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Chapter IX: The After-Word

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So. As if the others didn't have their work cut out to them for the rest of their lives in the first treasure, they now had the next one to obsess about. Less gold, to be sure, but enough texts to keep them going for the next thousand years or so. At least until they discovered the next clue to the next treasure – although Riley didn't really know where they could go from here.

Abby had accompanied Patrick back to the States, and would go back to working on the first treasure just as he'd predicted. And the last he'd heard from Ben and Ian, they had been muttering something about "Nazis, huh. You think there's something to those stories about the Lake Toplitz? They never did find those crates."

"Fancy some diving, babe?"

That was the point where Ben had been distracted by Ian's grin, it seemed. All talk of treasure had been forgotten so Riley had left them at it and gone in search of some kisses himself.

Of course, he did end up falling for a woman who was just as obsessed about the damn find as Ben had been about the Templar treasure. He could foresee years and years of living in the damn frozen wasteland, and working on cataloguing the new find, symbol by symbol, painting by painting, bit of gravel after another. As much as the world had come to pieces, this new world order felt much like the old.

Then again... over the screen of his laptop he met Mina's laughing gaze and watched the laughter turn to fire as she leaned in to kiss him.

Well, with some changes. Not bad for a treasure, this.

The End

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Sources:

Wikipedia

Ignatius Donnelly: Atlantis, The Antediluvian World

Ibid: Ragnarok, The Age of Fire and Gravel (My title and chapter titles from this work)

Rand Flem-Ath and Colin Wilson: The Atlantis Blueprint

Gavin Menzies: 1421: The Year China Discovered the World

Lewis Spence: The History of Atlantis

Two Atlantis documentaries on the National Geographic Channel, and one on the History Channel. (No, don't remember names, and no, they weren't very good. The last one had spirit guides.)