You soon find the underground room from which this hum emanates. It is as empty as any other you have found among these ruins, with one exception—it contains a tall, oval archway, inscribed with shining blue script in an alien tongue that shifts and changes as you watch.
This device—powered, working—is creating the hum. You smile up at it, wondering what it does, or whether you can get it to do anything at all.
You have a puzzle to solve.
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It takes you two weeks to determine which part of this alien machine is its control panel. After that begins a long process of experimentation, manipulation, and even rudimentary reparation, as you try to coax the machine to do more than change the pitch of its hum or the brightness of its lights.
It is the work of months—months in which weeklong storms come, and you fear that your new project will be flooded and rendered inoperable for good.
And then, one morning, you provoke a bluish glow to appear at the heart of the arch. Tentatively, you reach into it. Your hand disappears from view, and yet there is no sensation of pain. You withdraw your hand, and it appears unhurt.
What do you have to lose? You step through the archway, and that blue haze obliterates your senses.
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