Leave it to the Experts

“Come on boy, this way. I cannot see,” lead scientist Professor Vlviro Vlkbrzok of the fourth Spoolorean Expansion, called out to his assistant.

A younger Spoolorean by name of Glorp Gleever, a research assistant working under Professor Vlviro scuttled closer to his superior. He lifted his kalfagver and gave it a refreshing shake. Inside the hollowed out tube of vegetative matter, thousands of skarl bugs flittered about, emitting a bright pink glow from their abdomens. The immediate area of the ruins was bathed in a warm wash of light.

“By the stars, this place is enormous,” Glorp remarked as they moved through an old metal tunnel that opened up into an expansive hallway, encircling the area. His feelers moved along an old rusted railing that lead to a sort of gated passage way. This was his first real foray of xenoarchaelogical field work; he wanted to take in every moment of awe as he walked through the memory of a forgotten world.

“Here boy, look, some more of the runes like we found on my last expedition,” Vlviro noted the shambled markings on the wall that read: T KT  B TH

“Fascinating!” Glorp commented. “I think these have the same origins as the ones you found before. What do the codices say on them?”

Professor Vlviro rubbed his feelers across his three chins contemplatively.

“Our leading theories are that the primitives this world would use them as way points to direct their selves from one location to the next, as it was difficult for them to move in an orderly fashion without proper guidance and instruction. See these dividing rails? They were herded here much like we would the Banoo livestocks back on Spoolorea.”

“Wow,” Glorp gasped, taking in the entirety of the area.

“Come on then, we have much more to explore,” Vlviro commented leading Glorp further down the vast, open corridors.

They stopped as the corridor expanded towards a sort of enclave once more marked with runes:

C N ESS NS.

Glorp raised the pink fluttering light of the kalfagver towards the enclave. The area was overgrown with tall stalks of flora, a sort of vegetative crop with large yellow seed pods. Glorp looked on at the stalks with a fascinated smile.

“Oooh, Professor Vlkbrzok , what do you think this place was used for? Perhaps some sort of greenhouse or larder, maybe? Look at the commonality of these plants here and how they do not match up with any of the other naturally occurring flora…”

Professor Vlviro furrowed his brows at this.

“I find it rather unlikely, assistant. Perhaps these plants were grown here by some other animal scattering seeds in the area."

Vlviro stepped over the waist high barricade and pushed past the growing crops. He began shuffling around on several dilapidated machines. He reached his feelers around blindly until with a thonk pulled out a thin strip of metal. “If you look past the surface level discoveries, you will often find the truth. See this? This is the remnants of a heating coil from what would be the rudimentary design of machines. If I were to guess, due to the size of the area, and the context of a machine for heating, this was likely a forge they primitives would use for basic crafting.”

“I see. A forge, that makes sense I suppose.”

“Yes, good, we will have our dig teams see what sort of basic engineering these primitives were capable of. I wonder if their flux boards even had a larpingon accelerator,” Vlviro mused.

“Professor, sir, I mean, who doesn’t have a larpingon accelerator attached to their flux boards? That is basic engineering.”

“I would not put it past them, Glorp. From what I have observed in my tenure, the primitives that once populated this planet as a dominant species seemed to be little more than savages.”

“Oh, er, well I don’t know, uhm professor, sir. Were they really savages? I mean they built all of this…”

“We have not yet proven that. Their craniums were three times smaller than ours, after all. Many of my colleagues suspect that the massive structures like this were not built by the natives of this world, but by one of our own kin several star cycles ago.”

“Well if we did that, then how come we don’t have records of that?”

“No, it was before the Kalarkarlark war. Most of our records of that time are gone, alas. Here, follow me, boy we are almost at the heart of this complex.”

“Oh, uh, yes sir, Professor Vlkbrzok sir.”

Glorp followed behind his professor, making sure to provide ample lighting along their way. They walked once more through another ancient an overgrown tunnel, and ascended a set of moss covered stairs. The stairs ped to the outdoors once more, openikh to a wide ring that made the majority of the structure of this super complex. The ring was tapered and had thousands of what seemed to be old seating devices, but far too small for any Spoolorean. The primitives of this world were quite tiny. In the center of this large ring, on a much lower level was a diamond shaped field of greenery and shrubs.

“Ah, here we are, now our expedition is getting somewhere productive, Glorp. What do you make of all this?”

Glorp looked around at the wideness of this complex and couldn’t help but feel in awe of its size and ancient majesty.

“I think it’s quite incredible.”

“I have seen ones of bigger size on other worlds. But it is clear that this is to be some form of arena; a place where the primitives could gather in large number, perhaps like a sort of temple or social forum.”

“I think you’re right!” Glorp agreed.

“Yes, of course you do, as do I,” Vlviro remarked.

Vlviro then proceeded to descend further down the arena, until he was in the diamond-shaped clearing at its center. Naturally, the eager intern that was Glorp Gleever was scurrying close behind, keeping the kalfagver light close and buzzing. Vlviro stopped at one of the walls, and began wiping away some of the vines and muck that had been overgrowing on it. After a few moments of this, he revealed two more sets of runes. The set on the left was inscribed as SP RT NS and had the imagery of one of the native primitives of this world, dressed in what appeared to be ceremonial battle garb, complete with handheld protection disc. The other set of runes was inscribed as WLD ATS and depicted the faded imagery of one of the apex predators of this planet.

“Most intriguing… You see this, young Glorp, this is a mural, likely depicting a great battle that was fought on this planet. Perhaps the battle was between two tribes, or perhaps it was between species over who would have genetic dominion of this world. Either way, it seems the primitives did not survive in the end.”

Glorp followed along with Vlviro’s words and movements, listening intently and taking everything in. Professor Vlviro Vlkbrzok has tenure after all. This was a Spoolorean who knew his xenoarchaelogy. He was the best in the field and Glorp should feel honored to be his research assistant. Still, there was something about all of this majesty and wonder that did not feel exactly right to Glorp. But he dared not question Vlviro again. He knew the professor was wiser than he, so he kept his beak shut, refraining from further input and simply listened. However, as he listened to the professor’s theories and rambling, Glorp’s scuttle pod stepped on something hard in the dirt…something hard and metal.

The professor was wholly not attentive to his intern’s existence at the moment, more consumed instead with his own theories and hypotheses, so Glorp took the chance to reach down, sifting through the vines and dirt to pull the object his scuttle pod encountered. It was a long piece of metal, light but sturdy. Rusted, but well built nonetheless. Despite one end being considerably fatter than the other, and the tapering in size, there was a balance to this metal rod that made it surprisingly easy and comfortable to hold in one’s feelers.

Glorp spent a moment admiring the object, before finally calling forth Vlviro’s attention.

“Hey professor, I found this object, what do you think it’s for?”

Vlviro scuttled over and took out his quadopticals, examining the rod closely, and running his feelers up and down the rounded edges.

“Aha! Yes, good find, Glorp! It is all making sense now! I know exactly what this place is!”

Glorp’s eyes lit up in utter excitement.

“By the stars, you’ve done it again professor! What do you think it is?”

“Well, my dear assistant, what you are holding is an ancient war club. This was a weapon often wielded by the ancient primitive warriors, like the ones depicted here on this wall. I imagine the primitives, being the savages they are, often failed to have tribal unity and frequently went to war with one another. This place appears to be an arena of sorts, a temple to venerate said warriors. We have evidence to suggest that many ancient xenocultures would practice ritual sacrifice in temples such as these. Clubs likr the one you are holding, and other crude weapons were the means of enacting such rituals. Such a barbaric culture, really, but fascinating all the same. Now if we begin to check in Hknonenl’s Treatise on Xenoculture Customs-”

As Vlviro began to ramble again, Glorp still became enraptured with volumes of history he was surrounded by: the club, the, the mural, the sheer size of this arena. Taking it all in, he could almost hear the primitives of this world, like he was there on this field a millennia ago with the others, at the zenith of its activity. The feeling was beautiful to him.

He knelt close to the ground, and began shifting the dirt some more where he had initially recovered this war club. A moment of his digging a little deeper, his feelers detected a change in texture, something smooth and unlike the clumpy coarseness of the dirt. Glorp wrapped his appendage around it and pulled out what appeared to be a small spherical object, very light in color and once the dirt was brushed away, two red lines- stitched abrasions in the object were revealed. “How curious,” he thought.

Glorp looked over at Vlviro, who was still too wrapped up in the brilliance of his own theories to notice what his lowly intern was doing in the dirt. He thought about interrupting the professor’s theories and showing off this object, but he could tell that Vlviro would probably add it to his list of theories; claiming it to be some sort of coveted religious artifact that is a precious and exclusive treasure to this temple.

Glorp had another idea instead.

He looked at the sphere held in one feeler, and the club in the other… And thought and thought… He began making theories of his own. Yet the longer he thought, the less he felt like it. He focused on the club and sphere and let his instincts take over. Slowly he moved the sphere to the tip of the club and dropped it. To his amazement it bounced off leaving the very satisfying sound of the resonance of a metal vibrato.

Glorp liked this.

So he did it again and again and again and again. Bounce bounce bounce.

Each time he did, he would add a little more umph to the bouncing. Finally, all four of his eyes completely focused on the mesmerizing uupp doooown uup dooown of the bouncing sphere, and he spoke up:

“Hey professor."

“Yes, what is it, Glorp?” Vlviro said absent-minded, attention now mostly focused on the mural and away from Glorp.

“I was just wondering…” Glorp said bouncing, bouncing, bouncing.

“What if it was…not that?”

Vlviro paused.

“You are saying I am wrong?”

“No, of course not! It’s just… Well…”

Bounce bounce bounce.

“Well, out with it, boy!”

“I was just thinking, you know… What if it was maybe something else? Maybe this place wasn’t for violence or battle, or even a temple…” bounce bounce bounce “What if this place was just like, I don’t know… Maybe something the people of this world made and came to for fun… You know… like they came here to play a big game or something..?”

BOUNCE! CRASH!

Glorp had lost control of the sphere and sent it flying far across the field, crashing into a wall. At this Vlviro finally turned around, and scuttled sternly towards Glorp.

“What…Was that?”

“Nothing!” Glorp said nervously. Vlviro gave him a very skeptical look.

“Do not tell me lies. Repeat to my face what you just said.”

“I said…. Maybethiswasalljustforagame?”

“That is what I thought you said. And what makes you say this?”

“It’s…just a theory?”

“A theory… Listen to me now, Gleever… The so called people of this world, from all evidence we have were absolute savages. They were brutal, uncivilized, primitive barbarians, not a species evolved enough for things like cooperation and social games. What you have in your feelers is a club, a weapon, not some toy they would play with!”

“I’m sorry Professor, I… Just thought that you know… Maybe it could have been. I mean every animal species we have ever observed likes to have fun sometimes… I just thought maybe these people would too….I don’t know… I just thought…” Glorp said sheepishly.

“Let me clear something up for you, you are my assistant, and I am the tenured professor of Xenoarchaelogy of the fourth Spoolorean Expansion, Professor Vlviro Vlkbrzok. Who you are you? Glorp Gleever, an unpaid research assistant. Why don’t you do your job and hold the kalfagver, and leave the thinking to the experts!” Vlviro scolded as he snatched the metal rod away and returned to studying the mural.

He was the expert after all.