The device clicked rapidly against the antagonistic environment. The man looked down to the small device in his hand. He watched the dial on the small faintly glowing display lean heavily to the right passed the white background and into the red background. The mercurial essence was thick in this area.

He looked up from his device and scanned the environment around him. Crushed buildings and fallen debris surrounded him like some sort of concrete jungle. He found himself in an artificial cave that oppressed the land it encompassed. The ruined buildings here weren’t like those of the modern world, they weren’t made of wood or stone but of refined alloys and strange mixtures. Some of their buildings were comprised entirely of windows and hugged the skies. Of course, these windowed skyhugging buildings didn’t reach those lofty heights anymore as they were but a pile of rubble on the ground now, another wall of the cave.

Cutting paths between these fallen structures were roads. Not dirt roads for horse carts or walking but instead these roads were also made of a strange stonelike mixture designed to withstand the mighty forces of artificial monsters whose flesh were made of metal and blood of incalescent fire. The man could only wish to see what these cities looked like before they had fallen, before the waterline rose and devoured it.

The ancient ruins, that’s where he lived now. He spent every hour of every day scouring the ruins for more information on the ancient civilization. He had to know what they were like, he had to know what happened to them.

The ancient ruins were extremely dangerous areas. It wasn’t because of monsters, dragons, or mokoi. The ruins were even too dangerous for those things to reside in. No, it was the mercurial essence that was the issue. Mercurial essence was toxic to all living things, not even vegetation dared intrude into these hallowed lands, and even the vegetation that surrounded just outside the area were twisted and morphed in countless mutations; it was as if they deformed themselves into wretched abominations as a final warning to others before their life faded to naught. It was this very mercurial essence that had made studying the ancient civilization so difficult.

Mercurial essence wasn’t an issue for him though, not anymore. The mercurial essence had fused with him, it mutated him, tore at his foundations, and rebuilt him from scratch. Unlike the others though it did not kill him, it gave him control.

He followed his clicking device which guided him to the highest concentration of mercurial essence. He was only at the edge of the ruins currently, the water here only reaching up to his knees. If he wanted to find anything valuable or truly interesting, he would have to take a dive into the depths and make his way towards the center.

It wasn’t long before he had to step off the roads and into one of these fallen buildings to continue his expedition. The insides of these structures gave interesting insights on the preferential architecture of the forgotten society. Even in its devastated state he could still see the formulaic grid that created these perfectly square rooms and perfectly rectangular halls. It was as if these buildings weren’t even made by humans, each segment identical to the last not a single blemish could be spotted, at least not one that wasn’t caused by the defilement of time.

He was walking down one of the halls of the dilapidated buildings. He was literally walking down the hall as it had nearly completely collapsed leaning down deeper into the water. He walked as far as he could, the toxic water raised to the base of his ears but now the only way forward was down. Mercurial essence had a nasty habit of denaturing magic so no water breathing spells would help him here. He had never been to this part of the destroyed city before and he had no clue where this hall would lead him. Was there a pocket of air on the other side or did it just lead ever deeper? He looked down to the device in his hand and waved it from side to side. It clicked fastest when he pointed it directly down into the depths of the water; it was calling him in.

He could feel it, the answers he was searching for were down there. He took a breath and submerged his head.

(Don’t breath)

The murky water eroded his vision, the sunlight struggled to pierce this deep into the building and a plethora of dust and degraded debris floated around. He had to move quick, he had to find a pocket of air soon. He swam passed a few metal chairs shedding their eroded skin and continued further into the building. He checked the open entrances on his either side each room as uninteresting as the last. There was nothing new here for him to explore. At the end of the hall he found a large pair of metal doors. It would appear that the doors slid in and out of the walls to open and close and he was fervently grateful that at least one of the doors was in the opened position.

Through that opened door he found himself in a massive vertical shaft. The vertical shaft fell downwards far deeper than what his squinting eyes could possibly observe. Not even light dare tests the extent of which this shaft descended. When he looked up he was greeted by a large metal box clogging the path. The box had wedged itself at an angle completely blocking any way through. At least blocking anyway large enough for his entire body to fit. There was a small compartment hatch which crumpled in itself partially blocking the entrance but leaving a gap large enough for his head to fit. He didn’t waste any time and

(breathe)

Surfaced. He tried looking around but this breathable area was pitch black, the hole his head poked through was too small for both his head and his glowing device to go through so it was impossible to make out what was in there. As far as he was concerned this was not a route he could take. The man’s options were to return to where he came from or to swim deeper down into that pitch darkness below. The choice was obvious.

(don’t breathe)

He swam down headfirst. He kept his arm that held the clicking device outstretched in front of him at all times, to both light the tunnel ahead as well as ensure he was still moving in the right direction. The nagging clicks of the device confirmed he was. He slowly propelled himself deeper down with the gentle paddle of his legs.

On an equal interval along the length of the vertical shaft walls he would be greeted by another pair of those sliding metal doors but each one he had come across had yet to be opened; he was left with no choice but to continue deeper. He had long since descended into pitch blackness, his only source of light was the faint glow of his clicking device’s display. In this painfully oppressive darkness, he existed in complete isolation, the only discernable presence was his own self, yet he still grew claustrophobic. It had been so dark that the man had almost missed the opened doors. A pair of those metal sliding doors had opened up to reveal another perfectly rectangular hallway behind them. Well, the doors were not quite opened but rather pried out of the walls ever so slightly.

It was a tight squeeze to push himself through and the excessive energy he consumed to struggle his way into that gap only helped but remind him of how desperately he wanted to breath. With his hips through the hole his legs easily slipped in and he began to hurriedly swim frantically searching for a pocket of air. His lungs begged for relief. The air inside him depleted he felt as if he was poisoning himself. This was it now, their either was a spot to breath or there was death.

He swam down the hall as fast as he possibly could, sweeping his clicking device from side door to side door hoping to illuminate salvation. There it was, one door, its frame perfectly sealed with no apparent water seeping through. He blindly shoved his head through poking up and

(breathe)

He took a breath. He took large mouthfuls of air ravaging it like a starved animal. His chest unclamped and he felt safe if only for a brief moment. He turned around on the spot taking in his temporary camp. It was a miniscule air pocket only as tall as the width of his hand but thankfully as wide as a full room. His clicking device illuminated the waters below revealing the same adhesion to that grid like pattern complete with the same chairs and desk and metal boxes that all these similar looking rooms had. He waved his clicking device around in search of the highest concentration of that aggravating noise and once again it was calling for him to go deeper and so

(don’t breathe)

He did. He pushed against a nearby wall to shoot himself out of the small room and back into the hallway resuming down the path opposite from where the vertical shaft was. He soon found his route out of this floor as he found an open set of doors leading to a stairway. The stairway ran down a dozen or so steps before turning around and descending inwards repeating that process on even intervals, it was a sort of spiral staircase comprised of only straight lines. The great benefit of this design was that the man could simply swim down the hole that the staircase orbited around and make much more distance than if he scaled the path traditionally. He used the railings of the stairway to help accelerate his descent making rapid progress into the abyss.

It did not take long for him to reach the very end of the stairway which ended on a unprecedently thick door comprised of a strange metal alloy. The door stood firm as an impenetrable juggernaut. To the unimaginable luck of the man though, the wall immediately adjacent to said door was floating all around the room in broken chunks leaving a perfectly sizable hole for him to swim through.

The sight almost made him want to laugh but his clenching chest was of much greater concern, he quickly made his way through the hole in the wall and continued into the room behind. This room was again another vertical shaft, a shaft that he found himself at the very top of. There was only one direction he could go: down.

The man had never seen his device click as violently as it did now, the little dial smashing against the far right of the display. His aching lungs were nearly forgotten as his excitement increased. He quickly calmed himself though; he didn’t want his heartrate any higher than necessary, every ounce of energy mattered.

There were none of those sliding doors hugging the walls of this shaft like they did the other. It seemed that whatever this path was used for was to only connect two locations: the top and the bottom. He had gone so deep at this point that he was really beginning to feel the pressure of the water pressing in on him. A true physical strain applied itself on top of his shouting chest. He picked up the pace, this shaft was far deeper than he liked and there were no doorways not even closed ones to offer the illusion of oxygenating hope.

He swam deeper, and deeper. Him and the glowing light alone in this watery entombment. He finally reached the bottom of the shaft. An open hall! An escape! But no air yet. This hall was unlike the ones he had previously seen, everything was much cleaner even with the wear of history. He ignored that, he could focus on it later, for now air. His chest pounded agony enveloping his every fiber. The fear was primal, it wasn’t a matter of bravery or cowardice this panic was biologically built into the human makeup for no one should suffer how he did now.

Hall, hall, closed door, closed door. Panic, panic. Desperate flailing of limbs, please around this corner, around this corner. Location no longer registering just any lip in the ceiling please. There!

He entered the room, but it was tall. He had to swim upwards higher and higher. He dropped his clicking device so he could dedicate his full force to swimming as fast and powerfully as possible. So close he could feel the weight of water release breaking the surface of the water.

(Breathe)

His lungs expunged the putrid toxin within, and he had never taken a more satisfying gasp of air in his entire life. His mind did not even bother to process where he was, he simply waded in place and breathed. He stayed like that for nearly half a minute just appreciating the act of respiration.

Finally, he found the will to look around only to realize that he didn’t have the glow of his device to see anything. This area was shrouded in a pure darkness. He would have to dive back down to go get his device. He looked down through the water to see that dim glow below. It was not a difficult swim. Nowhere near the distances he had just previously accomplished, but the very thought of going back underwater made him sick.

Sadly, he had little choice in the matter. He couldn’t wade in place forever.

(don’t breathe)

He descended once more kicking his way back down where he had just come from. He hated the very idea of backtracking which drew his mind to the horrifying idea of trekking back through all he just did when he wanted to return to the surface.

As he got closer to his device, he began to make out more details of the illuminated surroundings. His pain and terror had all been worth it and he couldn’t stop his heart from bounding in glee as he had no clue what he was looking at. The machinery far more complex than anything he could comprehend, cogs and cables, and those metal boxes the ancients seemed to love. Incalescent fireboxes and other monitor like devices. He grabbed his glowing device and kicked off the floor to propel himself back up. It was a short swim, but his tired body made it feel like forever.

(breathe)

He resurfaced again and this time he had his light source to reveal the room. The room was massive in scale, he could neither see roof nor walls save for the one he used to enter in. Best of all, plenty of the machinery was tall enough and or jutting from the walls to create above water ground. He made his way to a nearby metal clamp which was many times the size of the man that jutted out from the wall and mounted himself atop to rest on the blessedly dry space. He relaxed his muscles and only now did he realize how terribly exhausted he was.

He rested on his back mindlessly following the wall of the room up into the unseeable darkness above, he remarked mentally to himself as he did that the walls of this room were curved which greatly differed from every other wall he had seen built by the ancient civilization, at least never to this scale before. This room, whatever it was, was truly unlike anything he had seen from the ancient civilization before. The man was certain that he was the first organism to ever set foot in this place since the mercurial essence had settled in.

Finally, after a few minutes of much appreciated rest he was ready to begin properly exploring the room. He went to stand up but as he did his upper body began to stretch impossibly tall until he smacked his head against the room’s ceiling before even fully straightening his back. He keeled over tumbling back to his knees and having his body constrict back to his normal size as he did. He rubbed the part of his head that had somehow smacked against a roof so tall he couldn’t even see it.

The man gazed up to the space above him. He squinted his eyes trying to focus as hard as he could attempting to somehow uncover some hidden truth within the empty space above. There was nothing to analyze from a distance though. The man carefully extended one of his hands up and watched in amazement as right before him his arm stretched up impossibly long through the darkness above out of sight until he could feel the roof of the room. He still couldn’t see the roof, it was still too far away, but now his arm was also exceptionally long. Even with his new arm proportions nothing actually felt different. His blood still pumped normally, he retained full motor control, sensations on his palm worked normally as they reminded him that he was in fact touching some impossibly tall ceiling.

He tried to wave his arm to the left but as he did his entire stretched forearm popped out of existence leaving behind a stinging sensation on his hand. He hardly even had time to panic at the occurrence as he soon identified the pain was from smacking his hand against the left wall which his forearm seemingly detached from his body was now next to. He clenched his fingers in and out of a fist to test if he still controlled the dismembered limb. As his fist opened wide each finger stretched and twisted impossibly all across the room; his middle finger in particular flattened out and spread all around him as if it were the walls of the room. All of this was happening right in front of him, yet his arm still felt like it always had, completely unaffected except the slight pain caused from accidentally punching the wall.

His instinctive response was to retract his arm, bring it as close to his body as possible and hug it dearly as if that action would somehow protect his arm from these otherworldly manipulations. The issue was when he pulled his arm back, even though he felt it move in a simple straight motion, visually it was sporadically jumping all over the place; insides becoming outside, shrinking and growing. At one point he saw a single stream of bood elegantly shooting into existence on a slight curve before disappearing out of existence. His logical brain told him that the blood should fall to the floor, but it ignored such restraints almost as if the blood was still safely encased within the vein that contained it. He continued to pull his arm back towards his chest and the incomprehensible and sporadic sight eventually all consolidated to his body back into the normal shape he was familiar with.

The man did a few exercises and stretches just to be perfectly certain that nothing was affected, and nothing was.

If only the TOIL initiative could see this. This was why he abandoned the initiative, no matter how many funds or time he devoted to them he would have never gotten to see? Experience? He would have never gotten to interact with whatever this room was.

It was frustrating though, he knew that something had to be in this room, more than the strange empty space in front of him. He knew there was something there that was just hidden, its physical make up thrown about the room just as his arm was. He needed to somehow find this item and pull it out of the strange space.

Once again, he moved his hand into the air above him aimlessly waving it around searching for this object while simultaneously gawking at the spectacle which was his transforming limb.

Suddenly he felt a push at his back. He was very careful; he knew that any sudden arm movement could dramatically change its apparent position, so he cautiously twisted his neck to see what had touched his back without moving his arm. Behind him he saw his finger, many times larger than the size of his own body. He could make out the individual pores and the unique imprint formed by the lines of his fingerprint. He jolted back at the perplexing and cosmically questioning sight. His sudden movement of course caused his arm to move immediately making the large finger disappear. After recollecting himself he found himself frustrated with his reckless behavior. He wanted to find a way to get his finger back where it was, He had a curious thought.

It took a while of random arm waving and awkward pose holding but eventually, he managed to get his entire hand back to that giantificated position right next to him. It really was a marvel to see a part of your own body in such comprehensive detail. The man closed his giant hand around the clamp that he stood on and began to retract his arm back towards himself. As soon as he gently tugged the clamp, he immediately felt the massive hunk of metal that he would have thought weighed hundreds of tons easily followed the path of his arm. The sudden rocking of the ground he stood on caused him to instinctively crouch down for balance. As he crouched so too did his arm swiftly follow suit; and that’s when things fell apart.

The burst of motion spontaneously ripped the clamp from under him dumping him into the water

(don’t breathe)

Machinery, metal, and flesh violently slipped in and out of existence morphing in shape and location. All the technology that had once been comfortably stationed in the water below now whirling every which way. A sudden piece of metal grew out of thin air smacking against his falling head before just as quickly disappearing again. Different cross sections of the same material danced all around him. Just as quickly as the carnage had begun it ended with his arm perfectly normal attached to its shoulder. The room was now completely empty just him sinking in the water and holding on to a strange rectangular contraption that comfortably fit in his hand. First thing first, he was not in the mood to be underwater at the moment, especially now that he also had a headwound leaking a stream of blood to dirty the water around him. A few powerful kicks and

(breathe)

He was back above water. Now that apparently everything within the room was now in his hand he no longer had a place to stand on. A worthwhile sacrifice now that he could more closely inspect this strange contraption. The man very foolishly turned the contraption around immediately forgetting everything this room tried to teach him and the contraption burst outward unravelling into a much larger construct that walloped him in the nose

(don’t breathe)

Shoving him underwater. His hands quickly moved to cover his nose and he let out a half pained half annoyed yelp which sounded out as a muffled gargling underwater. He pushed his body upward

(breathe)

Surfacing again for the umpteenth time. The small rectangular contraption now stretched out from end to end of the room as a massive white board littered in an indecipherable mess of scribbles and equations. This was actual writing left behind by the ancient civilizations! He couldn’t make out what any of it said, no one had ever found enough of the civilization’s writing to attempt deciphering it before.

He desperately wanted to find a way to bring this device out of the ruins with him, but he wasn’t sure if it was possible. The device was exceptionally volatile where any form of movement seemed to be able to cause limitless repercussions.

The man caught a sudden motion from the peripheral of his vision and quickly turned to see a featureless pink face leaning over his shoulder. He let out a panicked scream and quickly swam away from the object.

Now that he was further away, he could properly make out the full shape of the entity. It looked like a featureless human without legs or arms, its face a blank canvas containing no features, no eyes, nose, mouth, or ears. The entirety of the entity was this impossibly smooth and bright pink color which contrasted drastically with the darkness around it.

The pink creature gave the man only a cursory glance before turning its empty head back to the white board. It was nearly impossible to discern any expression from the blank face, but it looked as if the pink creature was actually reading the ancient text! The pink creature then stopped scanning the board as its empty face stared at one of the formulas. A sudden pink shape grew out of thin air in front of it. The pink shape began to morph and change, grow and shrink similarly to how his arm did when he waved it towards the room’s ceiling. The shifting pink shape finally locked into a single arm that attached to the creature. The arm ended on a small seven fingered hand which pressed against the white board erasing a short horizontal dash that was drawn right in front of what the man assumed was one of the ancient civilization’s numerical symbols.

The pink creature then grabbed the white board at its edge and both the creature’s hand as well as the board slipped out of existence.

Well that sucked, what happened to finders, keepers?

The creature then turned to face the man. The motion was accented by the chime of a bell and another pink shape appeared in between the creature and the man. It looked like the creature was materializing another arm but this time it was holding on to a glowing parchment which it was offering to the man.

He cautiously swam closer to the pink creature and glanced down to the parchment: it read.

You have been invited to The Tournament You are The Archeologist