Death, broken limbs, and people lost forever were a concern for those who ventured beyond the towns or cities; the landscape was filled with entranceways into tunnels beneath. Holes were all over the land unsuspecting people fell into the tunnels beneath or broke their legs, a hazardous circumstance. None in the present generation explored them; few cared too. The doors to the tunnels rotted away centuries ago, and the cries of children were heard as they had fallen in one of the entrances ways parents never found them; after days, their cries got fainter, indicating they were dead. That was why people called them the death tunnels. 

Although the tunnels were exposed to light with circular entrances ways, it was dark and denser than a moonless night with stars in the sky. The rings of light around the circular entranceways once warned people; they faded after many years of use, and whatever powered them had fallen into disuse. During its zenith, the entrances to the top areas were decorated by the dome of stars revealed only at night. No explanation sufficed how the stars were projected on the crown of the entrance. The stars weren’t painted because they moved synchronized with the natural movement of stars in the sky. One of the explanations was a machine inside the entry dome, but none were found. A dangerous shaft of light bursts upward without warning, causing forgetfulness, death, and paralyzation. No heat emanated from the light, yet it burned living things to a crisp that came too close. In time, dome hatches corrupted, and only a hole was left, so the light was no longer a threat. 

What happened to the people who fell in the tunnels? Travelers from far away kept a respectable distance; they were told for generations of the terrifying lights but no longer a threat.  At infrequent times, a light flashed near the entrance, spreading fear in the populous for many leagues. There were reports of machine sounds emanating from the tunnels. Did machines exist in the tunnels? Someone from far away got curious; he wished to investigate. The problem of the burning lights frightened him as the locals had been for years, and they asked him why. He replied he was curious, but that explanation wasn’t enough for the locals. He wanted to bring the remains of those people to the local temples for burial. There was the challenge of not being roasted by the lights. The traveler sat safely from the entrance, hoping the locals might have helped him discover a way to shut off those lights or find another way into the tunnels. He noticed a scarecrow nearby, the thought of a dummy man, an experiment; it worked, and the lights burned it. Now there was the problem of killing the mechanism if there was one or it was magic. The burning light shot up and burned the scarecrows. With the help of men with shoves and crowbars, the traveler dislodged the machine and hatch while a priest uttered an incantation that neutralized the magic. Not wasting time, the traveler jumped down the tunnel entrance, where he caught the ladder down in pain, being partially singed.

As he and a group of people descended, there was nothing, only the clean walls of the tunnel. The tunnel angled at a steep angle at once, and they entered a large chamber with dim lights and a wall hundreds of feet high with glowing windows. A man peeked out. He said, “Whose there!” Many other people opened their windows. In the distance, giant machines with pipes going here and there, humming and screeching. Children laughed, yelled, and screamed. Babies cried. There was an entire civilization beneath their feet. The hatches or covers for the holes were used to protect these underground people from invasion.