Stone carvings and engravings, many of which must have weighed close to a ton, took up two rows by themselves. Paintings and other artwork were staged on easels or displayed on massive stone tables near the right side of the chamber. The final row was the one that held everyone’s attention the longest; it contained the gold bars Stonewood had mentioned, thousands of them, arranged in twelve distinct piles. There was treasure everywhere; some was even leaning up on the walls of the cavern, apparently after the rows had become full.
Stonewood needed Craig’s support to remain standing. Miller sat on a rock, lightly fanning himself with both hands. Everyone found themselves at a loss of words, silence prevailing for five minutes. It was truly overwhelming.
It was Stonewood who finally spoke. “We’ve done it,” he said, walking up to each member of the party he had put together, seeming genuine as he thanked them one by one.
Miller stood and pointed to the left wall, saying, “Look over there.” The others followed his finger to where someone had once used some sort of chisel to carve a sequence of panels depicting various scenes. Miller gave his insight into the meanings of the panels as he walked the others through the depictions. The first panel contained three large sailing ships at sea. Looking at all the panels in order told a story of these three ships sailing across an ocean to a new land. All three ships were unloaded and their cargo moved to an underground storage area over a period of months. Next, a great battle ensued and most of the men perished and the ships were destroyed. The survivors solicited the help of a large group of natives, removed the original cargo from the underground vault, and then hauled everything across land over a period encompassing two winters. Finally, everything was placed in a new underground vault, far from civilization.
“I saw a similar story engraved in a cavern on Oak Island,” Miller added, after getting through the last panel. “The main difference is that the Oak Island sequence ends with the battle. The field team found the emptied vault, but there were no clues as to what had happened to most of the contents.” Miller then did his best game show host impersonation, gesturing towards the items laid out throughout the room like he was revealing the prize behind door number one. “I give you the true Oak Island Treasure!”
Miller was adamant that nothing should be touched. He would need to get a team down here to carefully document everything before anything was moved. They could all be prosecuted as grave robbers if they didn’t go through proper protocol. With the professor’s blessing, everyone was allowed to walk between the rows in pairs and look. Stonewood practically dragged Craig towards the suits of armor, where they began their tour. Samantha and Pierre paired up, zooming around the room like two wide-eyed rats in a maze. Lewis and Gonzalez strolled along together, going up and down the aisles as if shopping in a very extravagant market. They would stop from time to time to discuss a particularly interesting piece before moving on. The quantity of items was overwhelming.
This was clearly meant to be something more like a museum than a traditional treasure horde; no items were duplicated, and each category of treasure had numerous examples spanning long periods of time and covering multiple cultures. There must have been close to a thousand swords: from wooden to steel; medieval broadswords to Japanese katanas. Like everything else, the scrolls varied by apparent age and the material they were written on, but their actual content would remain a mystery until properly-trained archeologists could process the rolled documents.
As he looked at the treasure, Lewis kept a watchful eye on the others, looking for any odd behavior. Nothing stood out. He was becoming ever more certain that Samantha had been simply jumping at shadows. They were all tired and stressed, and it was getting to them.
As each pair finished their journey around the room, they joined Miller, who had stayed at the entrance, overseeing the group. Lewis could tell that the professor was mostly worried about the site from an archeological perspective, but he knew Miller was also keeping an eye out for any suspicious behavior. A subtle shrug indicated he had come up empty as well.
Once everyone was reunited at the head of the chamber, Lewis delivered the sobering news they had all pushed to the back of their minds. “We are still trapped down here.” He paused to confirm he had everyone’s attention before continuing. “Finding this is great and it provides meaning to the struggles we’ve been through, but now it is time to really focus on our survival before we become another part of this archive.” He hated being the kill-joy, but it wouldn’t do anyone any good to sit around wasting time and batteries.
Stonewood had spent countless months preparing for this expedition to find the treasure. Now that his primary focus was accomplished, jubilation gave way to exhaustion. His voice sounded tired and shaky as he said, “Quinn is right. I have been particularly blind to the perils as I pushed everyone to come here, and I will do everything in my power to make things right. Are there any objections to a short rest before we push on?”
Lewis thought a break was a perfect idea. Having learned early in his college days that working on a tough project all night long rarely produced great results, he had found it was almost always better to get a little rest and attack things with a fresh mind. Rather than answering Stonewood’s question, he simply sat against the wall and turned out his light. The others followed suit and soon there was nothing but blackness. Lewis closed his eyes and fell asleep instantly.
Chapter 8 — THE PITS
Lewis felt a moment of panic when he first woke; he feared he had gone blind. He knew he had opened his eyes and yet he still couldn’t see. Slowly remembering the living nightmare of the cave, he covered the lens of his headlamp with his hand before switching it on. The dull glow escaping his fingers was enough to survey his surroundings without disturbing the others just yet. Samantha had laid out one of the sleeping mats, but everyone else had more or less collapsed in place.
Lewis stood and stretched, taking care to keep one hand covering his light. That’s when he realized that Stonewood was missing. He could see some scuff marks where the billionaire had sat against the wall just a few feet from where Lewis had slept; now the spot was empty. Lewis shut off his light again, scanning the area for any sign of another headlamp. There was nothing, only blackness. He whispered Stonewood’s name into the darkness, waiting a few minutes in case the man had just gone off to relieve himself or something.
Lewis’s heart rate began to quicken as he forced his tired mind back into action. He gently shook Craig awake to see if he knew anything about where Stonewood had gone.
Craig wakened immediately and was instantly alert — a good trait for a soldier. “He was right next to me when I fell asleep,” the bodyguard said. “Maybe he had to pee.”
“I thought of that. I quietly called his name a few minutes ago, but haven’t heard another sound since. I don’t have a good feeling about this.”
“Me neither.”
They woke the others, explaining the situation to their groggy teammates before deciding what to do. Everyone shouted for Stonewood, but there was no response. Lewis tried checking the ground for footprints, but the floor in the area was mostly solid rock; the few places where footprints were visible had prints from everyone in the group, going in all different directions.