Treasure Hunting 101

Chapter IX

Sean

Music: Underground from Gradius III SNES

I've gotta say, when I first heard about this treasure hunt idea, I was pretty excited about it. Our most recent misadventures have consisted of constant risks, and there were usually lives on the line, be it ours or someone else's. But working together as a team to try and find some ancient treasure? Compared to our last ordeal from a month ago, this was a breeze.

The only thing that made me less thrilled about this whole thing is Mia wanting to make it a competition. I get that she and Brea disagreed over which starting point was better, but they didn't need to take it this far. It just makes this much more complicated than it needs to be. Not that it bothers me too much; I've gotten used to Mia's competitive and compulsive nature over the years. Just takes away some of the fun in it. Anyways, I've been rambling about this for long enough; I should probably get to the actual story here.

It's impossible to tell exactly where we are when Dr. Scientist's teleportation orb finishes teleporting us. From the looks of it, we're right in the middle of some kind of desert. Off in the horizon, I can barely spot the edges of a forest. And on the opposite side of that are some cliffs, one of which has an opening in it.

"So, um, where the hell are we?" Mackenzie asks.

Dr. Scientist gets out a tablet and pulls up a map on it. "We're right smack dab in the middle of the Sahara desert. More specifically, in front of the cave Mia told us about." He points towards the aforementioned cliff opening, and the five of us gather up in front of it.

"Looks spooky," Shanna says to herself, looking hesitant to go inside.

"Eh, I've heard it's not too bad. But," Dr. Scientist pauses to make sure he has our attention before he continues, "We need to be careful on the off chance that there happen to be other treasure hunters in this cave. I'm fully prepared in case we need to ward off attackers, but it'd be better for things to not even get to that point. Kapeesh?"

Mia, Mackenzie, Shanna, and I all nod. Dr. Scientist nods back and says, "Okay. Let's go." With that, he gets out a flashlight, turns it on, and walks into the cave. We stay close behind. Before the four of us enter, we all look over our shoulders just to make sure nobody is watching us outside the cave. From what we can see, there's not a single person around here except us for hundreds of miles.

Our journey through the cave is rather short-lived. About a minute into our travels, we come across a fork in the path. Dr. Scientist shines his flashlight down both paths, and they both dead-end themselves after about a dozen feet. Dr. Scientist chooses the left path, and we follow without question. There's a complete lack of anything that could be useful in the cave, save for one simple sentence written on the wall, which Dr. Scientist shines the flashlight on so we can read it.

"Stand on the lone stone in the other pathway. Only the best of scholars will be able to progress from there," I read. "How scholarly are you, Dr. Scientist?"

"I only have 5 PHDs," Dr. Scientist smirks boastfully.

"Well, good thing we have you, then," Shanna says, playfully elbow-nudging Dr. Scientist.

"And good thing we went down this path first," Mackenzie snorts.

Suddenly, we hear a rustling noise coming from the cave entrance. We all turn around in the direction of the noise. There is still no sign of any other person in the cave (we're not that far from the entrance so we have a really good view of it), but there does seem to be an extra pair of footprints coming towards the cave from a direction that we did not come from. Which is enough to raise worry in all of us.