I advanced down the dimly lit tunnel with caution. As I collected the bodies I peeked into their memories but the content was more or less the same and somehow still frightening.

“You’re going to betray us for a relic you know nothing about?”

“Yeah, we are!” The Sleeping Lion members gathered around one man like a pack of feral dogs and began attacking him. He could only resist for a few moments before their combined attacks exhausted him and a blade was thrusted into his chest. He fell onto the ground with a few weak movements, becoming another victim of betrayal.

“Let’s go, we need to catch up to the rest of them if we want to see what’s in that tomb.”

The memory was cut short and I managed to gain a new piece of info. The betrayal was caused by something valuable found in this ruin. The abrupt shift in the Ruin must've unearthed an artifact that was worth killing floor. I think the worst thing about this ordeal was the fact I was a witness. Sleeping Lion would rather have me killed than to have this information revealed. In fact, I'm sure a lot of people would want this secret from getting out since fighting between guilds would disrupt normal buisness.

Carting corpses back and forth, I slowly advanced to the end of the tunnel where I found one last body waiting for. I recognized his face as one of the betrayers from early. I activated my gift and his last moments played out before my eyes.

“Damn...it…” He weakly cried out as he crawled away from a stone archway before his body finally became still. There was no clear cause of death but his body seemed feeble as if all the life was ripped away from him.

“Wait...that was here!”

I looked around but only found a solid rock wall in front of me, there was no sign of an archway. I used my hand to trace along the rough wall in order to find a secret mechanism, but my search was fruitless. I tried pulling my hand away but a jolt, almost like an electric shock, ran through my body. I recoiled back and let out a panicked breath and could see it turning into water-vapor that covered my helmet before my eyes, as if the temperature dropped. My teeth chattered and my body shivered which were signs that served as a warning.

'Don't go any further.' It felt like my body was desperately attempting to tell me that.

I knew that I should’ve turned around but...there was something beyond this wall. I felt that whatever it was was pushing and pulling me simultaneously, threatening to pull me apart no matter what choice I made. So why not go forward?

Actually, there was plenty of reasons. I moved to take another step back and the wall split open with a eerie groaning, like stone being grinded against stone. The archway I saw in the memories was revealed and I could now see it in more detail. Above the stone arch, strange letters of a language I had never seen before greeted me.

“I doubt this is a welcome sign,” I said, laughing weakly in an attempt to calm my trembling body.

I had to enter at this point and in spite of all the reasons I had not to do it, I left my cart behind and stepped into the darkened tomb. The place that caused the guilds to fight against each other, and even more importantly, didn’t let those who entered leave.

Before I even made it a quarter of the way, the air turned freezing cold. Fire surged up from silver sconces that covered every inch of the room and revealed my surroundings to me.

“Holy fuck!” I shouted and stumbled backward.

Every wall in the room was covered with skulls, humanoid, bestial, reptilian, just about every skull shape that could be thought of was mounted. Though it was the human ones that were the most numerous. And in the center of this strange place, there was a huge metal sarcophagus that sat upright.

It’s surface was covered in extremely detailed and precise markings, depeticing an engraved skeleton that wasn’t human. The sarcophagus was over 2m tall and its the skeletal design depicted a figure with sharp fangs and six-fingered hands that crossed over a large ribcage.

I walked forward hesitantly, feeling a prickling sensation on my skin. I didn’t want to think about what might be inside. Would it still be living? Surely, it wouldn’t want to be awakened if that was the case. My mind raced in a feeble attempt to distract me from the fact I was approaching the unknown.

Thinking back, when I stopped using my medication, against my better judgement, it turned out to be a good thing. Now, I moved closer to the inhuman coffin that was anything but welcoming. I could only hope and pray with every fiber of my being that it was the right choice.

When that Monster tried to kill me a few days ago, I didn't feel anything toward it but for some reason. This room filled me with a sense of fear that I hadn't felt in a while.

Was it due to human nature? Before the monsters appeared, I guess that most of people’s fear was imagination based. Fearing the unknown had been ingrained in us since the dawn of time. To be fearful was to be smart, to understand that a threat to your life could lay in close proximity. So, confront it or flee? Both were very good choices, however, I felt that running definitely wasn’t an option for me now.

I lightly carassed the surface of the metal and my mind was ripped away from me. Violent flashes of things my mind couldn’t comprehend all rushed into my head, tearing away at any sense of clarity.

Was I screaming? I couldn’t feel anything except pain which caused all of my senses felt numbed. And then, it abruptly stopped. I stood, in the room, still alone and still alive. The only thing that changed was the sweat that covered my body.

I quickly pulled my hand back out to avoid being put through that pain again.

“What the fuck are you?!” I shouted to the still coffin as I began to recall the visions I was put through. There wasn’t a clear sense of direction like the memories of the dead usually showed me but a twisted slideshow of death. So much death that it overloaded my brain for a moment. I could recall blurry backgrounds of different enviroments but the only constant in those memories was death. Mountains of bodies and skeletons seemed to flash in my mind every time I blinked.

"Fuck off." I kicked the sarcophagus in front of me.

It trembled in response and I immediately froze. The hollow eyelids of the skeletal figure lit up with blue light before dying down. Then, as much as I wish it hadn’t, it began to open in front me.

My body couldn’t move at all, so I just stared ahead and listened to the faint creaking of the sarcophagus as it opened, though it was getting drowned out by the pounding of my heartbeat.

I should apologize to whatever was inside. In a moment of frustration and anger I resorted to physical action which was probably the dumbest thing I could've done just after entering this place.

Once the sarcophagus was fully opened, I didn’t see some incarnation of death or crazed ancient bloodthirsty demon. Just an old book bound in worn leather with ivory fittings.

I let out a sigh of relief as my body relaxed. I almost felt like laughing my experience away. It was almost like watching a horror movie that built up tension for a scare that never happened. I could finally understand why it was such an effective tactic.

“All that for you?” I didn’t reach out to grab the book, instead, I inspected in from a reasonably safe distance.

There were six small ivory skulls arranged in a circle on its cover, with the sixth sitting in the center. Above the skull decorations were more letters that I didn't recognize.

I realized I didn’t have much time or this discovery would be taken away by the guilds or the government so I attempted to grab the book. Before my hand could touch it, the center skull opened with a click.

“Woah!” I pulled my hand back and it shut with the same clicking sound.

I moved hand forward again and unsurprisingly, the skull opened once more. Ignoring all the things wrong with what was happening, I wondered if I needed to place my finger into the mouth of the skull to get it to work?

It was a dumb idea and I knew it was, but I would just add it to the list. Entering this room had been a gamble with death and perhaps I began to think too highly of myself as my continued survial gave me reason to stay.

“Here we go.” I took a deep breath and place the tip of my ring finger inside and the skull closed, biting down on my finger.

I reflexively tried to pull my hand back but it didn’t let go and I could see blood dripping through my gloves.

“Ouch! Fucking ouch!” I bounced on my heels as the skull held my finger in its grasp. If I pulled away the pain would only increase.

“Let my hand go!”

The book began to rattle before folding itself around my finger and shrinking down to the size of a ring.

“How?!” I looked at the ivory skull ring on my hand and tried to understand how it was possible for a book that was almost fairly sizeable to turn into something so small. I mean, it wasn't unheard of for certain artifacts to display properties that went against the laws of physics but those couldn't be applied the increasingly numerous mystical elements of this world.

I put my dozens of questions away and rushed out of the room, feeling that I had been inside for way too long. After departing from the chamber, the walls snapped shut and I was back in the empty tunnel which looked like a dead end.

Putting it behind me, I pushed my cart away with a light jog hurrying back to the center cavern only to find the entire disposal team gathered.

“Took you long enough.” The Team Leader complained.

Everyone else seemed to agree with him as their eyes stabbed into me with frustration. Not a single one of them seemed to care if I was in danger or not.

“Sorry, I-”

“Hey, what happened to your hand?” The Team Leader asked, spotting my blood covered finger. He sized me up with a cursory glance and didn’t seem too suspicious of me but if I answered wrong he would immediately find something wrong.

“My, uh, finger got caught as I was lifting one of the bodies. It should be fine though I think I just need some-”

“Hurry up and cover it with some gauze and let’s go.” The Team Leader interrupted me again, opening an emergency kit and throwing some gauze toward me.

“Thank you,” I spoke with obvious traces of insincerity.

In truth, it was his job to attend to the wounds of the rest of us and had the medical qualifications to do so, but he obviously had no intention of doing so.

Without saying another word to me, he signalled for everyone else to go and we began our trek back upstairs. I needed to pass another inspection before I was in the clear. If I was discovered attempting to steal an artifact from a ruin, I’d be handed a hefty prison sentence. I tried to seem as nonchalant as possible as we moved closer to the exit but I began to worry.

I tied more gauze around my finger to hide the ring and hoped for the best.