1 The Gate of Pythagoras

Austin was going down the grey road at a leisurely speed, calmly listening to the radio from the local town a few kilometres back.

"Good morning! Today at 8:34 AM we have a nice cool day! Perfect for a nice stroll to take in the fresh air!" The radioman had an excitedly fake cheery tone, obviously trying to hide his exhaustion from having to deal with the morning shift.

Austin grabbed the list he had made when he planned out this trip, making one last check to calm his constantly worrying nerves.

'Flashlight in case of darkness, survival knife for extreme situations, GPS to not get lost like an idiot…'

Everything that he had prepared was there, including his journal to document what is at the site he was making his way to.

"An interesting person is coming past the town today; James Rossi, the famous explorer! He has been well known for exploring several mystical places, such as the Duelling Woods in America where Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton, this time the amazing man is exploring The Gate of Pythagoras!"

'Guess this trip won't be a lone endeavour then.' Austin checked his GPS to see that he was only four or so minutes away from his intended destination.

The car suddenly went up on it's left side.

"What the Fuck!?"

Austin nearly let go of the steering wheel as the car suddenly went right back to normal position, wheels back firmly on the asphalt.

His wheels screeched to a halt as he hit the brake pedal, narrowly avoiding the metal railing that could have led to his death.

Austin took several deep and panicked breaths.

'What the hell did I just hit?' Austin opened up the door and clumsily got out, his head still jolted from whatever he collided with, he focused his eyes on the object on the road.

It looked like a ramp, but it was only big enough for almost all of the car's wheel, Austin walked over to get a better look at it.

When the ramp got to be at his feet he put his hand on it to see what it was made out of, he immediately noticed that it seemed to be made of the same material as the road, as if it just popped up from its normal place as part of the flat asphalt, which was weird in of itself.

'How and why did this specific piece come up like a ramp? It's not like the rest of the road is doing this, so why this piece in particular?'

Austin took out his journal, wanting to document this abnormality, or at least give it a passing mention to go along with this particular trip.

After he finished scribbling this bit down, Austin looked up and proceeded to walk away.

Then he turned right back around and did a double-take.

The small ramp wasn't there anymore, it was as if the asphalt had never been pulled up and nearly caused him to crash his car.

'This feels like an omen; I should probably go back to the car.' Austin picked up his feet and speed-walked to his mode of transportation with a slight feeling of dread in his body.

-Later-

Austin collected his equipment and tools for his trip out of the car, attaching them to his waist and making sure that they were all fastened properly; he always kept his redundancies on him as well.

'Better to have something and not need it, then need it and not have it.'

He took a quick look at himself in his car's rear-view mirror, auburn hair, prescription glasses, and his normal worryingly pale skin, just as he remembered it.

After everything was ready, Austin put his maroon coloured coat on, the length of it went just below his waist, hiding his stuff.

"I'm ready."

Austin began the trek up the stone-carved steps that was the path to the Gate Of Pythagoras.

The walk up was rather pleasant if a bit long all things considered, but it still felt a little off at the same time, it felt to Austin that the pleasantness was coming from everything except the path he was taking steps on.

Regardless he kept going up, as a little uncomfortableness hasn't stopped him before, and it won't stop him now either.

It wasn't long before he found it, the Gate; and its appearance was quite something.

The bottom of the pillars were each two right-angle triangles standing up put on top of each other, creating rectangles; the next parts were each single right-angles on top, with the arch made of two more triangles with their opposite sides put together, making a new triangle, their tips touching the tips of the triangles at the top of the pillars.

Most people would most likely believe that this construction wouldn't work with physics on the principle of giving it the middle finger, but there have been weirder constructions made in modern times that would put this to shame.

What would make the few that know this fact weirded out is that most of those modern buildings were made with lots of modern tech, not stone tools.

Austin sketched it all into his journal, along with some chicken scratch on how he thought it was made, the usual things you would put in.

"Hey! You here to take a look too?!" Austin heard the shout from behind him and turned around.

It was the man himself, James Rossi; he had pitch-black hair and tanned skin, showing his Italian ancestry from before his family moved to Wales.

He was dressed in a red checker-pattern shirt, along with grey cargo pants covered in pockets that were probably filled with various things, as any note-worthy explorer of anomalies wouldn't be caught dead without as many tools as they have fingers, or else they would probably be found dead later on.

The last thing James had was his Go-Pro attached to his left breast, as he often recorded the places he visited for others to see.

Austin held his hand out. "Austin Roth, I've heard of you, Mr Rossi."

James took the hand and shook it firmly. "Same to you Roth."

The two nodded toward each other, in respect for a fellow investigator of the unknown.

"You recording right now?" Austin quizzically asked, wanting to know how the man operated.

"Yeah actually, wanna say hi to the audience? It's not often that I actually meet other well-known folk at the places I explore."

Austin chuckled. "Hello there viewers, I'm the guy who wrote Unnatural Earth! For any readers of said book, thanks for the financial contribution, it's because of you guys that I can afford to go out and do this."

As Austin was giving a quick talk to the Go-Pro on James, a third person was quietly approaching them from a clearing.

Austin suddenly noticed him at the corner of his vision and looked up at the man, James followed suit and turned around to take a look at what caught his acquaintance's attention.

The man was quite scrawny, about a head shorter than either of the two men, with ruddy-looking skin and blue eyes, blackish wavy hair; his clothes gave away that he obviously wasn't prepared for exploring, wearing light red trousers with only two pockets and wearing a basic long-sleeved white shirt with no pockets at all, he didn't even seem to have anything in what pockets that he had.

He left the impression of a weak and naive youth.

"Hey there!"

The scrawny man looked at the two explorers, suddenly appearing afraid.

"You here to go through the Gate too!?"

"..Yeah.." The man was quiet and seemed to be overwhelmed by James normal vocal tone.

Austin decided to be the lesser of two evils.

"Hello there, my names Austin Roth, this is James Rossi, yours?"

"Kenneth Olphéist" He said a bit more confidently.

"Gaelic?"

"Yeah, Ireland.."

Austin's next question stumped poor Ken.

"What's your reason for coming to The Gate?"

Ken froze up, unable to move.

'Scheisse, said the wrong question there.' Austin thought to himself.

But thankfully, the man that is Italian in all but legal nationality due to being from Wales stepped in.

"How about we get to actually exploring this place huh?" James spoke as he pointed to the Gate.

Mr Rossi has successfully got the group back on track and killed the tension with a knife.

---

Kenneth was trying to keep himself from hyperventilating as he took his first step through the Gate, Austin and James each taking deep breaths as they entered as well.

As they passed through, they didn't feel pain or fear, but they felt.. something, it was hard to explain and they doubted they actually could explain it.

They looked around the immediate area, and noticed random pieces of stone similarly shaped to how the Gate was, all made of triangles.

"Doesn't this seem all a bit samey?" Kenneth asked this to Austin and James.

"Probably meant to confuse us, this is pretty common in places trying to hide things." James gave his best answer to the young man, he then proceeded to tap his head when he caught himself staring at Ken's face and noticed that it looked quite freckled.

"I'll do it." Austin said as he pulled out an A4 sized piece of paper and proceeded to sketch what he remembered of their trek from the gate to where they were now, he noted that they most likely have taken a route in the shape of zig-zag, with several sharp turns that seem really impractical to him; but hey, who was he to talk criticism about people who made that gate out of triangles that would usually only be possible with modern equipment.

As Austin was sketching everything out on his map, James felt a cold drop of liquid hit his hand, he looked up at the sky, which seemed to have gotten very cloudy all of a sudden, which the Italian knew was going to be very inconvenient for them, as only Austin had clothes that were good for wet weather.

More drops of water started falling down around them from the sky to the point that everyone else noticed it too.

The three men quickly made their way to the closest building that could act as shelter.

They finally found a small-looking building that looked mostly intact when compared to everything else nearby, but there was a problem, as the door seemed to be shut.

The group was starting to hear sounds of thunder nearby, and the rain was getting heavier, Kenneth was beginning to shiver, as was James, Austin wasn't much better off even with his coat.

"Scheisse! Check for something like a switch, we need to get inside before this storm gets any worse!"

The three of them began to look around, trying to find anything that could open the door, the rain getting even heavier was causing more frustration as the raindrops were getting in their eyes or in Austin's case mucking up glasses.

"I think I found it! This stone has slabs that look like buttons, maybe we can press them down!" Kenneth called to the others, who then promptly came over.

"Don't press anything, we might need to press a specific one!" James immediately shouted, Ken stopped his hand before he pressed anything.

"It looks like a map cut up into three pieces, is it of the world?! I'll press the top one, cause Europe is in the northern hemisphere!" James went to press the top button, but Austin suddenly grabbed his hand.

"Wait! Think about it! This is a structure made by Greeks! During their time, their maps had them in the middle!"

James seemed reluctant to trust that, but figured it made more sense than basing it off a modern map.

"Here goes!" James pressed the middle slab down until it wouldn't go any further.

Nothing happened for a few seconds, but then the door started to slide open.

"Let's get in!" Kenneth immediately entered, the other two following suit.