The Adventures Of Ivory Arrow & Jackson Bale

Chapter I

My name, is said throughout the years as one of the greats. Well, maybe not. I am not that famous to those not in our profession. I am Ivory Arrow, the greatest scavenger in history. My job is to be hired by a collector or an aristocrat to go fetch 'priceless' artifacts and deliver it back to them in tip top shape. But when you start this job you must be careful to watch who your employer is. Don't get stuck in the middle of an illegal artifact selling. Currently I am treading through the Gobi desert with a dear friend, Jackson Bale, he's been here with me for a long time. We're looking for this emerald Jewel medallion, in a moonshire temple.
"The temple would be completely submerged in the sand if it's as old as we're told." I say to my companion, the cloth over my mouth muffled most of it but I think he understood. He nodded and looked around. A sand storm started kicking up, it made it very difficult to see anything.
"Should we go to back to the province?" He suggested, a good idea even. I started heading back to the province that was south of Xianjiang but I stopped when I felt the sand climb up to my knees. It seems the sand below me loved me so much.
"I'm sinking," I point out to Jackson, he rolled his eyes and was about to help pull me out when we both fell through a pit. Landing poorly on a large stone my knee cracked and pain shot up my leg. Jackson however, landed gracefully standing on a pile of sand with his hands in the air.
"And he sticks the landing!" He shouted. I stood up with the support of a column nearby.
"Wow." I awed, the place somehow had moonlight shining through cracks in the walls even though it was daylight when we fell. The walls were decorated with paintings of emperors and empresses ruling over subjects. When I saw the moonshire temple painted perfectly on the wall, inside of it was a large worm-like creature, I could only assume was guarding it. But when I looked around, it was nowhere in the large hall. "Where is the guardian? Or snake pits? Or anything that could be protecting this place?" I slumped in disappointment.
"Did you want there to be a guardian to come kill us?" Jackson voice cracked. Even though, I know he wanted something to be here too.
"Well, if there was. We'd have no choice but to run. And in that situation I wouldn't have to outrun the beast. I'd just have to outrun you." I smirked at him, he returned it with a glare. The walls started to vibrate and pieces of temple fell from above us. "Well, I think we both got our wish." A huge green-blue worm creature with eight red bug eyes and a large mouth filled with teeth, resembling a shark's, emerged from a hole near the one we fell through, I'm surprised we didn't notice it until now. The creature didn't charge at us like we expected it to. It moved it's head as if to listen to something. Thats when I saw the tint in his red orbs.
"He's blind," Jackson whispered before I could, "Be quiet and slowly back into the door behind us." He started to step back but tripped on a dead root sticking out of the floor. I caught his shirt collar but his flashlight slipped dramatically from his pocket and it's impact to the stone floor echoed. The creature whipped his head towards us and started charging after a long pause. I breathed in heavily then bolted for the door, Jackson quickly followed. After closing it, Jackson and I held it for a second. We let go when the door was hit, shook and cracked a bit, and when there was only silence on the other side.
"This place it falling apart, it'd be best not be make a loud noise or disturb the peace of the structure." Jackson nodded, we slowly and cautiously made our way down the hallway we found ourselves in. Sarcophagi lined the walls in between the finely detailed columns and sidestepping across the sapphire and opal tiled floor. We ended up in a circular room with none other than the emerald medallion we've been searching for sitting on a pedestal, center stage.
"But wait, there is no way that it's this easy," I said, darting my eyes around the room to prove my point. Then, there it was. I chucked my compass on a stone that stuck out of the level flooring. It sunk in and arrows with green tips flew and completely shattered my poor compass. "We need to approach with caution." Jackson completely disregarded my warning and ran up to our prize. He stepped on nearly every trap. But evaded the arrows and large generic swinging axes. He grabbed a handful of sand from the floor around him, stuffed it in a small leather sack, tossed it in the air a few times, and switched it out for the medallion. I rolled my eyes, he looked at me funny. The amateur wonders why I'm not impressed. "Have you not learned yet?" Another eye-roll. "Boys. That trick never works."
"It did for me." He smirked, but as if the temple was proving him wrong. The door swung shut and a glow admitted from the bottom of it, we were sealed in.
"Thank you, Jackson!" I scolded, throwing my hands up in frustration. This was all his fault. Then the ceiling gave way to a hole big enough for us to fit through together. I looked at Jackson to see his face light up. When that happens, he gets a good plan that always works. It rarely happened so I paid attention when it did. He grabbed a rope from his satchel and examined it along with how high the hole is from us. Then tied the rope to a long stick he found lying around. I wasn't really paying attention to his crafty work, I was too busy watching the slow movement of the crushing walls of death.
"Done!" He shouted, causing a mini earthquake, I shushed him, he shrugged and speared the stick he tied the rope to, up through the hole. It took a few tries for him to finally get it to stay. He tugged on the rope a few times then looked over at me triumphantly. "Ready?" I nodded, and he followed my lead up the rope. The room started to shift again. I lost my grip and was started to plummet to my doom when Jackson, my hero, grabbed my hand. We made it to the surface in one piece but we couldn't rest, not even for a minute, the sand under us started to sink in. We ran a few yards before we finally were on stable ground. Or as stable as sand can be.
"Well," I breathed heavily, "That was fun." Jackson playfully punched my arm,
"Far from fun, but was a cool experience. Being in a temple nobody has been in since ancient times!" He jumped, but soon stopped, looking back he realized. "But we were the last to see it. Meaning nobody will feel like I did just now." I put my hand on his shoulder,
"Stupid," He looked at me with anger in his eyes, he was genuinely upset over this. "Jackson, there are so many other temples undiscovered, or unreachable. We will see so many others and let everybody know to come see them and they would feel just as you did ." He smiled,
"Really?" I nodded, he twirled and accidentally slid down a sand dune,
"Guaranteed." I laughed at his antics. When I caught up with him, he slung is arm around my shoulders and we strolled back to Xinjiang getting ready for another adventure, for another day.