Alan's Ancient Adventure

The man rose from the cave, his eyes wild and a huge grin on his face. He had finally found it, the artifact that would change everything. It was all he'd been looking for. He picked up the small stone and turned it in his hand to read the inscription. The words were long forgotten but he recognized the images on the stone. The serpent eating its own tail and the circle with an X through it. The stone was what he had been searching for and he knew exactly how he would take advantage of this powerful tool.

"Alan!" Barton yelled into the forest, "I have something you will be very interested in!"

The forest remained silent as Barton's heavy footsteps echoed off the trees.

The boy was gone and Barton couldn't find him anywhere.

He didn't understand how that could be possible.

Alan always left a trail for Barton to follow whenever he ran away, but this time, there was nothing at all.

Barton sprinted back to the cave to see if Alan had left any clues behind when he found him last night but found nothing but a few sticks arranged in a large circle with an X through it.

This wasn't good.

Barton began to grow worried that Alan might have discovered where they were hiding out while they waited for their plan to be executed.

If Alan told anyone about their hideout then they would be in serious trouble, but there wasn't much he could do about it right now-he had more important things to worry about right now.

He pocketed the artifact and hurried deeper into the forest until he came upon a clearing where another man stood waiting for him with a grin on his face as well.

"So," said Balthazar, "you finally found it?"

Barton smiled and nodded before pulling out the artifact from his pocket and holding it up for Balthazar to see. "Yes I did."

Balthazar let out a sigh of relief and clapped Barton on the back hard enough to knock him down to one knee as he pulled out two stones from his own coat pocket and handed them to Barton with a smirk. "Good job, my friend."

"You got these?" Barton asked as he examined each object carefully before placing them in his pockets with care. "Good work." He dug around in his pants pockets until he found something else that made him smile even bigger than before: two small stones sat in his hand when he looked up at Balthazar again who replied with a shrug of his shoulders as if to say 'what can I say? I'm good.'

"When do you think we should start?" Balthazar asked eagerly as they began walking back towards their camp in silence until a rustling sound caught their attention in front of them which caused both men to reach for their swords until they heard a familiar voice yell out from behind a bush: "Hey guys! What are you doing?"