Lithography

It was dark and dank down there, making it difficult to read the already hard to decipher symbols that covered the walls. The ruins had remained underground for generations - while they hadn't been unknown of, it was difficult just to get down to them, and the few who had made the push to explore them hadn't found much other than the cryptic runes that were so prevalent. It was assumed that they were some kind of ancient forgotten language, but it was almost impossible to translate, due to the lack of any consistency in the lettering or frame of reference to how the language was formed.

"Are you sure you know where you're going?" Jared asked, trying to slink his way through the rock faces to enter the main cavern. His little brother, Ramsey, had found a book that he had been seemingly obsessed with for a few weeks. Ramsey was a different kind of kid - he spent most of his time reading textbooks and dictionaries, rather than fiction or playing games. He loved to learn. And there was nothing wrong with that, but he was ten years old and knew more than Jared did at eighteen. It was just strange.

"Yeah," Ramsey responded. "The directions are pretty clear."

"What directions are you talking about?"

Ramsey looked back up at his brother, who was a few dozen feet behind him. He was a lot smaller than Jared, which made it a lot easier to squeeze through the tight spaces of the caves. "These ones, on the walls," he said, pointing up at the incoherent words that spanned the walls. "They tell you which way to go."

"How can you even read those?" Jared asked, disbelief evident in his voice. "No one even knows what language they are."

"It's in the book."

"Are you crazy? If there was a book about it, people would know."

Ramsey waited for his brother to catch up before handing him the book. "I've already got most of it figured out. Just look at it."

Jared took the book and looked at it, unsure of what to think. He knew that Ramsey was smarter than he was, and that he didn't have any place questioning his brother, but what the kid was saying was crazy. He opened the book slowly, to find blank pages with a faint blue tint to them. He flipped through the pages, confused and concerned. What was going on? Had Ramsey lost his mind?

But when he looked up, things were clear. The darkness was gone, cast aside by shimmering blue lights along the walls, clear words and sentences written glowing where before he had seen only runes.

"There's still a few words missing," Ramsey explained. "That's why we have to go deeper."