The Lost Treasure Map Deluxe Book Collection (2017 Edition)

by V Bertolaccini

  Was the thing only being safe, preferring solitude, or did it have weaknesses and could be destroyed? The thing could be anything though? It surely was not of this world! It could have been a normal powerful alien life form turned into one of the most deadliest entities, still with reactions of its original self, and he considered how they could use that? Could they find a way to scare it from there? Could they persuade it to do something else?

  The police still unsuccessfully tried to discover how the killer had drained the victims of water and energy, and there was a suggestion a scientist was thought be involved or the technology of one had been used. Yet Bryson never believed anything to do with any scientists was involved, and he knew that the thing doing it did not really need what it was taking from them – unless it was some form of vampire.

  He believed it was using the best way it could to kill them, and silently and quickly!

  The rooms that most of the victims had been found in left them wondering why they had been there working alone!

  Most of them still felt safe in the inhabited regions of the castle!

  He could not get why no sounds seemed to be heard from the attacks? Why the deaths had not been heard? And he knew that the castle and its thick stones and strange formation could alter sounds – making silent sounds travel further at some places and stop even the loudest sounds being heard at some nearby places!

  The police seemed to have secrets concerning the alien killer that they had killed in the wood and many of them thought there were more – and that they clearly had the technology to carry out the deaths. They had built the tunnels there!

  Why kill them though? The alien in the wood had done it to survive and not get caught! The only logical reason, other than it liked it, was that it was determined to destroy them or scare them away from the castle!

  Chapter 23

  The Military

  Bryson was amazed when he entered the psychic researcher’s room, at the tunnel with the vortex, where the scientists were still setting up equipment around the wall where the vortex was behind, and that their equipment had gone beyond anything that he had seen, which was immense and powerful, and the power supply there had been increased immensely to it with large cables being fed into there from massive generators.

  He had not even been able to get near Merton and Mortimer, who now were just advisors on things! They had so much work that they had not slept in a long time!

  The military scientists there had full control of the situation, and they clearly knew the equipment far greater than any of them.

  The military’s mission there seemed to be a death or glory scenario. He was sure that they really wanted answers to what was there – and not to free the castle from what was there – and get any new technology or advancements there were a far greater achievement. Their interest in the aliens there was tremendous and far more than he had thought! They were checking out all the tunnels there and the alien that the police had killed, and where he had been staying and everything about him.

  They had seen the story all over the media and had decided in sending in more people to investigate. Yet there was still much confusion on what was happening there and what was there, and they could only really investigate things as far he was concerned.

  Some high-ranking officers had arrived and were being escorted around places by Mitchell, which Bryson gave occasional gasps at, thinking of what was killing people there. There had been two more deaths, unseen and unsolved again, and three sightings of other things of paranormal that resembled ghosts. The disturbances were clearly increasing and Bryson and the other scientists were working away to solve the situation, and find a solution, and he had been surprised that the treasure there was being forgotten, for the moment anyway.

  Bryson was amazed when Merton and Mortimer handed him a military report and other documents, which they insisted he saw, perhaps to give his opinion on.

  Documents told of investigations there going back to the start of the last century, before Pendleton and his friends had arrived there, and of police investigations that had told of paranormal disturbances, and why they and the military had left the place, and gave major investigations in the sixties that had ended with all the scientists there being killed and their bodies being found later, and that they had fenced the entire region off, and not allowed anyone near there, and that it had been left for people of the future to investigate someday with proper technology and ways of investigating and handling what existed there.

  Again Bryson realized that all the scientists there were in danger, and that he would be lucky to get away from there alive!

  Bryson knew there was far more behind Mitchell and the military being there, and he left things there. He wondered again what Mitchell would have put in his report about his entering the tunnel and going through the vortex.

  In the end the paranormal scientists had decided against going near or in the direct path of the alien if they were able to detect where it was, which was what they were attempting to do, and to locate the vortex and everything with it in other dimensions, and find out what was there and build up an illustration of it and what they were dealing with.

  The problem was getting their equipment to work as their attempts had so far failed there, and the stuff had never been fully and properly tested as not very many things existed in other dimensions.

  If anything attacked them they had a procedure to escape from there, which Bryson thought was all they could do at the moment!

  He wondered if it would turn predictable, since it could beat their weapons and had killed large amounts of soldiers, and mainly intended to wipe everyone out and scare the living daylights out of them.

  All the paranormal scientists had recently had consultations with all the other scientists and the military and they now entirely left their minds open to what was there and would happen.

  Bryson was surprised that when one of the scientists started cheerfully calling them over to a computer screen and showed a blurred view of the vortex in the tunnel, which Bryson was sure was of the vortex in another dimension as it was normally invisible and he had only seen it when he had entered it in an altered state in another dimension.

  “This is entirely new!” Mortimer stated, considering it from various perspectives, and he watched it as if he had been waiting all his life to see what was there, and gasped slightly.

  “What do you make of it?” Mitchell asked, walking over to them. “We so far have had nothing properly put forward on what its identity is?”

  “How about calling it a vortex?” Bryson stated, realizing that Mitchell had entered the vortex too.

  “You’re right! It can be called some form of vortex!”

  “Well, it’s a start!” Mortimer continued. “The visible part of the vortex has been detected in another dimension! We should be able search what else is there. For instance what is causing the vortex to exist, and what it really is? Maybe even places it leads to!”

  They were there to investigate what other scientists had not and to do it to a greater degree every time and Bryson was positive by their reactions that they had never had their day yet and they now never considered that they might never come upon anything, and achieve their goal, and that it would not be left for the people who followed them someday to find and get marked in the history books for.

  If only they could find something there that had gone undetected by everyone else, with their detection methods and equipment being improved!

  He gasped when he considered what they could come up with if they had something that really worked – as they had advanced far further than he had even imagined, and the place was packed solid with ever form of equipment possible and it went beyond his imagination what they might do.

  It was like an experiment to Merton and Mortimer to see what would happen if they pushed beyond the boundaries of natural science, and out into the supernatural.

  The dark sky of the place through the room widow now showed him the abys
s of billions of light years of space, and the dangers of their exploration, and he considered if they would find anything if they used the equipment at night.

  Chapter 24

  The Interdimensional Surveillance

  Once they had moved all the equipment that they needed over to a room at the second tunnel the other scientists joined them, and Mitchell arrived, and stood wondering, looking slightly annoyed and watching the equipment.

  The scientists decided to check the second tunnel at the same time as the other tunnel with their improved outer dimensional scan, to see if they were connected to each as the majority of the scientists believed, which Bryson also wanted to find out.

  It was morning and the scientists had increased the power of the dimensional scan and had started exploring the other tunnel.

  Bryson sensed that there was something that they were not saying, but he knew he would only needed to wait for them to tell what it was as they were in danger and needed to give all the information that they could, to survive there.

  While he considered what could happen next the scientists started examining the information on their screens on the equipment, and he wondered if the stuff worked anything like the stuff for detecting neutrinos, and he considered what it did.

  “It’s found something new!” Merton announced, updating Mitchell and the other scientists on what they had found. “I’ve not seen anything like it! It is unknown and looks like it has intelligence!”

  “An entity/life form that exists in there,” Mitchell announced, examining the wall, where the tunnel was behind. “What’s it like? Is it that thing that’s killing everyone here?”

  “We do not know if it is a life form – or what it is – but it exists in many other dimensions!”

  Bryson was fascinated and realized that it was what had tried to make contact with him, and surely had made William appear.

  All the scientists were fascinated and confused at what they were going to end up with – another incredible find or disaster!

  “Well, what will we do now?” Mitchell enquired. “Do you make contact with it?”

  “It might have made some form of contact with us already!” Bryson announced.

  “When did that happen?”

  “William! His appearance occurred after I entered this tunnel, where I was sure something was trying to make contact!”

  “William does not know what he is or is doing? But according the other scientists document on him he had to have been put here to check us out ...”

  “But he would have to be doing it without knowing it ... As he would have said or we would have noticed him checking things. He also ignored many things – and sources of information put near him that would have been of interest!”

  “Perhaps it is both!” Merton replied. “It was put there to make contact and check you! It might have underestimated and thought we were something different and had not understood what William was and capable of! There are suggestions in the all the accounts of it in the past from its first appearance on this world that it never fully knew what it was doing. It is surely far different and not from this universe in other dimensions and is mentioned as arriving here to check out the other the thing at the other castle, which it’s mentioned in trying to make contact with. It could very well be designed to make contact, but damaged itself!”

  “That’s the best and most explained solution that I’ve heard since I heard of this whole affair!” Mitchell replied, thanking him.

  Bryson was surprised and decided to keep it as what Merton suggested until anything else appeared.

  Like some phenomenon occurred the instruments scanning the alien showed it in outer dimensions with incredible levels of energy, and all the scientists studied the recordings that they gave them fascinated.

  “So this thing really exists and is in other dimensions!” Mitchell announced, taking out his communicator to call the military control center of it and all the other findings.

  Bryson noticed some form of powerful magnetic influence from it being registered on some of the equipment, and realized that it had confused them, and that he would get answers on it later.

  “What could create such power?” Mitchell asked, observing them understanding the information more.

  “This thing is tremendous!” Merton stated. “I can now see why they could not destroy it. The majority of it is in the other dimensions – and it is not made of normal matter. It is made of energy to us – but it is far more in its own dimensions.”

  “What do think it wants?” Mitchell asked.

  “That I am not sure of!”

  “Could it just be evil?” Mitchell asked, trying to see if they thought of it as the paranormal entity that it looked like. “And if it’s not what is killing everyone here for?”

  “I cannot fully answer that! But I think at one point when it arrived at the castle it had to defend itself and created things to defend it – and it did not fully know what it was creating or was up against – as with William, and it does not fully know what it or William is doing here – if it even knows about it at all – as I believe it is not fully conscious! There are mention of it and other things altering and going dormant. It must have been damaged or its energy source grows weak, or both? It surely has not seen anything like us! That can be proven by its original behavior and it trying to adapt itself to here. I think it still tries to learn and collect information though!”

  “That’s very interesting” Mitchell answered firmly.

  Mitchell began talking to someone on his communicator, and asked Merton, “What form does this multidimensional take in this dimension, and as a whole through dimensions? And what do you call it, if you had to give it some form of identification?”

  “I am not sure I can answer all that yet – as it is through dimensions – and our equipment has not been adapted for that yet – and has different energy states in them all. It is more an entity! We have not fully realized what it is! It is in what is like the depths of space, at the most different region from our environment as it can get. So I doubt I can properly compare it at the moment! We have so little, and know so little about its identity ...”

  “And they may not fully believe you?” Mitchell moaned, as he listened to the response from the military control center. “And they want to know if we can properly back up the claims you made already?”

  “Exactly! They will need to know everything that they can about it – as they will need to destroy it!”

  “We need as much as possible in detecting it and capturing it – if we cannot destroy it! And they can throw it back out there in space or something, where it belongs!”

  Chapter 25

  The Treasure Expedition

  Bryson and Pendleton arrived at a room at the virtually unexplored ground floor, without anyone seeing them going there. It was where the bottom of the second tunnel was, and came to an end, which Pendleton occasionally gasped at.

  Bryson still could not believe that they were still coming across highly potential unexplored spots, where the treasure could be buried away.

  After a great deal of thought and information from the scans of the tunnel Bryson started realizing that William Randall could have buried it at the bottom of the tunnel, with the thing in it to scare away anyone going there. Pendleton’s memory had returned and he insisted that the other two treasure hunters with him had insisted that it was there and that it was buried away at the bottom.

  The room was an ordinary castle room, which had clearly not been entered by anyone for a long time by the webs covering it everywhere, and he also noticed that no footprints were on the dust on the carpet.

  Bryson could not get why the others never thought the treasure had been there on the ground floor, and neither could Pendleton.

  The tunnel had been there at the exact location they had traced it to, and Pendleton was sure that they would have found the treasure there and he was sure that they had only entered the tunnel at the top floor as it had looked th
e best place!

  The wall grabbed their attention as its thickness was the same as the other rooms the tunnels were in.

  The archaeologists had given up scanning walls and had found nothing with it. Their scans were not good and their scans of the other tunnel had shown little! Their equipment needed to be improved!

  Bryson repeatedly thumped his hand hard against the wall, intensely listening for anything, while he slowly moved across it.

  Bryson easily located the tunnel behind the wall but instead of finding the boulders at the spot he discovered something larger, and peeled away the wallpaper with Pendleton until they revealed what looked like a solid block of stone, the size of a doorway, surrounded by castle boulders.

  Bryson stood amazed at how he and so many others could have missed such a thing! How could they have found the tunnel in the library and not even bothered going to the bottom of it? It even made him gasp as he wondered if they had avoided going there for a reason? The thing up there was hideous, even if they were now thinking of it as a normal life form trying to escape from its confines, and having advanced intelligence.

  He was sure the ancient historical castle had many hidden secrets and treasures buried away and wondered if they might find anything else there.

  At first he thought that he would have to force the slab in or destroy it completely but when he pushed it he saw it was a door, made of stone, and he carefully shifted the awkward mass of stone in, in stages, into the wall, as Pendleton stayed ready to help.

  They were both obsessed and Bryson had to push it further with all his weight and strength, as it became stuck with dirt and stone around its edges, and his clambering resumed until he had it out of the way and they could enter the tunnel.

  His eyes occasionally fell on the mess under him with little interest! The thick layer of stone and dust fragments were scattered across the ground and he started brushing it away with his shoe to see what was below, and found more castle stones!