Private Infinite Ruins

[Persephone Dashiell]

TRASK | Infinity Gate Ruins

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Persephone wasn't a major fan of cold environments. Now she could wear incredibly cute outfits but that did not stop her face from freezing. Or any other little bits of exposed skin, something always showed through, even with the best laying job possible. Standing out on a massive ice sheet didn't make things easier. However the only way to get to the gate ruins was through a small cavern in the ice, then head straight down. No risk of thawing at least.

Zee stood behind her, his optical sensors searching for their other half of this adventure, another scholar named Meri Vale .Persephone had heard she was a wizard with linguistics, same as her adoptive mother. She needed the other teenager to help translate what would be found in the gate. The Kwa were long gone and this gate had no exploration or mapping done on it. Surprising but they were far flung out and hyperspace travel was a thing now, no one needed gates.

However, the Kwa suddenly disappeared. Perhaps they would get some answers as to why. At the least the site would be logged and cataloged. Perhaps she could get Kalinda University's fledging archelogy department to take more interest, depending on what was found.

 

[Meri Vale]

Meri Vale had discovered very quickly that there were two kinds of cold: the sort that could be solved with proper preparation, and whatever Trask had decided to become. The wind seemed to bypass every precaution she had taken and settle directly into her bones, leaving her pulling her scarf higher across her face as she followed the ice toward the cavern entrance. The fact that Persephone appeared equally miserable was oddly reassuring.

Pausing at the opening, Meri peered into the darkness beneath the ice.

"I have reached the conclusion that ancient civilizations selected excavation sites based entirely upon how inconvenient they could make future archaeological work," she observed with complete seriousness. "If this place contains frozen staircases, submerged chambers, and thirty-thousand-year-old inscriptions, I believe we may have achieved a nearly complete set."

The humor faded as she studied the cavern more carefully. Unlike most ruins, there was remarkably little known about this one. No reliable surveys, no established translations, and almost no surviving record explaining what had happened to the colony that once lived here. That interested her far more than the gate itself.

"Lost civilizations usually leave evidence behind," she said while adjusting her gloves. "Wars, disasters, migrations, economic collapse. Entire settlements do not simply vanish without a story."

Her gray eyes shifted toward Persephone.

"Which means either the evidence is still here, or nobody recognized it when they found it."

With that, she stepped toward the entrance. The Infinity Gate itself was impressive, but Meri found herself thinking instead about the people who had built it. Someone had crossed the stars to settle this frozen place, lived here for generations, and then disappeared so completely that only fragments remained.

Somewhere beneath the ice, she suspected, the rest of the story was waiting.

Persephone Dashiell