he tried to grasp the concept of the tunnel and he imagined the outside of the castle, as he had seen it, and tried to recall the place where they were on it, and where they were going. He was sure that it might have been part of its defense against invaders!

  Sounds from behind altered and echoed down giving muddled and strange tones, and he had to strain his eyes more and more to see what he was doing, what Mitchell was doing, and occasionally look back at Mitchell’s man behind him, who was the man that had seen the cross map on the map, which had led them there, and he wondered why he was so keen to find what was there.

  He saw little below and that there were no new features of anything, and that the tunnel’s small shape (less than a meter all around him) vanished into the dark.

  The steps descended sharply and hazardously and they had to climb down slowly, rather than walk down like with normal stairs, and he had to hold himself upright and lean backwards, and its drop seemed perpendicular at times.

  Once he thought he heard distant movements from below, surrounded by their growing surges of strange sounds, and he was sure Mitchell reacted, just ahead of him, with the light oscillating irregularly. Its light swayed over the stone, and the narrow shaft seemed to vanish at a point below.

  A feeble glow from something reflecting light caught his attention and he wondered what was there to reflect it, and he saw what looked like a crack in a wall, between the castle stones, and when he looked down he realized Mitchell had vanished!

  At first he thought he never saw him as his light had gone, and that he had broken it and that they would have to return, but as he moved down an explosion of colors exploded out from something stunning him, and he opened his eyes and studied his surroundings and saw that he was no longer in the shaft, and as he confusedly studied his surroundings a colossal whirlpool of shifting outlines magically shifted about him and he realized that he had no body or proper presence, and was some form of energy formation.

  II

  The Voyager and Treasure<
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  Chapter 1

  The Supernatural Vortex

  Energy beams exploded at Bryson as he gained consciousness, covering his entire vision with bright colored light, and he studied everything that he could see wondering where the hell he was! A colossal vortex of shifting outlines magically shot by and he analyzed it in greater detail and proved that he could not realize what or where it was, or even what he now was!

  His presence was some form of force formation, and he swirled out into a vortex of reshaping energy patterns that had replaced reality, and he wondered if he could be trapped there for all eternity, and he ignored it and realized that he was no longer bothered and wondered what his future would be like.

  He studied a surreal splendor of mind-bending displacements and saw that they were altering to something that he could not recognize. All of his knowledge of science and universe gave him little and it left him mesmerized! Was he even classified as being a life form? His knowledge of what was beyond the universe was little and he felt like he was about to explore something far greater and mind-boggling than he could have ever imagined!

  Questions started emerging and he mainly wondered how he could observe anything? If it actually was light there what was he using to perceive it? Yet he recalled the mind-bending dreams that had experienced in the castle and being in a supernatural vortex, and he started to realize that it had to be it or something similar.

  Even though he never actually had anything he still felt glad he had some form of recognition of what it was and tried to work out what it did, how it worked, and where it might go to!

  While he was considering what would happen next he spotted a miniature circle of flames buried away in the central region ahead of him, and he grew more and more interested, and he started to recognize more detail as it grew and was astonished as he shifted into it, and within its depths he saw what looked like magnificent colossal stars, in a golden haze, blending into his surrounding brilliant colors.

  Spectacular golden beams exploded out, and gold stars shot by, and he realized the tremendous speed that he was traveling at, and a region of golden space was expanding out all across his front, and he floated into it.

  He saw his body emerge with a new formation and start transforming, and sensed there was something far more different about it, and he saw a strange transparent world formation emerge, with ghost images going through the swirling golden brightness.

  Magnificent bright white and gold lights filled his entire vision everywhere, shifting around everywhere, as if he were floating into some form of cartoon cosmos.

  Where was he now? Was he actually in one of his dreams he had been at the castle? It was incredible! Would he be able to solve all those queries he had accumulated? At an early age, when he had first visited the first castle, he had experienced the dreams and mysteries buried away there!

  Large objects, he was sure were stars, dazzled him with their brightness. Their density together filled space everywhere and yet they never came into contact with each other, staggering him that they could even exist in their state, without being pulled together.

  The whole of space around him had the objects shifting and visibly shooting around, and he observed them with curiosity, and as a scientist. He had to answer what was there as much as he could! He was sure that they avoided courses that would make them crash into other objects, and he finally spotted one actually altering its course to avoid hitting another and was dazed and confused that such an object, if they were suns or the size of suns, could have intelligence and the ability to alter their course through space, and he considered what they were and did.

  He exploded with excitement when he searched behind him and saw the vortex he had come out of stretching across space, and he tried to grasp what it was and realized the immense speed that he had been traveling at, and was still moving away at.

  The size of vortex looked close to the size of a solar system and the vision staggered him and stuck in his mind!

  Over a great deal of time he dreamily partially entered a form of sleep state, shooting through the surrounding emptiness, through the surreal space, far from the universe, out beyond reality.

  Obscure illuminations endlessly shifted as he wildly spun around, with no real awareness of anything, and a tranquil shape gradually emerged across his front, of something of brightness, and he came to sometimes to study it.

  How had he managed to end up in such a far-out place? Where the hell was he? How could he survive this? He was barely a ghost/energy state in some far out mind-bending place, and he considered if he was actually in the castle in a dream state!

  He felt as though he had been falling through something and he tried to grasp the concept, and where, and suddenly realized something was blowing at him from somewhere and he saw, hidden away in intense brightness, he was plunging down to some form of world under him.

  He was over some form of water! He was sure of it! And he was falling out of its sky!

  He prepared himself for everything that he could think of and a roaring and blinding surge of what looked like invisible water or form of energy hit him and he automatically put out his arms, swimming upwards and pulling himself out of the endless depths, where he saw star objects through at the other side of the world.

  Chapter 2

  The Mind-Bending Universe

  He continually kept going over everything that had happened! All the supernatural occurrences that they had encountered as they had approached the castle, exploring the wood surrounding the castle, and the strange mists and lights there that haunted the place for centuries, and attacks by the things that emerged there, chasing them through the deep snow and into the strange tunnel that they had found that led them to the location of the castle.

  Even now he could not explain what it was all caused by! What could be there and have created such a disturbance, which nobody could now deny existed? Yet he had worse things to explain now, and thought if he ever returned he would be spending the rest of his life trying to explain it all!

  They had professional ex-soldiers, with Mitchell leading them, and every leading scientist in paranormal or anything connected to it, and he was a leading scientist too, with the two main psychic researchers there, Merton and Mortimer, who had explored the last castle, and found everything that they could have, and he was sure they could achieve something if given long enough.

  Who had the killer of one of the ex-military men been? The police were exploring the whole region there now and he wondered what the outcome of that would be, and he gasped! They could not find a way to explain things to them to prevent them from doing something stupid there!

  The most frustrating things were the search for the treasure and them finding more and more clues! They had only been searching the castle for a day and they had made discoveries everywhere! A chamber under the top floor with a tomb in it, with some strange writing on it, which he had not been given any proper time and proper examination of, and the strange skeleton inside, which had to be someone significant and be buried there for a reason – and with a ring that had a secret compartment with a map with a secret location marked on it that they had traced to a library where they had found a tunnel below – which the three of them had climbed down, with him following Mitchell down and one of Mitchell’s men following him, and then Mitchell had suddenly vanished below him and when he had climbed down had been transported into the vortex to where he was.

  He had to find a way back and he constantly went over things trying to find something that he had missed!

  He wondered where Mitchell was, and the other man if he had followed him there, and he wondered if it transported people to random locations? Was it the supernatural vortex that he had dreamed of in the castle? Did it have things trapped in it? Did things get transported back and forward through it? And if it did why could he not reenter it and return there?

  The island, if it could be called an island, was fascinating and made of something similar to matter, and he c
onstantly studied.

  It was virtually translucent in places, as well as being slightly translucent in different degrees in other places with different colors through it, which he was sure was made of some form of new energy, with strange atoms replacing normal ones.

  It was firm in places but like being on a waterbed in other places and he was glad to be on it as he had spent hours wading through its sea, if it could be called a sea, as it was nearly like thick air and he only managed to float on it due to him also being made of a similar composition. He was sure gravity existed, at least! Or was it just something similar?

  It was incredible! Through the sea and areas of the land he had seen the other side of the world, if it could be called a world, and its size was close to being the same as the moon and he saw similar islands to his in different sizes and shapes, some massive and others small like his island and they seemed to float around it.

  The place never needed a sun and glowed brightly with all the surrounding lights or suns in the sky, virtually covering all the sky, and he had to search for black areas of empty space to confirm they actually existed there, which he was still unable to prove.

  The world also generated its own light and heat, but he could not realize how! The strange thing was it had the many of the characteristics of the normal universe and it was like it was mimicking it and as though it had some of the same forces like gravity and had formed similarly with the forces governing it.

  Though his survival was an important thing he wondered if he could actually die as he never needed any food or oxygen and he was made of the same indestructible or nearly indestructible substance that everything there was made of, and he was unsure how it functioned.

  The sea surrounding the shore was barely visible but had colored matter grains in it against the shore, like sand, mixing through it, and the rhythms of its waves skimming up the surface of island gave sounds like real waves and blew the form of air there in gusts like something was breathing over him, and he wondered if something was there examining him!