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little bit harder, and then harder still until her palms hurt. No doubt about it. Metal, and solid - apparently armoured or, at least, reinforced. But what on Twilight was it? She took a few steps back so that she could see the thing more fully and, with a pulse of excitement, realised that that the metal object was mounted on some kind of rotating tracks as if it might ride on them - move on them, in fact.
    Kali continued her excavation anew, pulling now at larger stones and rocks that were embedded in the scree and then rolling each down over their predecessors until the pile was too big to accommodate more. But that didn't matter because she had managed to reveal enough of the machine for her purpose, and what she had revealed made her step back with a gasp.
    She was standing in the space between the rock and what, it seemed, had been travelling through the rock, although what mechanism it employed to do this she could not see as she had not yet unearthed its front end. It was clearly a vehicle, however, as evidenced by the fact that there was a hatch in its side - and the hatch was covered in dwarven runics. Kali ran her palm over it in some wonderment, realising that while it was far from the first dwarven artefact she had discovered, it could very well be the first from the age that had produced it.
    Through her own studies she had accredited three distinct periods of development to the Old Races - both elven and dwarven - during which they had progressed from opposing factions, utilising either magic or technology to build their individual civilisations, through periods of conflict where they had waged war using magic against technology, to the final age where, reconciled, both Old Races joined forces to expand each civilisation through magical technology . By this time both were so advanced that they would have been perceived almost as gods, and they could have been glorious and supreme if something hadn't happened. Whatever it was that had been powerful enough to wipe out these two great civilisations - to effectively eradicate them from the surface of Twilight - was perhaps the greatest of all mysteries but one that Kali intended one day to solve. The point was, that the vehicle she was studying appeared to come from the end of that last age, because what else could those orbs be but magical technology?
    Becoming more excited by the second, Kali moved to the edge of the hatch, feeling around it until she had traced a round cornered, rectangular shape. It was sealed tightly but, being a hatch, there clearly had to be a way to open it. Perhaps that little niche there, marked with the rectangular symbol?
    Kali felt inside and her hand wrapped around what felt like a small handle, which she gripped and pushed. Nothing happened, so she pulled instead. And then she staggered back as a giant, bronchial floprat with halitosis exhaled heavily in her face.
    That, at least, was what it felt and smelled like. But there was no floprat, only the rank atmosphere coming from inside.
    Kali watched the hatch release itself from its seal, punching away from the main body of the vehicle with a second exhalation and there waiting for a moment before, with a kind of wheeze, it slid slowly to the side. Kali understood now what she had just activated. The hatch was similar to the rune surrounded doors she had discovered in the Spiral of Kos, vacuum sealed by a method she did not understand to protect whatever lay behind them. But, where beyond those doors had lain ancient laboratories, behind this one lay only darkness.
    No, she thought, not quite darkness. What appeared to be some kind of small, cramped cabin lay within, illuminated very dully by the same strange glow that had brought her to this part of the cave. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she noticed that the glow seemed to be emanating from a number of places within, each of them small - panels, perhaps, with levers. Some kind of control cabin then? But controlled by what?
    Oh ,