The Corydon University Lighthouse Tower - Tunnel 42
In the early days of Summerland settlement, the Summerland Mining group became a major industrial power in the region. Having found a variety of rare and valuable minerals in the hills surrounding Summerland Lake, the SMG immediately began the process of staking claim to several sites in order to set up mining operations. In the nearly two hundred years since that time, the SMG has succeeded in making hundreds of millions of dollars as a direct result of their foresight and dedication to milking the area for all that could be had. They dug long and they dug deep.
For many years there have been stories about ghosts and spirits of the earth haunting the deep tunnels. Miners tell stories about ore veins mysteriously drying up, or solid tunnels suddenly collapsing. Some say that they have seen things down in the dark, things that they cannot describe. There are stories about miners disappearing without a trace, their crewmates finding only a hard hat or a lantern remaining. One of the most common stories that miners tell is of the Deep Shadow. According to legend, there is a darkness dwelling in the lower reaches of the mines. When the darkness comes out, no lantern or light can maintain its luminosity. Flashlights die and work lights dim as if the whole area were suddenly in a deep shadow. Those miners that do not run from the Deep Darkness either disappear forever, or they come out of the mines having lost all sanity. They gibber and rave about the Deep Darkness and what it whispered to them and what it did to them.
Of course, the SMG management and their corporate-funded investigators and psychologists dismiss these all such claims as either flights of fancy or as claustrophobia-induced madness. Over the decades many teams of company investigators, law enforcement, and paranormal investigators have combed the tunnels for signs of the Deep Darkness or any other such disturbances that miners claim to have encountered. And to this day there has not been a single documented encounter with anything out of the ordinary. In reality, whether they actually found anything or not, the end result would be the same. There would be nothing to lend credibility to any claims that the mines are unsafe.
But recently one of the mining teams unearthed a vein of mineral that could not be identified. It was metallic and extremely hard; they ruined three expensive drill heads before being approved for a more advanced drilling system. Rumors began to circulate that the metal couldn't be identified because it was from a long-buried spacecraft. The stories of ghosts and shadows now became reports of little green me and men in black. Disappearances and madness were now attributed to alien abductions and secret government experiments. Again the company sent in a team of investigators, but this time they closed the tunnel. Nobody was allowed into the tunnel that was now referred to as Tunnel 42.
What really happened was that the mining crew, following the vein of ore, broke through into a void. It was definitely not a natural cavern. The miners reported seeing a vast open space encircled by what appeared to be intricately carved pillars. There were stone benches and what might have been flower beds a thousand years ago. They could hear running water in the distance, but nobody wanted to go any farther in. In fact they all claimed that they heard voices in the darkness. some said it sounded like someone calling out for help, while others said that it was more of a threat to stay away. One and all refused to go back into Tunnel 42.
The miners had broken into a building that had been part of the great city of Credentium a few millennia ago. The particular edifice into which they stumbled was the Corydon University Lighthouse Tower, part of the sprawling temple complex dedicated to the god Corydon and his mate, Stultus. The Credents (residents of Credentium) had been an intensely religious people, similar to the ancient Egyptians. Their entire society had been built around the worship of their two gods. After a thousand years of dedication and service the Corydon and Stultus, the people began to waver in their faith. The rich and powerful began to abuse their positions of authority. They traded in their belief in a higher cause for wealth and power. And the gods punished them for it. A large meteorite hit the city and buried it more than two thousand feet underground. Eventually a lake formed in the crater that was left, and it is now called Summerland Lake.
The temple complex was built around a high hill, and on the top of the hill, at the heart of the complex, was built the massive Corydon University Lighthouse Tower. It basic construction resembled an Aztec pyramid. It's purpose had been as a center of learning the ways of the gods, as close to the heavens as possible. The pyramid had seven sides instead of the more common three or four-sided variety, and it reached nearly three hundred feet into the sky. At its apex was a dome of crystal, inside of which was a powerfully burning light that could be seen from some 30 miles away on a clear night. A wide ledge surrounded the dome for the purposes of observation and experimentation. The heptagonal pyramid was nearly two hundred feet across at its widest point.
At the center of the pyramid was an open column one hundred feet across and two hundred feet high. It was surrounded by open balconies of twenty floors around the outside of the pyramid. This open area was where the SMG miners had broken through. One side of the pyramid had collapsed completely, forming a nearly solid area of rubble almost indistinguishable from the rock around it. The vein of minerals the miners had been chasing were fragments from the construction of the lighthouse that had been strewn throughout the rubble.
It was the will of the gods that Credentium had not been completely destroyed, but instead buried with all of its inhabitants. There was still significant damage to the city, as evidenced by the collapse of the side of the lighthouse. The miners broke through about twenty feet up on one side of the central column. They could see very little from there, but their imaginations certainly filled in a lot. The investigation team made it farther into the lighthouse, but only as far as the other side of the open column. By that point they had gathered some samples, taken some pictures, and determined that this was well above their pay grade. They immediately reported back to corporate headquarters, and a more in-depth scientific expedition is being planned.
When the city was buried, the lighthouse was obviously damaged. In addition to the side collapsing, the crustal dome at the top was destroyed, as were the top nine floors. That left twenty-one floors more-or-less intact, except for the side that was destroyed. There are living quarters for more than two hundred people, kitchens, classrooms, chapels, smithies, laboratories, and a number of other types of rooms left to explore. The thing that interests the SMG corporation the most is the abundance of relics and artifacts left intact. Two thousand year old pots and pans can be worth quite a lot on the black market. But SMG will do everything they can to keep the archeological community from getting involved. If that happen, they are will have to close their mines so that anything of historic significance can be recovered and preserved.
What SMG and the archeological community failed to realize was that the the Credents truly had the favor of the gods. Many of the artifacts in the buried city have power. By the same token, when the gods cursed the city, they cursed the residents' spirits to remain, unable to journey to the afterlife. So there really are ghosts and spirits inhabiting the ruins of Credentium. And those ghosts have been buried in a tomb for over a thousand years with no way to escape.
Until now...
Type
Mine