Henric crawled through opening into the cave. The icy wind outside bit to the bone and stillness of the air was a relief. Once Henric cleared the opening, the cave opened up into a pretty large cavern. The darkness was absolute in the cavern and was only broken when Henric lit a small fire.

Henric sent up a prayer to the gods for helping him find this cave. The sudden snow storm could have ended him. Only the grace of gods had him seek cover in the crevice that led to this cave.

The whistling howl of the wind from outside the cave continued all night, and after several hours Henric began to get worried that his fire wouldn’t last the night. Henric looked at the opening to the cave, shook his head, then fashioned a torch. With the torch lit, he headed deeper into the cave.

Deeper into the cave, Henric notices that this steps on the ground sound hollow. Almost the sound of a hammer on an anvil. He noticed that the walls also were different.

Henric stopped and looked at the hall around him. The dim flickering light of the torch made it difficult to make out details, but the cave was not like other caves. The walls were smoother, and straight. The air felt a little warmer.

Henric stood and shook off his hands. This is wasting light. He continued down the cave. There must be something to burn down here.

The strange cave had many turns and splits, each ending in a strange wall. Henric mumbled a prayer to the god of explorers and lost children.

The last path Henric walked through seemed to end with a crack in the wall. The wall was very thin, but hard. And no matter how hard he struck it, he couldn’t break the opening wider, but when he tried to squeeze through, the wall moved and the crack became wider. After pushing on the crack, he was able to open it enough to squeeze through into a cavern on the other side. The cavern was much larger than any he had been in before.

The shape of the cavern looked like a room in a house. And along the far wall, it looked as though nine chairs were carved into the wall. And vines seemed to be growing from the back of the chairs and dangled limply along the floors.

When slowly turning to look around the room, Henric screamed and dropped his torch. Near the far wall, there sat three large figures in the chairs along the wall. One sat perfectly still in the chair, one was slumped slightly leaning out of the chair. The last one was sprawled along the ground partial crushed under some rubble. As he drew closer, they looked like statues or suits of armor. The vines from the wall seemed to grow from the wall and into the statue seated in the chair.

On the wall behind the chairs, there were these strange carvings. A large group of small squares directly below a large square. Dust and dirt on the wall cover a lot of the detail.

Henric wiped his hand across the squares, to wipe off the dust. As his fingers touched the surface, the squares began to glow with a gentle light. Henric jumped back and dropped his torch again. The large square started glowing as well, and shapes started to appear on it. And they began to move. The sound of a bird call chirps from the are on the wall.

The moving shapes suddenly stop moving, and a small mark fades and brightens right next to the last shape. Henric stares at the mark for a long time, but it just keeps slowly fading and brightening.

Henric noticed that the shapes on the large square match the shapes on the small squares, so he started touching the small squares. After a few moments, countless shapes started appearing very quickly. The whole square became covered with the shapes and they started moving around the square.

Then the statue next to the square began to make a humming sound and spots in the surface began to glow. The statue then began to speak in a demonic tongue. The monsterous voice did not sound like a mortal voice and the statues mouth did not move with the sound. When the noise started, Henric screamed in fear and ran out of the room.

The voice spoke for several seconds, then paused. It then began repeating a phrase every minute. Other then this speech, the statue made no other moves. While he stood in the cave outside, Henric looked through the crack for several long moments. He watched the statue for seven verses of the prayer of protection, waiting. But it made no move to rise or attack Henric.

Carefully, he approached the statue again, getting close to it and looking at all the details on its surface. It was only then that he noticed that it was not made of stone, but was actually made of peices of metal and possibly wood. With grey and red vines running below the plates.

As Henric examined the statue closely, he continued mumbling the prayer of protection to himself. After three more verses, the statue stopped its demonic speech and spoke in a clear demonic voice, “New language acquired. Adjusting base language. Model KLR 259 online. Please assign designation.”