Plague Doctor

Low and barely discernible chanting ricocheted in this underground tunnel. Yu Chi, Gu Jun, Keziah Mason and the cat treaded for half an hour and there was still no end in sight. They took multiple turns and everything remained the same. The light fixtures on the walls were the same, the faint voices, the quaking, they were constant and unchanging. They found themselves at another junction. It split into 8 different tunnels and a ladder that led vertically upwards. However, they were probably not going in circles because this set of ladders looked so much newer than the one they used earlier. Regardless, the cat, or in other words, Wu Siyu had to admit that they were lost.

“Meow.” She shrugged and collapsed right in the middle of the road, a clear sign that she had given up on the leading role and also, she needed to rest.

“You can’t sense anything anymore?” Gu Jun asked. He personally was unable to do it, his mind was muddled at this place. Wu Siyu shook her head. She thought she had something earlier but now she realized it was merely a misguided feeling.

Gu Jun looked around and a flash of panic gripped his heart. Something bad was occurring… They were less than 1 hour and 30 minutes away to the end of the countdown. Keziah Mason looked as lost as they were. Her attention was distracted by the electric lights on the wall. That was something as incredible as magic for a girl from the 18th century.

“Captain Gu, I have an idea.” Yu Chi sidled up to the wall. “Come and look at these carvings. I’ve been studying them since we arrived. From the place we landed to here, the walls are covered in carvings.”

“Hmm.” Gu Jun noticed that as well. He wondered if they were part of the ritual or just a decoration. Yu Chi though had a different perspective. He scratched his beard and his face was red. He had trouble forming the words due to his abnormal PTSD. “These are cave paintings, but they are also symbols and letters… How am I supposed to say this? Stone can be a medium! It is why the carvings on stone and paintings on cave walls have always been viewed as symbols and markers.”

Gu Jun nodded. “Understood.”

“Meow.” Wu Siyu was listening in as well.

“Symbols are letters…” Yu Chi scratched his head. “Or I should say it like this. There are three kinds of earliest known human written language, the Egyptian hieroglyphs, Sumerian cuneiform and the Han’s Oracle Bone Scripts. They are all refined from simple symbols.”

Through the weak light, Gu Jun studied the clustered symbols on the wall. “Captain Yu, you mean to say these symbols actually have meaning to them?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean to say. These might be part of a spell, invocation, or historical records.” Yu Chi explained with passion burning in his eyes. If there was a way to copy all of these, he would spend his lifetime studying them. However, that was not all. Yu Chi continued, “I have studied some ancient linguistics. The more I studied this wall, the more they appeared like ancient written language to me. Look, this here is the bone oracle script for the character ‘Worm’. Hieroglyphic writings are simple visual descriptions of an object, concept and action. See, this character looks like a worm.”

Gu Jun could see it. The character looked like a worm, a snake or a fish hook. As he pondered these things, an uneasy feeling rose in his heart. The Chinese language system that they used today was developed from the Bone Oracle Script. It was the only language in the world that survived such a long history of time. Was there a meaning to it? Why were they appearing on the wall?

“As we move further, the number of Bone Oracle Script decreases and they are replaced by more cuneiform and hieroglyphs. I believe they might suggest a passage of time. The deeper we go, the older the language system on the wall. Captain Gu, we will return to the dawn of human civilization. We, from the end of human civilization will complete the circle. Other than that, language marks the start of every civilization. It has always been deemed as a crucial information technology.” Despite the pell-mell explanation, Yu Chi managed to get his point across. “This religion of the Locust God is not that simple. It is more than just a bunch of locusts, I suspect it has to do with time, technology and civilization expansion as well as progression. It is the only reason their altar would look like this. I believe this whole underground system is the altar itself.”

‘Technology?’ The term caused Gu Jun’s brows to crease. Technology, it was the power utilized by humanity and the Yith to resist against the dark forces…

“Meow?” Wu Siyu asked. ‘Then how is this going to help us get to our destination? Or are we already at our destination? All we need to do now is to bite, scratch, pummel the walls? That’ll destroy the altar?’

“She’s asking what should we do now?” That was what Gu Jun got from her meow.

“We should retrace the timeline and go back in time!” Yu Chi exclaimed as he reached out to study the symbols on the concrete wall. “These symbols can be traced back to their origins. Humans existed before civilization. The ape-man, prehistoric men… Look, there are not many hieroglyphs here but there are a lot of Mesolithic symbols. This is a symbol of a bull and this here is the symbol for feather… They are all cave paintings from the Mesolithic time.”

Only Yu Chi had these archaeological knowledge. Therefore Gu Jun did not give any opinion. Keziah Mason stood to the side quietly, Wu Siyu shrugged and went along.

“Captain Yu, why don’t you lead the way?” Gu Jun suggested, “This might be why you’re here… All of us have a reason to be here.”

“Okay, I’ll try…” Yu Chi instantly went down a small distance into the other 7 tunnels. He studied the symbols on the door and determined the timeline each of them should refer to. Some of the tunnels led towards the Neolithic age, which was later than the Mesolithic age.

If Yu Chi was right, they needed to go back to the past, go back to the beginning, so they needed to find the path with Paleolithic symbols. There were 3 tunnels with paleolithic symbols but only one of them had the Oracle Bone Script of Worm.

“This character keeps appearing.” Yu Chi scratched his head and said, “It should not be here. Based on the timeline, it shouldn’t be around anymore. Even the Egyptian hieroglyphs are no longer visible so why is it still here? Bone Oracle Script hasn’t been invented in paleolithic times. Unless… it has travelled through time.”

Gu Jun studied the worm character. Who were the time travelers? The Locust God worshippers or them, the intruders?

They had less than 1 hour and 10 minutes left. Since they had decided on a path, the group resumed their journey deep into the tunnel. But it was unclear whether they were the hook or the hooked fish.