The Wizard's Middle Eastern Quest

The sun began to set as our group approached Jebel el-Nakhal. The air was still cool and dry, but I could feel the warm breeze of the approaching day on my skin. It was a relief after the long journey we had been forced to endure.

"You there!" The voice echoed across the barren landscape. I looked over to see a hooded figure approach us. "Are you Jack?"

"That's me," I said, trying to hide the exhaustion in my voice. "And this is Alana, Sela, and Rafi."

The figure regarded us for a moment longer before nodding his head and removing his hood. A young man with tanned skin and dark hair stared at us. His eyes were black like obsidian and seemed to wind around my soul when he met my gaze. I felt an odd feeling wash over me, but I pushed it aside.

"I am your guide," the man said. "My name is Imad." With that, Imad turned his back to us and began walking across the dunes. We quickly followed after him, not wanting to be left behind by ourselves in the middle of nowhere.

As we walked, I noticed that Imad didn't walk like a normal person would have. It was more like he floated above the sand instead of walking on it. Then again, there wasn't much sand here anyway --- just endless sandstone boulders and rocks that seemed to stretch into the horizon in every direction. It was a truly desolate place.

After a while of walking, Imad stopped at what looked like an ordinary rock wall in front of us. But once he placed a hand on it, the wall opened up into a large stone archway leading into a massive cave. Once we were all inside, Imad closed the door behind us, once again revealing an ordinary stone wall as if nothing had happened behind it at all.

We looked around us in awe as we entered the enormous cave system before us. I couldn't see where its end was because it went straight into darkness for what seemed like miles on both sides of me.

"Welcome to Jebel el-Nakhal," Imad said with a slight smile as he gestured towards our surroundings with one hand while keeping his other arm firmly tucked into his cloak pocket with his chin resting on top of it as he stood before us with his black eyes locked onto mine once again with that strange smile still etched on his face.

Alana broke our trance-like gaze by asking him questions about this place we found ourselves in: "Where are we? Who built this place? Why are we here?" She fired off so many questions in such quick succession that it threw me off guard just hearing her speak those many sentences within such a short time frame --- something she never did normally unless she was angry or excited about something else altogether... Of which usually ended up being bad news for me... But even then she never spoke that fast! What had gotten into her?!

Imad chuckled softly under his breath before answering her questions with ease: "This is where humanity used to live before death took them away from this world many millennia ago," he started off calmly enough, but then continued speaking faster and faster until he finally screamed out his next few sentences: "This is where their power originally came from! This is why their power has returned! And THIS IS WHY WE ARE HERE!" He slammed the ground hard with his staff to emphasize each point before speaking again in his normal tone: "Now that you know how important you are to saving this world from certain doom within these walls, allow me to show you something more interesting than my own rambling." With that said, he gave us another soft chuckle before turning around and walking deeper into the cave system ahead of us while saying over his shoulder: "Follow me."