I followed the Grave-Keeper through a cavernous chamber. At its center a sarcophagus sat beneath a massive tree.
I: What’s the tree for?
Grave-Keeper: Oh, that’s for carbon-based life forms that require high blood-oxygen saturation levels to live. Don’t worry, you don’t need that.
I: What about the sarcophagus?
Grave-Keeper: What, the keeper?
I paused, not understanding. I clarified.
I: The stone casket there at the base of the tree.
Grave-Keeper: Yes, I call those keepers. It is what they do. In that keeper rests the last person who came searching for the Secret of Life.
I: I assume they’re dead.
Grave-Keeper: Indeed. But a perceptive question, I’ll give you that.
They motioned to me, even as I wished to linger.
Grave-Keeper: This way, to the Hall of Proving.