Ancient World: part 1

Long lines of sunlight filtered into the cave through hanging vines.  It was peaceful, quiet, deserted, at least to the untrained eye.  The young man that swept aside the curtain of foliage to peer into the gloom was of a more knowledgeable sort.  Fishing a small stone pendant up from out of his shirt, he glanced back and forth between the darkness and the polished jade arrow hung on a thick leather string.  It pulled in his hands, moving forward with a soft tug that drew him inwards.  Behind him the vines slid back into place, dimming the area again.  Stepping farther in, he mumbled a whisper to the stone and it began to glow green.  It was a dull, faint light, but he felt around on the wall, searching for nooks and crannies, sweeping the light across the stone, letting the pull guide him as much as the light.

It fit with a click, finding a crack in the stone and magnetically snapping together.  A green glow spread through the stone itself, like moss growing in a moment what a summer might nourish.  Then, like a vacuum the air, the vines, the young man's coat, his backpack straps, his hair, all of it was pulled in towards the wall.  He stepped through.

It was dark, and the air was musty.  Stars shined down through a thin canopy of trees that scattered the ground around him.  It was an old forest, stretching out all around him on the flat expanse he sat upon.  Standing, turning, he saw the tree-trunk glowing the same green behind his entrance.  That would be for later.  For now, he had treasure to hunt, if only he could figure out where.

Hours later, he had found nothing more but trees and dirt.  No sign of what was hidden in this rift.  No sign of the local fauna that he had come to expect.  Perhaps this one had already been cleaned out, he thought.  He wasn't the only person making his way through the wilderness, searching for these places.  Yet he had seen no tracks that would indicate this place had been found.

He set up camp near the glowing tree, kindling a fire and raising a tent.  The night was turning to dawn when he finished.  Sleep hit him fast, exhausted as he was.  As he slept, the fire sputtered out, the sun rose higher, and the forest changed.  When he awoke, the trees had shifted.  It was like they had uprooted, traveled a ways, and then set down again.  The sun was setting as he prepared some rations for his rumbling stomach.  The tree that he had settled next to had moved, and he had to search an hour to find the glow again.

That night he napped, relocating his camp to the glowing tree again.  The dawn came, then the sun climbed.  He watched the trees, fiddling with his pendant.  It was not the trees that moved, however.  In large chunks, the ground split, like an earthquake in molasses.