Extracting the massive stone took most of the day and nearly killed them twice, which Dig later insisted proved the engineering was almost perfect.
The young builder kit arrived first, summoned through Shadow's increasingly confident telepathic network. Dig examined the situation with focus so intense it made everyone else nervous.
"Okay so the stone isn't actually fused to the wall," Dig muttered, already tracing stress fractures with careful claws. The kit was barely two weeks old but talked about structural mechanics like other kits talked about hunting. "See these cracks? Water flow created them over literally thousands of years. We exploit those. Create a controlled collapse that frees the stone without crushing it."
"Or crushing us," Scout added pointedly.
"Right, yeah, definitely want to avoid that. Death would really mess up my construction timeline."
Twitchy arrived with Current, the younger water specialist practically glued to Scout's side these days. The eldest kit surveyed everything with the strategic thinking that had become natural over recent weeks.
"We need multiple support points. Dig handles structural work because that's literally what Dig was built for. Scout and Current manage water flow so we don't all drown when things start moving. I'll coordinate positioning from high ground where I can see everything."
"What about me?" Whisper had followed despite being spectacularly terrible at swimming. The sensory kit looked deeply uncomfortable in the water but determined not to be left out.
"Early warning system," Kai decided. "If anything goes wrong, if chemical composition in the water shifts in ways that suggest imminent disaster, you'll detect it before our pressure sense catches up. You warn us, we abort immediately."
"Perfect. So I get to be the one who panics first. Always wanted that responsibility."
"You're really good at it though," Current offered helpfully.
"Thanks. That makes it so much better."
Bitey stayed topside with Shadow, providing security while the young telepathic kit maintained communication across the entire operation. Shadow's voice filtered through everyone's minds, still a bit uncertain but growing more confident with practice.
Dig says ready. Scout confirms water pressure is stable for now. Whisper's monitoring chemistry and complaining about it. Twitchy has angles calculated. Everyone's in position. Kai can give the word whenever.
"Do it."
What followed was controlled chaos that occasionally threatened to become completely uncontrolled disaster.
Dig worked with precision that seemed impossible for someone so young, exploiting natural stress fractures with claws and raw strength and understanding of how materials behaved under pressure. Stone cracked with sounds that made teeth ache and hearts race. Water surged as ancient pressure points shifted and rock that had been stable for thousands of years finally surrendered to deliberate force.
Scout and Current moved together like they'd been doing this for years instead of days. Two water specialists reading the system like a language only they could understand, redirecting flow with movements that looked almost choreographed.
Whisper suddenly produced a sharp chemical marker that meant immediate danger. "Something's changing! Mineral composition spiking fast! We have maybe seconds before—"
The chamber wall collapsed.
Not catastrophically. Dig had calculated the angles almost perfectly, because of course the obsessive builder kit had. But stone fell in chunks heavy enough to crush bones and end lives, and everyone moved on pure instinct. Scout grabbed Whisper, dragging the less aquatic kit toward the air pocket with strength born of desperation. Current redirected a surge of debris-laden water with movements that suggested the young specialist was learning frighteningly fast. Twitchy and Kai shoved the massive carved stone away from the collapse zone.
Dig emerged last from churning water and flying debris, grinning like an absolute maniac despite having nearly died.
"That was incredible! Did you see how the fracture propagated exactly along the stress lines I calculated? Did you see the pressure equalization right before the secondary collapse? That was beautiful. That was perfect engineering."
"That was almost death," Scout said flatly, still holding onto Whisper who looked like throwing up was a distinct possibility.
"Yeah but we didn't die, so it absolutely counts as perfect. I'm calling that a complete success."
They got the stone back to the main den through sheer stubborn determination and Dig's increasingly creative solutions involving words like "distributed load" and "mechanical advantage" that made everyone else's heads hurt. The young builder kit was having the time of their life. Everyone else was exhausted and traumatized.
But the stone made it. They maneuvered it into the main chamber and positioned it carefully near the five original discoveries.
Six stones total now. Six warnings carved by desperate creatures trying to save people they'd never meet.
Shadow approached slowly, crystal marking pulsing with faint bioluminescence. "I can feel something from it. Not thoughts exactly. More like emotional residue trapped in the stone itself. Whoever carved this was absolutely terrified. Desperate. They knew what was coming and they knew they couldn't stop it and they carved this anyway because they had to try."
"Well that's wonderfully reassuring," Whisper said, recovering enough to examine the carvings with scientific interest. "Ancient terror preserved in rock. Perfect addition to our collection of existential dread."
But Kai was studying the details more carefully now. Better light. Time to actually process everything without drowning or being crushed by falling stone.
The aquatic predator wasn't alone in the carving. Multiple forms rendered with equal precision. Different body structures suggesting different species entirely. Different hunting strategies visible in their carved postures. All of them depicted with the kind of intimate detail that suggested whoever carved this had watched these predators hunt. Had studied them. Had probably been hunted by them.
"They didn't face one predator," Kai said slowly, tracing the carved forms with careful claws. "They faced coordinated assault. Multiple species hunting as a unified force."
"That doesn't make sense," Bitey said. The combat specialist had been studying the stone with tactical focus since they'd brought it in. "Predators compete. They don't cooperate across species boundaries. It's evolutionarily stupid. Competition for resources is fundamental."
"Unless something makes cooperation more advantageous than competition," Twitchy said quietly, connecting pieces faster than anyone else. Always had been good at that. "Unless there's something organizing them. Directing them. Making unified hunting more successful than individual efforts."
The chamber went very quiet.
Current pressed closer to Scout, seeking comfort from the older specialist. "What could make predators work together like that? What could be scary enough to overcome millions of years of competitive instinct?"
No one had an answer. The stone waited silently, its desperate warnings speaking across thousands of years to creatures who might be about to face the same fate.
"Scout," Kai said finally. "You mentioned water flow patterns suggesting there are more sealed spaces deeper down?"
"Yeah. Several locations where water behaves wrong, like it's flowing around constructed barriers instead of natural formation. Places that haven't been accessed in forever. Maybe protective chambers like whoever hid these wanted them preserved specifically."
"Then we keep searching. All of them. Because I think the ancient civilization left us more than just warnings." Kai looked at the six stones now, at the progression from abstract danger to specific nightmare. "I think they left us a story. Instructions. A survival manual written in stone. We just need to learn how to read it properly."
The map in the water pointed to a door someone meant to be found.