A low hum becomes a solid thrumming whir. Somewhere far away impossibly large, complex machines of a long since forgotten time awaken from a slumber that should have lasted for eternity and beyond. Countless lights flicker to life along hundreds of corridors which haven’t heard the busy rhythmic patter of footfalls for unknown millennia. Ancient stale and stagnant air is cycled from the empty living areas of a thousand thousand long departed beings. Life slowly, methodically, deliberately reinstated where only fleeting memories and the layered dust of ages should reside.
Along a line of large metal sarcophagi a solitary machine moves on six spindly legs. Arachnid with a vaguely humanoid form rising from it, a malformed centaur, inspecting each in turn ensuring the status and safety of their precious contents. Seven total. Only five need attention, the remaining two lay silent and empty having already fulfilled their purpose and discharged their materials. Out of seven, five remain, only five more chances to forestall the loss of all. The first was a seed a beginning and rebirth the second was a surgical instrument, a subtle attempt, a gentle course correction. It had worked for a time, slow steady progress, but progress turned to stagnation and stagnation led to corruption. The corruption, the decay then led to the unthinkable. The occurrence that should never be began to happen…regression. Things had become dire, drastic measures were now necessary. Where a scalpel was once sufficient a sledgehammer is now needed.
Only a low hum could be heard from the gleaming sarcophagi as the machine moved nimbly among them. It was searching, scanning each box for the proper tool. It lingered at one set apart from the other six. It was different. Where six of the sarcophagi sat on the floor equidistant from each other with their long ends parallel to the wall, one box stood against the opposite wall almost as if watching over the others. Six boxes with the look of quicksilver. One the dark crimson of flowing blood. Four fragile arms take hold of the anomaly, it had the waxen feel of the recently deceased. If the machine had feelings it would have felt dread and trepidation at the sight of that peculiar container, but it had no emotions only it’s duty and the sledgehammer it needed most probably lay within.
Like any other tool, this one had to be properly stored until time called for its use. Like a skilled craftsman that spindly, malformed centaur inspected his dread package slowly with four ocular lenses, methodically checking connections and seals carefully vigilant for damage and outward signs of anything amiss. Slowly, slowly, bit by bit, square millimeter by square millimeter the crimson box was inspected. Finally satisfied, the bizarre caretaker takes hold of its large charge and with the casual strength of a mastodon placed that dire package upon its back. Its business there concluded, six legs quickly carry it and the burden from a cavernous vault that will most likely never again see visitors. If the current tool is successful there will be no need t ever again disturb the ghosts of the past and if the hammer fails there will be nothing left.
