Archaeological Excavation! [Akiko - Job - Solo]

The sun blazed down hard on the sands that day, the air seeming as if it shimmered under it. Akiko could feel it blazing down on her, as if she was about to burst into flames at any second. Her entire body covered in sweat and dust, she already felt atrocious. What had started as a random spark of interest had turned into a commitment she was not prepared for. With every fiber of her being she wanted to return home, shower, and pretend that this never happened. However, with so much effort put into it now, turning back was such a waste it couldn't even be considered. But she wanted to. Very, very badly.

Striding over another dune, she finally began to see it. While to the average eye it seemed like nothing more than a few tents, to Akiko it meant so much more. Her destination, her haven, shade, water. Akiko slapped at the sides of Fang, yelling out at the large undead creature she currently road atop of. "Fang, forward, to the tents!" Her voice was full of pure jubilation, already starting to feel her previous dread fade away, adventure was before her, and she could not wait a moment.

To the workers around the tent, it appeared as if death itself was coming for them. Astride a moving pile of bones, a hooded figure approached their tents. All body parts covered by the white cloth, all of their attention was on the creature beneath it. the large skeletal beast strode through the sand, it's face unmoving from the tents in front of it. Several of the workers starting to panic, holding their various shovels and tools in a weak attempt to seem ready for battle. Suddenly, the beast came to a stop, the rider sliding off, and it vanished. Simply vanished. It's bones disappearing completely, all that remained was a single fang in the rider's hand. Turning towards the tent, the rider approached them. they raised their tools higher, one of the braver ones yelling out at it. "Wh-Who are you? What do you want?!"

The rider didn't respond immediately, continuing to walk towards the tent. As soon as it got under the shade, it removed it's hood, revealing a young girl, drenched in sweat. Shaking slightly, she looked at the man who yelled, desperation clear in her eyes. "Water...." She started to shake more, suddenly collapsing to her knees, breathing heavily. Looking around confused, several of the men were unsure of what to do. One of the man ran towards a small box under a table, grabbing a small bottle of water and bringing it to her. Extending it towards her, she reached out and weakly grabbed it, her hand shaking slightly. Taking a drink from it, she looked at the man with a small smile. "Thank you..."

"Thank you..." Akiko gave the man a small smile, trying her best to appear small, fragile, and weak. The deadliest combo she had learned to use, especially against older men. 'This should be an easy sell. First, you make them fear you, giving a grand entrance and getting all their attention on you. Then, you appear weak and helpless, confusing them and shaking any conceptions of you. Next, you confirm that you are in fact weak and helpless, making them feel guilty for thinking badly of you. Once you've done all this, it's easy to get them to behave how you want, such a simple process to manipulate regular people, this is a much harder sell against wizards.' Akiko took a drink, looking up at the man. "Excuse me, I'm here to see Professor Remin, is... is he here?" She looked up, giving the man a confused look, her voice sounding weak and tired.

An older looking man emerged from the group, looking at her with a confused expression. "I'm Professor Remin, may I ask why you're looking for me?" Akiko stood up, giving him a friendly smile and extending a hand. "I'm Akiko Bayne, the wizard who took the job you offered, nice to meet you."

The Professor looked at her with even more confusion, taking her hand lightly. 'Perfect.' He let go of her hand, seemingly inspecting her. "Its nice to meet you, Akiko, but may I ask, why did you take this job? I hate to sound rude, but you don't seem very well set for this kind of work. It's very hard and taxing work, and you look very tired just from travelling here. Are you sure you're capable of handling this?" Akiko looked slightly, offended, holding her hands together against her chest. 'You just think that.' She looked at him with a small nod, seemingly steeling herself. "Of course I can handle this! I may not be physically strong, but I have powerful magic, trust me! I'm sure you won't regret it!" Trying her best to sound chipper and happy, Akiko gave the men a determined smile.

The Professor looked at her for a moment, before giving her a smile and placing a hand on her shoulder. "With that confidence, I'm sure I won't. Come, sit down with me so you can rest a bit while I explain everything to you." Her turned to the men behind her. "The rest of you, back to work, I want that doorway completely cleaned for our friend here." The men turned around, returning to their work.

The Professor lead Akiko to a different tent, larger than the previous. Seemingly the main one, underneath it was a multitude of boxes and tools, with a small table in the middle. A chair on either side, the Professor took a seat on one and Akiko on the opposite. A series of objects were on the table, covered by a white cloth. the Professor smiled at Akiko, who returned the gesture. "As you know from the job description, during what seemed like a routine dig, we discovered something most extraordinary; the bones of an unknown creature." Remin reached towards the cloth, removing it from the table and uncovering a series bones. This is what had interested Akiko and encouraged her to take the job. Analyzing the remains, Akiko started mumbling to herself, focused on them intently. "It looks like a Humerus, two Radius, a few rib pieces, and some Phalanges... The sizes seem very strange in comparison, the Humerus is very large in comparison to the Radius, the Phalanges seem very large as well... Maybe a type of primate, perhaps a reptile ..."

The Professor noted her words, looking at her in slight awe. "I see you know your bones. That's rather helpful." Akiko blushed, realizing she had been talking aloud. 'Crap, don't do that anymore, or the whole weak and stupid routine won't work anymore.' She looked at him, smiling slightly. "Yeah, it's kinda part of my magic, so I have to know about it. While these bones don't look very familiar at a glance, there's not much to go off here, what makes you think they're special?" The man gave her a knowing smile. "That's where you come in. Buried under the dunes, we found these bones, as well as a doorway. It's the doorway that has us interested. We have yet to finish uncovering it, and we believe that the rest of the remains many lie inside it. However, none of my workers, or myself, are willing to go inside, so we decided to look for outside help, that's why we called you here, my dear. We were also looking for help in uncovering the entire doorway, but I don't think a frail young girl like yourself is suited for such a task." Akiko smiled; she got to investigated an unknown tomb, and potentially uncover an unknown creature, this was so exciting. She controlled her emotions however, she needed to keep the act up, or else she might be made to help them dig, and she dreaded that idea. "No problem, just show me the doorway and I'll take a look."

The Professor lead Akiko to the dig site. Looking around, she could already get a vague idea of the status. Admist the sand dune, they seem to have uncovered a large stone platform, as well as a wall, which the aforementioned doorway was on. Not all of the platform or door had been uncovered yet, so it's true size was unknown, however it was fairly deep, at least 5 meters into the dune. Following the Professor to a small wooden stairway they set up for travel, she walked with him past the other workers, who were fervently attempting to move the sand away from the platform.... with little success. How they managed to uncover this much was a mystery to her. He topped her just before the doorway, pointing towards the platform. "This is where we found the bones we showed you. We haven't managed to find any more yet, so we assume the rest must have drifted into the ruins with the sand." He motioned towards the doorway, the light of the sun revealing the first amount of it, but beyond that was darkness. Sand filled the upper half of the doorway, some having been dug out, leaving about 1m of actual space, not enough for her to get inside. "We've been doing what we can to excavate the sand out, but none of us are willing to go very far into the ruins, so we couldn't get much. This far away from society, none of us are willing to risk any booby traps that could be in store. This is where you come, my dear. We'd like you to explore the inner workings of the tomb, help us discover it's origins, and the rest of this skeleton to try and identify it's origins. Do you think you can handle it?"

Akiko looked at the doorway. There was no way she could personally get inside, and she didn't exactly feel comfortable exploring it herself either. Luckily, there seemed to be enough room for Shriek to explore, she just had to hope that the sand didn't get higher inside. She turned to the professor, smiling. "I can handle this, no problem. I have just the spell for this situation." Turning around, she sat down next to the doorway. Pulling a small pouch from inside her cloak, she opened it and shook a small beak out, alongside several other bones. Placing everything but the beak back in, she closed it and put it away. A red glow emitted from her hands, and suddenly the beak disappeared, a small creature appearing in front of her. Taking the form of an owl, the amalgamation of bones stared at her, awaiting an order. The Professor looked rather shocked at her, but she paid no attention to him. "Go inside and explore the area, use Bird's Eye once inside." The creature obeyed, flying above the sand into the tomb.

Akiko closed her eyes, waiting for Shriek's vision to come to her as the bird flew inside. The Professor looked at her curiously, wondering what she was doing. "What exactly was that... thing, and what are you doing?" Akiko kept her eyes closed, still awaiting the spell's synchronization. "That was Shriek, an animated construct of owl bones. My magic animates and makes constructs out of bones." the Professor seemed rather disturbed by her style, but let it slide by.

After a moment, Akiko began to see through Shriek's eye-holes. "Shriek is using an ability to grant me his sight, and since he can see without any light at all, it'll allow me to investigate the inner workings of the tomb without risking myself exploring it." Inside the tomb, Shriek flew above the sand, the doorway seeming to have a rather large hallway behind it. Eventually, Shriek flew into a room, the sand seeming to have reached it's limit and no longer piling up high. Looking around the room, Akiko could see various designs on the wall, apparently of some kind of language unknown to her. The room seemed fairly plain, a square shape with two doorways; the one Shriek had taken into it, and another to the left that seemed to lead forward. Deciding that there wasn't much left in this room, she sent Shriek further, flying down the next hallway towards the following room. Once she saw the inside of that, a smile crept onto her face. "Oh, this is interesting..."

Once inside the room, Shriek looked around it, giving Akiko a very interesting site to behold. It was a rectangular room, with three doorways into it; the one she had taken in, then two opposing ones on the left and right. The same language lined the walls, or at least Akiko assumed it was the same, this time accompanied by various murals. The murals were very rough and unrefined, almost like a child's drawings. They seemed to depict a large, almost ape like creature, though they also could have been an average person, who had died, and showed their spirit, or at least what she assumed was their spirit, leaving their body and entering another creature, one with a fairly large stomach. It then depicted another small creature standing next to the one with a large stomach, who was laying down. 'Alright, so it seems to be a story of re-incarnation, with a person's soul inhabiting a pregnant woman to become a new person.'

What interested Akiko most was several large stone slabs on either side of the room. There was about 8 in total, 4 on each side. The slabs were heavily inscribed with various designs on all sides. On top of each slab was a skeleton. Some seemed to have had parts fall onto the floor over time, but most remained on top of the slabs. As she examined the skeletons, she recognized the bone sizes; they were the same as what was found before. Judging from the positions of the bodies, they appeared to be a humanoid of some kind, with very large arms and fingers. Their skulls were extended and large, and their chests appeared to be large as well. She wished she could examine them in more detail, but that would wait for later, as Shriek continued into the tomb, taking the right doorway.