Unexpected find

Beautiful early morning. Birds are singing. A Tyrolean trill* is heard. Telephone.

"Dara, come urgently to me!" and then the phone rings. The caller hung up.

"So what was that?" Dara, he was not particularly happy with the call. But something must have happened to his cousin, Shir-Ali.

After 20 minutes, Dara was standing in his cousin's yard. The yard was small, with a garden, an old imperial style house. One-story, covered with lime instead of plaster. The frames are wooden, painted with bright green paint of Avocado color. And the roof is covered with iron sheets.

From under the foundation of the house came the measured knock-knock-knock and sometimes the thunder of falling stones were heard. Clouds of dust escaped. It was brown.

"Is there anyone alive?" Dara barked loudly.

Silence reigned in the courtyard. Then a cousin's head emerged from one corner of the torn-up foundation. He was covered in dust. There is a blue hard hat on his head, goggles, and a respirator on his eyes.

He leaned out over his shoulders, and then just waved his hand, saying come to me and again disappeared under the house.

Intrigued, Dara climbed after his cousin.

The hole was right under the house, to his surprise, stone steps led down to the bottom, he went down to the basement, a lamp shone from above.

The basement was small, about 15 square meters. Broken wooden racks were lying on the floor, old cast-iron irons, kerosene lamps, and some kind of dusty books were piled in a separate corner. Two umbrellas, on a wooden handle with a black ebonite ball. There was brown dust on things and on the floor.

The bent figure continued to swarm about the wall, then, removing her respirator, said:

"Dara, I found a dungeon! Come with me, I'm alone, I'm scared!"

"Are you sure about that? This isn't some kind of technical communication?" answered Dara.

"No, there are no pipes, but I found a gold coin there, look," and Shir Ali took out small yellow crochet from his pocket. The coin is well preserved. There was an eagle on one side, and a man with a beard on the other.

Having looked carefully at the coin, one could read - 10 gold marks, weighing 9 grams of pure 999 gold, 1898.

Dara looked with envy at the find, 1 gram of gold cost 40 euros. Not bad! And what awaits them next? Maybe they will find a big treasure?

"Well, let's go?" Shir Ali had already stepped into the hole.

"Wait, let's get together first, I'll take myself a helmet, we'll buy powerful flashlights, just in case, two small cylinders for 20 minutes of oxygen, food, water, first aid kit, gloves, good army boots, a metal detector, a geological hammer and walkie-talkies" as a more experienced prospecting works said Dara.

He did not know that Shir Ali was a stage 4 cultivator** and therefore did not need oxygen, food, water, or light. And he invited his cousin, not out of fear, but because it was boring to explore everything alone.

But Shir Ali did not know that his cousin possessed magical powers, each of them hid their new opportunities from the other.

It took about two hours to collect the necessary things and now the two cousins ​​went to explore the dungeon.

Shir Ali was the first to crawl through the wall, followed by Dara, who immediately turned on the metal detector. In the first room, he found only three coins and two buttons. There were no more gold coins, there weren't even silver ones. But there was the copper "Tenga", the Small-An coin, which was used before colonization. They were worth nothing, maybe a couple of cents.

But the buttons were worn so that they were not distinguishable. But Dara took them with him, which is also an interesting find.

Shir Ali urged his cousin, saying that he could then explore this room in more detail. Now the main goal is to see where the dungeon goes and what is there.

So Dara interrupted his search and walked into the darkness after his cousin's back.

The first room overlooked the second and third. Judging by the charred wood, the floor used to be parquet, and the walls were decorated with rich alabaster stucco. The ceilings once had richly arranged crystal lamps.

Something happened and everything burned down, now only the remnants of the former luxury could tell an accidentally wandering traveler that life was in full swing in the dungeon.

The third room opened onto a long corridor, which rested on a small oak door, but now there were only forged hinges, and on the floor, there were forged staples and thick screws. Among the coals and burnt wood.

What happened here, apparently no one will ever know ?!

Having squeezed into a small opening where the door used to be, the two cousins ​​got into an underground passage.

It was four 600 Mercedes wide and 6 meters high.

The floor was covered with burnt, red bricks, but the walls were made of small tiles, covered with azure, in places they fell off. And behind them was the yellow brickwork.

The ceiling was covered with light azure.

"I wonder what the tunnel is for, why the walls and ceiling are covered with glazed tiles?" asked Shir Ali.

"Who knows"! answered on the Dara submachine gun.

"My assumptions, this is a tunnel to drain water, maybe a tunnel for an important person who moved from one part of the city to another in this way. Maybe this is a secret smuggling road. Or maybe a hidden hole for special formations to strike behind enemy lines. ". Dara shared his thoughts.

"But that doesn't explain that everything is too beautiful, and why was this tile needed at all when the dungeon was built?" Shir Ali refuted it.

Dara said nothing, waved his hand, they went on ... the floor was uneven, it was hard to walk out of habit. It seems the tunnel had a slope, they went down below. Sometimes they heard the hum of something, which eventually disappeared, just as suddenly as it appeared.

The tunnel kept going into the distance, they walked and walked, but the tunnel did not end in any way, 1000 steps, 2000 steps, 7000 steps ...

... when suddenly, they saw scattered papers on the floor, and on them, something was written in pencil. But the handwriting was incomprehensible. There were also old books with the words "Bulletin of the Imperial Society of Natural History for 1904", "1905", "1912".

Remains of gold shoulder straps, dozens of spent cartridges, a revolver that has completely fallen apart from rust, a saber broken in half.

And also buttons with eagles are folded in a heap.

It can be seen here that a once sad story was played out ... someone was hiding from the new government, changed their appearance, and flowed away somewhere. An official of the first empire knew about the underground passage. Another story about a man who lived in this city and where he disappeared.

They went further, traces of the destruction of the dungeon appeared more often ... sometimes there were skeletons of dogs, skeletons of large snakes, 5-9 meters long. There were more skeletons. Big cats and some kind of hoofed animals. They were old, brownish in color. But maybe it's just the remnants of mud from the water?

Again, there were many spent rifle casings. After a dozen steps on the floor, they saw the remains of the rifles themselves, and clearly human bones.

"Damn, now I have to call the general," Dara said with annoyance in his voice.

"Why?" asked the poorly versed Shir Ali

"Well, bro, don't be blunt, these are the first two rules of a treasure hunter:

1. saw the bones of people call the police

2. saw a weapon, cartridges call the police. "

dropped over Dara's shoulder.

"Why then do you need to call the general and which general"? asked Shir Ali.

"Well, to the general who works as the head of the archival department of state security, we met with him in the past." Apparently this tunnel is connected with an old project of preparing a partisan movement in the event of an attack by Nazi Germany, "Dara began to tell sadly.

"They will buy your house, and you will have to look for a new house to buy," he muttered under his breath.

"Why?" Shir Ali was indescribably surprised.

"I just bought a house!"

"Well, the whole area was built in 1878 ... these were gardens and summer cottages for junior officers of three regiments - artillery, infantry, and cavalry of the empire. And before colonization, it was the territory of a cemetery with ritual buildings. the place was the fortress of the ruler of the city "Dara shared his knowledge. He was also a historian by his master's degree.

They walked on until they came to a fork.

Dara went to the right and Shir Ali to the left. Each of them had their own amazing surprise.

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* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQhqikWnQCU

** https://www.webnovel.com/book/gourmet-dao_16518108406346305/level-of-cultivation_45365960709828432

*** The general appeared in the novel (but then he was a colonel) - The Adventures of Treasure Hunters - 1 season