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To whoever reading this, let me warn you. It will be the most bizarre thing you've ever read about, which is why I am writing this in my diary instead of a published writing (believe me. Things will end up becoming too weird that forgetting this diary even exist is a possibility. I know I forget things often). But, bizarre or not depends on what you take from my personal experience. It's one of the weirdest experiences with the biggest twist I know, which can make you think 'what the hell are you doing?' Well...it just happened. It has already happened, so I assume that the readers are from somewhere in the future.

So, let me start with a question. What will you do when you find an ancient city under the sand? No, I know that the city around us can be considered ancient (which is just around 200 years old since its destruction. The world is already dead once), but I am telling you something even more ancient than the old civilization. I can bet that it's even older than an elf. It's something you'll never understand until you see it for yourself.

So, the ancient city is now a tourist attraction for these survivors. Well, I can't say they're survivors anymore, now that we have rebuilt a lot of our past glories. It's just, it happened several months ago, when we first found the remains of the city of Almos.

I was part of a team of scholars affiliated with Diamondback's Nest, with an objective to explore the desert region of the former Death Zone. The Death Zone once earned its name from the abundance of Aether, the byproduct of failed magic cast that's deadly for every living being, both with mana or not. It's dangerous because Aether is a corrupted form of magic, one that failed to manifest from the will of the caster and ended up discarded like a junk. If it invaded a living body, that body would eventually decay, with only the brain was left, at least from what I heard from a mage who actually researched these dangerous elements. I was not remotely interested in what it could cause, only interested in the danger it posed.

A year ago, a dangerous mage from the past called simply the Scrounger used all the Aether in the Death Zone to fuel his corrupted magic. His defeat by the Wanderers dispersed all this corrupted magic and purified them, causing the former Death Zone to lose its deadly status and explorable for the first time in 200 years. It was once a desert before it even became an even bigger desert, and there were remains of pre-War civilization here, too, which was also one of our research focuses.

However, one incident became the start of my weird and bizarre turn of events that prompted me to write about it. Let's just say this. What are the chances that an ancient city buried under the sands would suddenly be discovered after someone accidentally disturbed the fine grain of sand that happened to cover a rather big hole, fell into it, and revealed that there was a building under the sands in the middle of sandy nowhere, under the scorching post-apocalyptic sun, never explored for hundreds of years, and it turned out to be something bigger than just a building? Well, whatever the chances were, it happened, and from there, our job began.

And well, you might think that it went down from there, but quite the contrary, it wasn't a cliched situation at all regarding ancient forgotten ruins. Still, I am getting ahead of myself so let's start from the beginning, from the moment when the ruins were accidentally found.

Our exploration was one of several explorations conducted in the name of research. I, for one, was fascinated in researching the histories of the desert cities that was left in ruins and preserved. Before the ruins, we found a disturbing place where a carnage took place. After a lengthy amount of research, one of us concluded that it was the place where a group called the Collectives met their ends. The Collectives were once a group of mages with radical thinking and was opposed by a similarly fanatical group called the Agents of Tomorrow. The Collectives believed that the world had ended, and they chose to ascend to a higher plane of existence to escape the cruelty of the world. I still felt that their choice was a coward's way, but I could simply renounce them, especially after I also knew what the Agents did to them and what they would do to the balance of the world. Purging magic from the world was like purging air from the world: simply put, it was impossible. Of course, the Agents knew when they were lost, so they sealed themselves underground. Until now, they were still underground, and I feared that they would no longer accept the surface as a world after several generations.

The city we found bear the burden of the final moments of the Collectives before they ascended. As this event only happened several years ago, the bodies were still there in many states of decay. Due to the dryness of the desert and the fact that this area was in the middle of the former Death Zone, it made sense why it went undisturbed. Their bodies were perfectly preserved, but one of our specialists had made it clear that they became Ghouls before the Scrounger's defeat. I felt pity to them. They had died a meaningless death, and their body was forced to wander aimlessly until freedom of death came to them.

We buried their mummified bodies and moved on. We officially called it the Death City due to amount of deaths there. I hoped that the name would deter anyone to ever settle there. Still, it would be a good place for a cemetery.

The former Death Zone was still, however, a Death Zone if you're not prepared. The searing heat of the desert and the freezing cold of the night was so extreme that if it wasn't for our mage's barrier, we would be struggling to continue on.

Some theorized that one end of the desert was the sea. It was a possibility, but with a desert this big, it would not be possible to explore all of it without returning to base camp. We even had no way to know how big it would be. This exploration was one of the first of several explorations that followed it. The desert was huge. It's sand everywhere. You can see it under your paws, the horizon, your eyes, or even the backdrop. Sands everywhere. You could end up losing your mind and hallucinate before your inevitable death.

Morbid thoughts aside, we finally had enough and rested. It was our limit for the three days exploration and we did not find anything (aside from Death City). We did not find an oasis, which was something we needed. I could see why it was still called a Death Zone even if it was no longer contaminated with Aether: without proper supplies, you'll end up dead.

For me, traveling in the desert is not a problem. I am a jackal who basically grew in a settlement near the Death Zone. Mother always told me that it's dangerous to go beyond, and she's always right. I lost a friend after she dared me to cross the Death Zone, which she did, but ended up becoming a Ghoul and was shot dead. It gave me a revelation to how dangerous this area was, and it became my nightmare for years.

The Scrounger's defeat opened an opportunity for me to conquer the once dangerous Death Zone, and I did manage to face my fears and I ended up with a group of cheerful and good people that was a part of this exploration. Still, I wasn't really into anyone at that point. I liked their antics, especially Shelke. She had jokes that always made us laugh, but almost never (I said almost, because there was one time where this elf made us cringe. Still, it just made it awkward, but she knew how to turn things around) said a bad, inappropriate joke. Dirty jokes, however, was her forte (and still is).

Okay, before I got out of control talking about my friends and not focusing (I tend to do that a lot), I'll tell you about the small chances of ever finding the ancient city. It all happened when Rinda the cheet (short for cheetah) found himself bored one night and chose to walk out of the camp perimeter for a little alone time. He had said before that he liked the stars under the desert, as it was clear and was not disturbed by the lights. Oh, and also, he liked to draw, which let him clear his minds off things, as he claimed. His drawings were also important, as they usually illustrated our findings.

Rinda knew the risks of walking too far from the perimeter, so he kept himself near, just away from the camp. His fur coat helped him with keeping warm in the cold night, which was also accompanied by his clothes. As he found a perfect place to start relaxing and draw, something unexpected happened.

Turned out the area he was in was a quicksand, and as he sat there, he did not realize that he was sinking. He only realized it when the sand had reached the butt of his chair, and at this point he started panicking and screamed for help. I was the first there and found that his flailing had accelerated the rate of the sinking.

"Don't move, Rinda!" I exclaimed. Between the two of us, I knew more about quicksand than him. If you keep still, the sand will stop sinking as nothing is shifting it about. Rinda was a small and skinny cheetah, so his weight would not cause him to sink too fast.

I called the others to find a rope to pull him up. Rinda was still sinking at an alarming rate, and I desperately told him to keep his hands over the sands. He managed to catch the rope we threw towards him, which was when he shouted something peculiar.

"I can't feel anything down there!" he said. "I think there's a hole, Zira!"

At that time, our assumption was that the hole was deep and falling into it would either severely injure you or outright kill you. Even a cat had his limits on how far he could fall. We tried pulling him up. He was light, after all.

Our efforts to pull him up ended up causing us to try to pull ourselves out of the hole. The sand around us started to shift towards Rinda, sucking him and us in. Luckily, Shelke's fast thinking made us able to keep it steady, and we managed to keep Rinda out of immediate danger, but only for a moment.

The sand quickly gave way to a gaping hole. We thought that the sand would gave in, but fortunately, it wasn't the case. The hole stopped expanding just before I got dragged into the hole further. Rinda, who at this point had composed himself, started to climb up the hole to my hand.

"Whew. Thanks, Zira. I thought I'm done for."

"Don't mention it, Rin," I said (Zira is my name, if you're wondering). After checking that he was okay, I quickly moved towards the hole leading to nowhere. With the darkness of the night covering most of what's in there, we did not dare to go in without artificial light. In fact, we did not know how far it would be.

"I can put a mage light down there," said Shelke while making hand gestures. She then proceeded to control a ball of shining light down the shaft. To our disappointment, it wasn't that deep at all. In fact, almost everyone could jump down and receive no injury at all (Shelke and our human friend, Hector, would be mildly injured if they attempted to jump down).

Of course, we knew better to explore a potentially dangerous dungeon in the middle of the night, so we decided that we took a rest and contact home base of our discovery, in addition for supplies. I had a feeling that our exploration had just begun, and it was no time to go home yet.

***

We decided to start our exploration into the unknown dungeon while waiting for supplies to come. Shelke and I walked in first, as it was our job as explorers of the unknown, while the others communicate with us from the surface. Rinda and Hector were tasked to uncover the hole's borders and to prevent a dangerous instance of another unknown hole hidden under the desert.

The hole we were in turned out to be the ceiling of a building. It did not look like a house. It was more like a temple of sorts, with unknown symbols etched on the wall. The wall was made out of sandstone, which was not surprising, given the abundance of sand that ended up burying the whole building. What's even more surprising was the fact that the temple was not completely buried. Only its exterior was buried by the sand, while the interior was mostly free of it, and we got to see it in its full glory without the need to excavate it.

The light from the hole was enough for a while, and before we knew it, the sun was already setting. It wasn't quite an exploration that day, so we simply climbed up and wait until a crew of better supplied archaeologists to get here and excavate the place better than our meager supply of shovel. To be fair, we could enhance the shovel with magic, and we did try that on the second day, but it did not help us as much since we were dealing with sand, not hard soil.

Three days later, the archaeologists came along with some mages from the Wanderers. They were willing to help us with the enchantment process and better use of the shovels for digging through the sand. We started our dig from the hole, slowly finding more and more of them as we dug through the area. To our surprise, by the end of the day, we found out that the temple's area was much bigger than what we initially thought, which also included our camps, forcing us to move it. Then, a group of us proceeded to try and dig the interior, which turned out to be the start of the weirdest discovery we had ever come across. Even weirder for me, as it escalated quickly from there.

The first thing we found when we finally found a way to open the wooden door to the next room was that it was a well-lit room, which was quite a surprise. But then, when we started to notice that the fire on the wall was not flickering and dust seemed to be suspended in the air, we quickly realized how fascinating this discovery was. It was suspended in time, and as a result, the chamber we were in was kept in its previous state.

Then the unexpected happened, and I admit, it was my fault. The others were going out to talk about their findings while I stayed inside the time-suspended area to admire the symbols and paintings in there. It was quite a magnificent sight and was a testament of the old. Of course, unknown to everyone, the passageway I was in was the only way in that we discovered, and before I know it, it was sealed by a stone slab that came out from the floor. I quickly noticed it due to the loud noise it made, and of course, I would try and get out of this place. It was too fast for me, and I wasn't even able to see the other side once it was done. I cursed myself for being reckless. Why was I even thinking about walking around a potentially dangerous place without proper magic equipment or even protection? Now that I was sealed in, I had no other choice but to try and find a hidden exit.

Well, I know when I'm sealed in and when I'm free, so at this moment, I knew it was a useless effort. Simply put, I knew that it's the end of my journey. I refused to acknowledge that, obviously. My attempts to break the seal was valiant and full of effort at first, but despair started to set in when I realized that no matter how much I hit the seal with a nearby lamp post, there was not a single scratch on it. Exhausted, I gave up. The despair I felt started to overwhelm my sense of survival, and I started calling for help. I wanted anyone to help me. I did not care who.

I called and called, even raising my voice to the point of almost screaming my lungs out. It was useless. I was alone and die alone. I wasn't the kind of person to cry, but at that point, knowing that my death was imminent, I cried. It was useless to act tough if no one would acknowledge it, anyway, so I simply broke down.

Now, the thing was, I was sure that no one was inside that weird room suspended in time. I mean, how could anyone even move in suspended time, anyway? Of course, that assumption proved to be wrong, and that mistake was also a renewed hope.

There was a grunt that seemed to come from someone who was injured. I quickly turned my head towards the noise and, without thinking, started running towards the source. My head was full of a hope of actually getting out of this blasted time-suspended temple that I did not realize time had resumed (I only noticed it later). I quickly ran towards the stairs to where a sarcophagus was located (again, that word is something unfamiliar to me until later. I'll let you read to know how). I did not care about the drawings or the symbols. I did not understand them anyway. I only cared about the noise of a person. I wished it was a person. It would be bad if it turned out to be a creature, right?

To my delight, the owner of the voice was indeed a person. However, he was not your usual 'person'. Yes, I am well aware that I am a jackal, one of the canine beast races roaming on the wasteland. What I mean was how different this one was.

Like me, he was a jackal, but that's where it ended. I had never seen a jackal with a black fur before, or even one with ear that long. He seemed to be hurt as he supported himself on the empty sarcophagus. What caught my attention, however, was how he dressed. He was clearly dressed like an ancient noble or a priest, though it did not seem to cover his body that effectively, not with that skirt.

Just as I tried to ask him about his situation, he opened his eyes. At that time, I felt myself drawn to him, as those golden eyes were a thing of beauty. I never knew someone with golden eyes could look so...enticing. It was like a perfect thing to see, like true gold. I was dumbstruck to the point of forgetting what I was supposed to do. Fortunately for me, the black-furred jackal started speaking, drawing my attention back to his plight.

The next problem, however, was to communicate. He spoke an uncommon ancient language that I could not understand. It sounded important, given the urgency of his tone. Of course, it would be an inappropriate situation when I was torn between trying to communicate and being smitten by his deep voice, which was the case. Fortunately for me, he seemed to understand the situation when I shook my head and said, "No, I can't understand you. I'm sorry."

I tried to make gestures to make him understand that I need an exit from the room, but instead of acknowledging that he understood, he simply put his hand on my forehead and muttered something that I recognized as a spellcasting. There was a bright light, but nothing else. At least for a second before he opened his mouth to speak.

"Do you understand me now?" he said. Wow. That's one thick accent. It sounded so foreign and exotic. Couple with his deep voice, I was suddenly into him.

"Y-yeah," I said, between flattered and surprised. "How did you do that?"

"I bestow you the ability to understand my language, as I have noticed you are not from around Nuba."

"Nuba?"

"This city's name. But enough talk. I need to finish my work."

I wanted to ask, 'what work?' since I was not aware that this black-furred jackal (with an elaborate gold-colored body paint seemingly painted over his fur) had something to do before we met. From the tone of his voice, however, I could tell that he was serious, even if his thick accent got in the way. I wasn't trying to laugh about it, but his accent was weird. I knew Germanic (like the mouse Fa'ars I knew), and even Grecian (that bull man in Diamondback's Nest is one), but this sounded exotic, yet funny at the same time.

I let him work, knowing that it was serious, and I would be in the way. I bet it had something to do with magic, one subject that I'm very much interested, but unfortunately unable to learn due to my low mana reserve. It wasn't a big loss, really. There were many things I could do without magic.

Just as he stood in front of me, there was a sudden surge of cold aura that filled the room. It was different from the warm aura before. It felt like some great, cold killer was loose in the room and I was trapped. I knew much about it simply because my bestial instinct was running wild, telling me to get out and run as fast as I could, because if I did not...I'd die.

That feeling of dread and sudden realization that death was near almost made me cower in fear or even try and desperately clawing myself out of that room (I wasn't exaggerating. That feeling was bad. Really, really bad). However, I did not fell into that, because I was not alone.

Unlike me, the black-furred, body-painted jackal was not showing any fear. He stood in front of me, ready to fight whatever's coming from the sarcophagus. I could hear him say, "Anubis, guide my hands as I fulfill my role." It sounded like a mantra or something like that.

The darkness that made the room chilly became even more intense by the minute. It quickly became aggressive, attacking the both of us with a force that could really put fear in someone not ready (like, the deadly kind). I wasn't ready, but my protector was. Then, my fear turned to survival, and I quickly pulled my gun to try and fight back, to show that I was not as helpless as I was.

Of course, that was a stupid call. How could you fight a malevolent darkness with guns? The black-furred jackal in front of me also said, "You have an interesting weapon, but it is no use against the adversary before us."

"What are we dealing with?" I asked.

"Something wicked, and dangerous. We cannot stay in this room for long, or we will lose our chance of escape," he said, while still concentrating on the flowing darkness.

"Uh...about the entrance. I...accidentally triggered a trap so, we're locked in."

"What trap?" The jackal turned around and saw the sealed door. I was half-expecting that he would be mad at me for doing such a thing and doomed us both, but instead of being mad, he smiled.

"That is not a trap, woman," he said. "That is a seal, one that will save the world outside from this carnage. I desire revenge for my slain brethren, but alas, I am but one priest. It will be for naught if I fall victim to this ghastly enemy."

He then turned towards me. His eyes were showing sympathy. "As for you, I am well-aware that you are the survivor of the massacre outside. Forgive me for making you see the folly of our people. We never dabble in black arts, but temptation is always around the corner, and it will strike when you are not aware."

His politeness aside, I told him the fact, and my confusion of his remark of bodies. This room had been forgotten under the sands for so long that there were no bodies outside. If there were, they would be bones.

"What?" he said, surprised. "What happened outside? Why are you telling me this?"

"I know you have many questions, priest, but we need to get out of here!"

"I agree, but I have a request. I need your magic."

I knew what he was talking about, but I quickly told him that I was not a mage, therefore my mana reserve was low and would not be enough for any spell. That's when he said, "Do not fear. You may not be a magician, but my request does not require a... mana reserve, as you say. I need you as my apprentice. You will bear a shield that will repel the darkness for a little longer as I facilitate our exit."

"Shield? What shield?"

Without any explanation, he simply put his hand on my arm and started an incantation. I felt a surge of something in me, one that I knew was magic. Before I could even ask what he did to me, a strong barrier started to expand from my hand, making a light perimeter that could not be penetrated by the darkness around us. I felt warmth and hope. We could get through this. I knew that.

The black-furred jackal started an incantation that seemed to take all his concentration. What I could do was to keep this barrier. Now I understood why he needed me. He could not use a barrier and started a spell incantation at the same time, as it would cause his concentration to focus on two things. I knew what he was attempting needed a great concentration, for I knew one spell that could save us both and get us out of this sealed room.

The tension was great as his incantation grew intense and louder. I could only hold my hands up in the hopes of keeping the barrier bigger, but I knew that the spell he gave me was a temporary one. The barrier started to get smaller and smaller as the darkness started to engulf us both. I kept my trust on him, a stranger that's clearly knew what he was doing. If I did not, then it's the end.

In my desperation, I shouted, "Come on, hurry!" to him. I was not directly involved in the battle against the Scrounger several months ago, so I did not know how to act under certain situation. I was more a victim than an active fighter. That was the worst moments of my life, because that's when I'm helpless and unable to act. I had not basic knowledge of using firearms, but my aim was all over the place. I practiced, and my aim got better, but it was useless against this threat.

I closed my eyes as the barrier became smaller and smaller, hoping for the best. Just as I thought it was the end, the thick-accented voice said, "Do not fear. It is time for us to leave."

I did not open my eyes, but there was a loud sound and a thud, along with the pain. Instinctively, I opened my eyes, and I saw that I was no longer in that room. I saw Rinda looking at me dumbfounded, then Shelke, who quickly deduced what happened.

"I don't know you can use magic, Zira," said Shelke, before she turned to my black-furred companion. She simply said, "Oh, right. Hiya!"

"We escaped from the darkness, but there is no doubt that it will find its way out," said the jackal. "The only way to completely seal it is to close the gateway win the sarcophagus."

"Eh?" said Shelke. "What did he say again? That's not some language I know."

I repeated what he said. Shelke quickly turned serious and said, "Another darkness? Why do we always have a problem like this? We just got rid of that elderly elf!"

I wanted to ask why she not understood what the jackal said, but the jackal quickly said, "My translation magic only works towards those who I granted to knowledge to understand. Thus, it works only on you."

"Oh, that explains things," I said. I quickly asked Shelke to deal with the problem inside the room, one that she was eager to finish. At this moment, I was reminded that Shelke was a 200 years old elf who had the personality of an outgoing youth, but in reality, she had more life experience that any one in that room (the black-furred jackal was an exception).

Oh, I just realized that I haven't put his name and only refer to him as a black-furred jackal. I have a reason for that, you know. Up until this point, I did not ask him his name, so referring him as his name will confuse you, readers. I guess I'll tell you his name now.

After we were rescued from the ruins with Shelke coordinating the efforts to seal the darkness with several mages, I asked him his name, apparently out of an effort to know him. He simply gave me an uncommon name: Idris. Just Idris, no last name or anything like that. So, for that reason, he's Idris of Nuba, as he was born and raised in the ruined city around us.

Idris's efforts in telling the mages already there made it easier for them to seal the darkness and dump the sarcophagus someplace it would not be a problem (which was the sea). Idris felt a little disheartened by the fact that his magic was far inferior than the mages, mostly because he needed to incantate the spell he needed to use. The mages simply drew some power from their mana reserve or crystal and casted the spell after a little delay. I was the one comforting him, as unlike them, I could not even cast a simple light spell.

For the next several days, Idris and I worked together in unearthing the ancient city, now that the immediate threat was over. With his help, and the help of some mages, we cleared the city in just six months. In that process, Idris and I became close friends.

I think at this point you think that our relationships will soar. I did, and that's why he's my husband. We have been together for five years since we were bonded, and I am expecting a child. Idris has been learning how to live in our recovering world, and all is well, for as long as we will keep it.

As for the process of getting to this point, it's a story for another time.