The Fountain of Youth

For a long while, rumors of a fountain of youth had been circulating amongst the peoples of the The Swamp Coast peninsula. Eventually, a pendant surfaced from one of the ruins in the Lucca Cays that indicated that it belonged to what translated as the Fountain of Youth in the ancient K'Thonim language. An expedition was formed at an extensive cost to Howth University with an experienced crew. Unfortunately Roberto Ferarri "acquired" the pendant away from the original professor and used it for himself to build his own expedition and beat them to the ruins, investigating them for himself and stealing the discovery for publishing under his own name.
Dr. Ferrari's papers detail a K'Thonim ruin that was still fully operational. The ruins were found in the middle of a large lake in the middle of the peninsula that was miles across on any side. On one shore was an ancient structure in complete ruins that at one time contained wooden boats that moved back and forth from the shore to the "Fountain" ruins themselves. This structure called the "Port" by Dr. Ferrari was controlled by a tribe of K'Thonim worshiping ogre's who the Doctor bribed well in order to cross safely.
The ruins of the "Fountain" were Pyramidal in structure, shaped like the ancient ziggurats found in ruins to the east of the Levant area in Asia with a massive courtyard around it. On top of the pyramid was a massive glowing red crystal, its function Dr. Ferrari theorized at one time connected it to the The Plekenergia, though he provides no theories as to how it survived that systems' destruction.
The rest of the "Fountain" clarified the horror that the pyramid actually was. The interior of the pyramid was a series of rooms used for crowd control, intended to move people from room to room. Inside each room were several massive stone tablets that promoted the K'Thonim and illustrated to the people within that they would live forever as their T'Shole were transited from their "husk" or body. The maze of rooms finally ended in a working version of a T'Shole harvesting K'Thonim machine. This was not a fountain of youth for people, regardless of what the propaganda on the walls said. The rest of the ruin revealed that after the T'Shole harvesting room was used, walls moved aside and the "husks" were removed and tossed into disposal pits.
During the exploration of the ruins, part of the expedition was trapped in the T'Shole harvesting room. Dr. Ferrari was unable to extract them before they succumbed to a horrible accident, and the machine was used one last time on them. Dr. Ferrari observed to his horror that the power that flowed from them went into a secret chamber where a crystal sarcophagus had been concealed. Something had been concealed inside, and the use of the room had triggered its revival. The humanoid creature escaped, and departed before it could be observed. Dr. Ferrari believed that the creature may have been an ancient "trustee", supervisor, or even a K'Thonim.
This last information has been quite disturbing to the The Antikathonum who believe that regardless of the contents of the sarcophogus, some ancient creature has been released into the world that may not have the best interests of the people of the world at heart.

"I was there!  I am sure that it wasn't an accident!  I think that Dr. Ferrari arranged to have part of the expedition trapped in that room.  Their screams still haunt my dreams.  May the Gods forgive me, I didn't stop him."
~ The late Gerald Brinks, formerly of the expedition to the "Fountain of Youth"

Type

Ruins