Discovery
Despite being covered in a gross combination of sweat and mud, Tom couldn’t help but smile as triumph flowed through him. It had taken years, but he had finally achieved his goal. He found the lost temple and he did it without relying too much on the restrictive Slughorn Sponsorship that he accepted. The nearby landscape was unforgivable, humidity and altitude making a brutal combination, but Tom was able to keep his wits about him and was able to pace himself so he didn’t get too dehydrated or pass out because of the thin air.
Standing at the opening of the cave-temple entrance Tom quickly unpacked his camera, notepad, and his other necessary excavation and collection tools. He wouldn’t be able to carry a lot back with him, but he would need to bring back some form of physical proof of his discoveries.
Camera in hand, he quickly starts photographing the beautiful murals on the walls of the cave. Though some of the pillars and other pieces of architecture have been aged with time and fallen into disrepair the murals and writings on the wall seem miraculously intact and untouched by time.
The murals depict what seems to be a green eyed man that can turn into a majestic lion and perform blessing sand miracles. After making sure that the picture was in focus, Tom quickly took notes of what he could interpret of the story and wrote down the script that framed the mural. It was nothing that he’d ever seen before, it was not written in the script the natives used or any known script that their ancestors used either. Some of the hieroglyphs looked similarly shaped, but were not in an order that was translatable making Tom believe that perhaps that the hieroglyphs were adapted by the ancient natives but the meaning changed when it was adapted.
Tom stopped to continue admiring his find. It was like he had hit to proverbial jack-pot with this temple. It was fairly well maintained, and if his hypothesis about the hieroglyphics that lined the murals was correct, it was as old as sin, and he was able to find it when other more prestigious archeologists couldn’t. With this find he’d finally be able to escape the clutches of the Slughorn Sponsorship, pay off his student debt, and make an name for himself in the world of archeology.
Going further in the cave, Tom practically vibrated in excitement when he saw that there were multiple side chambers connected to what he had mentally dubbed the main enterance. In a temple like this, side chambers usually meant that priests were buried on site with jewels or other precious belongs that would allow Tom to be able to construct a more solid idea of what their beliefs and culture was like. After snapping several more photos, Tom decided to take the first side chamber on the right and was not disappointed to find several vases and jugs that were mostly intact and had stories painted on the side. Once again thankful that this temple was so well hidden from the eyes of greedy men and robbers, he carefully bagged and labeled some of the smaller jugs (after several more professional grade photos of course), Tom tore himself away from exploring every nook and cranny of this one room.
Vowing to be back to do a more through exploration of each and every chamber he could access, he moved on to the next ones and was delighted to find more of the same thing. After moving from room to room and documenting everything he came across, carefully packing up what little he could, Tom found himself at the end of the entrance cave. The natural daylight that filled the cave was enough to explore the rooms so far, but at the back of the cave-temple was a heavy circular stone door that was barely illuminated and covered in spiny ivy. Assuming Tom was able to clear the ivy off and somehow move the heavy door, he would need to use flashlight unless there was another source of light.
Glaring slightly at the overgrown ivy, Tom took out his machete at tried his best to clear the ivy off the door. The ivy vine, was anything but corporative. After lots of sweating, swearing, several small puncture wounds that the ivy’s spines was able to pierce into Tom despite his caution, and practically wrestling with the long vines of ivy, Tom slammed fist hand against the door in frustration, getting some blood on it from one of his many ivy related injuries. Sulking slightly at the fact that he was defeated by a plant, he almost didn’t notice the door opening on his own, as if move by some unknown force.