Noon.

  From the skies, the glaring sunlight poured down, making the decrepit and crooked twin sandstone-terracotta towers all the more conspicuous in the sea of sand.

  Between these twin towers sat a half-buried pyramid that was tilted due to the uneven earth below.

  Arriving at the foot of this pyramid, Jack shaded his eyes to look up and whistled. “Well, I’ll be damned. The real ruins is so much bigger than I imagined.”

  “Umu! Umu!” Xiao Shuling searched around like a curious baby, but couldn’t find the start of her adventure. “Eih! Uncle, uncle~ how do we get in? There’s no door, la.”

  “Bahaha! No need to be so impatient, little missy.” Jack pointed to the towers.

  “If I’m not wrong, these ruins should follow the desert temple template in the game, and this should be the version where the entrance is buried under the sand.”

  “But even if the main entrance is buried, there should still be a few side entrances upstairs leading into these towers. Let’s go around and see if we can find a way up.”

  Xiao Shuling’s eyes sparkled and she skipped ahead. “Eih! Then what are you waiting for, uncle? Set off! Adventure adventure time! Ehehe”

  The pair of explorers cautiously made their way around and found a good slope to climb.

  Soon, they arrived up on the flat, sandy back deck of the pyramid-tower-merged structure.

  Here, there was an entrance to the tower’s stairwell.

  Jack peered down the dimly-lit stairwell with a mid-section that was almost completely swallowed by darkness.

  “These stairs should lead down to the lower floor’s main atrium. There shouldn’t be any traps, but remember what I told you, little missy?”

  Xiao Shuling nodded with a serious face. “Umu. Don’t be curious. Safety first!”

  “And?”

  “Don’t run off alone. Stay together and listen to uncle!”

  “Good. Aight, let’s head down.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain Jack!”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “Like I said, my name ain’t—” Jack sighed. “Forget it. Let’s go, little missy. And watch your step. It’s kinda dark down there and you wouldn’t want to slip off cuz... it’s a long way down.”

  “Eih! Uncle, don’t try to scare me! Little Ling’er isn’t afraid of heights!”

  With that, the uncle-niece duo entered the crooked stairwell and down the stairs they went.

  Every step down, the sunlight spilling down got more and more sparse…

  Eventually, both explorers could only hug the wall and carefully place every step to avoid sliding off into the darkness.

  “Sheesh. If only we could find a stick or two, then I could’ve made us a torch…”

  “Eih! If only this miss still had my phone! Mohhh~”

  “Hey, little missy, be grateful we transmigrated with clothes on our back. We even got a system! What more can we ask for?”

  “Ehehe Uncle is right”

  Suddenly—Pak!

  Dak! Tak! Clik—Clak!

  Hearing something clattering and falling down in the dark, Jack tensed up. “What was that?”

  “Hum?” Not far behind him, Xiao Shuling retracted her boot and innocently blinked. “Nothing~ Uncle, little Ling’er just accidentally kicked something.”

  “Yeah?” Jack felt something was wrong. He was walking in front. How did he miss what the other kicked down?

  If he wasn’t wrong, that should’ve been a…

  “Sheesh. Little missy is… really brave, ey?”

  “Eih! Of course!” Xiao Shuling is proud.jpg.

  Jack wasn’t sure why the little missy was so fierce all of a sudden, but he didn’t think too hard about it.

  Better a brave explorer than a pig teammate!

  The pair of explorers continued groping their way down…

  Soon, they saw the bottom of the stairwell.

  Here, dim natural light spilled through the sole doorway and naturally alighted the welcoming scene down here. It was…

  Skeletons! Lots of them! All lifelessly laying or sitting half-buried in the sand at the bottom of the stairwell!

  Jack sucked in a cold breath. “Well I’ll be damned. Looks like lots of people perished here. Could these ruins be… a final bastion? Or… a tomb?”

  That was a chilling thought, but Jack still bravely cleared a path forward through the shallow sand and bones.

  Following behind, Xiao Shuling looked around like a curious baby and even squatted down next to a skelly to give its skull a poke. “Eih! Uncle, they won’t suddenly come alive, right?”

  Jack stiffened up but quickly recovered. “Bah! Little missy, don’t set any flags for us!”

  But that reminder still heightened Jack’s vigilance and he pulled out the ax sponsored by their last party member.

  “Sheesh. I don’t like the feeling of this place, but since we’re already here… might as well. Aight, stay close, little missy.”

  “Aye, aye~ Captain Jack!”

  Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. The two explorers trudged through the harrowing scene and headed towards the light.

  Once they passed through the doorway into the gallery of arched sandstone pillars, the world around them grew brighter and what greeted them was the pyramid’s main hall.

  The weathered pillars outlined the square atrium at the pyramid’s center, where sunlight spilled in from an opening above and alighted the faded patterns tiling the floor.

  Jack’s eyes vigilantly searched the area, especially the darker outer edges.

  But except for some skeletons peacefully lying around as decoration, there was nothing out of the normal.

  “Aight. Looks like there’s no danger. But still, we should watch out for traps. Be careful of any pressure plate or trip wire.”

  “Even though this isn’t a jungle pyramid, reality might be different from the game. We don’t want to get turned into a sandbag for arrow dispensers if the heavens decided to play a joke on us…”

  “Eih! Uncle, don’t set any flags for us!”