Into the Time Machine [Morning 1]

[Kannon]

"Yes. Come. Days are short." Leida nodded, ready to depart, breaking off from any further introductions or assurances. "I've hit a wall. It is a strange one." She said to Kiran once they picked up pace. Her Galach was weird, to say the least. Like a chant.

The entry into the tunnel was near, but the way to the part Leida worked on was along long flight of winding stone stairs, many incomplete and slippery ones. The nun navigated them well, but she kept looking back to check if the newcomer was coping.

[Kiran Alsahar]

Kiran made their way down carefully and largely without mishap. Clambering over wet and mossy boulders by the ocean had its benefits.

"Oh? Strange in what way?"

[Kannon]

"Feels old, but looks untouched. It's almost a pity to try to break it. But there is no other way forward."

They were losing daylight, so Leida turned on the whale oil lamp, with a sigh. She had no suspensor lamps.

[Kiran Alsahar]

Kiran pulled out their own suspensor lamp from their supplies, lighting it and setting it to follow them.

"That is unfortunate. What are you expecting behind it?"

[Kannon]

"I have no way of knowing. We have been looking for a way to get the library and the calligraphy workshop to see if anything survived but if this is a path to any of it, it must be a forgotten one."

Leida looked at the hovering piece of Richesian technology with much suspicion. Suspensors were common everywhere else, but maybe on Lankiveil not so much. Were these people oversensitised to Butlerian precepts? In the end, she kept her whale fat lamp on, and did not comment as they were descending into the depths of the Eyrie, somewhere within the mountain. Signs of intervention on the stonework started showing.

[Kiran Alsahar]

"I apologize, should I turn it off?" They asked. It's better to be sensitive to potential mistakes for the moment. "A lost library. There's so much potential in that."

[Kannon]

"Technology corrupts the soul of those who rely on it." Leida shrugged. "I am not a sadhu to caution you on your karma though."

She was in fact glad to move on from the subject. "There is. The Eyrie had been a repository and a scriptotium of holy texts for millennia."

[Kiran Alsahar]

Kiran let the subject drop, just making a note in the back of their mind to keep an eye on their technology use around those here going forward. It seemed the precept against thinking machines applied to all machines here.

"That's incredible. Not just a library, but an insight into the movement of religious thought over millenia. I'm honored to be able to help uncover it."

[Kannon]

"They were always meant to be shared. This has been our mission since the time of the Ecumenical Translators." Leida said with an added sense of purpose.

They stopped descending. The tunnel opening before them really felt old now. Water had compromised stonework in various places and had glazed many stones into sheen. Even if it looked liked catacombs, it didn't feel like them. There were no signs of death. Because there were no organic signs. Just primal elements. Whatever this was, it didn't show signs of using by any scribes.

"But I am not sure if this path will lead us to it." She voiced the pervasive observation.

[Kiran Alsahar]

"I'd be worried about the records being compromised by the elements if they were down here. Do you have a general idea of where they should be?" They asked, taking in their surroundings. This might not lead there, but maybe they could find a way.

[Kannon]

Leida shook her head.

"We have come from Veritas. Neither of us had been in the Eyrie before it was destroyed. And even before it was destroyed, most of it got already taken by a great avalanche. Finding way around is hard."

They finally reached it. The nun stopped, pointing at it. A sheer surface, like stone, but with a metallic sheen. The contrast between it undented integrity and the corridor that led them to it could not be starker. Whatever this material was, someone had meant it to survive.

"I thought about going around it. If this is a door, maybe getting through the walls to what it blocks will be more possible."

[Kiran Alsahar]

Kiran approached it and ran a hand over the surface, then knocked on it. "Hrm... Tough."

[Kannon]

She felt something across the surface, as if there was a barely palpable pattern carved onto it. But what was it? A shallow relief dredged by water, or something more?

[Hard Perception, 2 Boost from prior experiences.]

[Kiran Alsahar]

Kiran felt the indentation. "There might be something here."

[Using Triumph to figure out the door and gain some additional insight.]

Perception Hard, 2 boosts

Net Successes: 3; Net Advantages: 0

[Kannon]

[Triumph consumed.]

It almost frightened Kiran how easy it came to them, indicating conditioned affinity or unacknowledged memory. There were letters all over the wall, too shallow to see, but in the end palpable to trained fingers. Within each letter there was an inflection point, just like the etches that had allowed them to open the Azhar Book. The letters were many, top to bottom, but they didn't seem to be forming any coherent text, event in languages that Kiran could not know. It felt like a giant keypad.

For a Bene Gesserit password.

[Kiran Alsahar]

Kiran's eyes went a little wide as they came to understanding. This was a new and unsettling development. Still... they had to focus. They could deal with the implications of this later.

They looked to Leida. "Are there any... central tenets or key phrases your people use? Like a mantra?"

It was a long shot, but the Bene Gesserit would likely leave something that their people would recognize, a clue specific for others of their order, seeded into the beliefs of those cultures they influenced. Leida just might not have it.

[Kannon]

Leida, quite beguiled by what was occurring, could provide many such tenets and mantras. Introducing neither of them proved fruitful, however, after an hour of checking them. It wasn't exactly a wasted effort as Kiran managed to learn a fast way to run her fingers across the inclination points in each shallow letter. The lack of certain diacritical symbols also told her that she was facing Galach... Perhaps the young nun didn't know enough. Millennia may have passed since this portal had been made. Or perhaps it wasn't the local faithful that were meant to learn what was beyond. If so, then who?

[Kiran Alsahar]

Kiran stepped back, letting out a soft breath. "Nothing yet... I'm not sure this leads to an area most people would have access to, though. It may not lead to the specific place you're looking for, too, if that was a place people could regularly access in its day. It seems pretty secretive."

[Kannon]

Leida frowned. "This is something I should tell the Sadhu about." She was immediately ready to go back. "You?" Having witnessed Kiran's determination for the last hour, Leida was apparently unsure if they would just give up for now.

[Kiran Alsahar]

Kiran nodded. "I think that's a good idea." They stepped away, turning to follow Leida.