Army in the Sand.

JOURNAL OF SIR GREGORY JAMES.

Day 12:
Have arrived at the checkpoint. We must now aquire the services of a guide to venture into the Hani Desert. Michaels has Dysentry. Things going well.

Day 13:
All attempts at securing a guide have failed. Even the generous funds Her Majesty are not enough to change their minds. They seem to fear the desert, most likely due to bandits and the unpredictable nature of the weather in this region.

Day 15:
We have been travelling with a merchant caravan for the past 18 hours. All in high spirts, even Michaels. Upon asking the Leader of the convoy, Alahad Iq-Faroq, about the rumors surrounding the desert, he was happy enough to explain the situation and to a greater extent, alleviate our fears. The desert, hundreds of years ago, was home to a troupe of bandits who terrorised the surrounding settlements. The ruler of the region at that time sent countless assassins and mercinaries into the area to dispose of the crew. None returned, but after a while the attacks stopped entirely. One can assume the badits moved on, but the people of today still fear those who are long dead.

Day 16:
Reynolds says we are being followed. Faroq's men say it could just be the heat, moving the air like will 'o' th' wisps on the horizon. I am inclined to believe him, Reynolds is paranoid by nature.

Day 20:
We have not seen any definitive landmarks thus far. We need to see the crooked peak for the map to be considered legitimate. Michaels getting better, Reynolds getting worse. His delusions of "jackals in the wind" are becoming tiresome.

Day 22:
Losing hope. Beginning to think this is all just a fool's errand. Despite the "lavish" commodities of the caravan, we are becoming tired.

Day 25:
The crooked peak! We saw it! Hallelujah! All in fine spirits with this revelation. Faroq has personally volunteered himself and an offshoot of his men to travel with us to the peak - though I suspect his claims o wanting to be a part of history are tarnished with a golden sheen. Still, there should be enough treasure for the crown AND Faroq.

Day 26:
We have reached the peak... but have suffered considerable loss. In the night, we awoke to the sounds of gnashing teeth and animalistic cries. of the 8 camels that came with us, only 1 has survived. Faroq has sent one of his men to catch up with the main caravan, in hopes of a rescue once we have investigated the peak. It's as we suspected, the peak is the entrance to the antechamber, and thus the tomb of Anak-Solomun, the Exiled King under the Sun. I sends chills down my spine to think that we have made a legend into history.

Day 27:
Still no success in opening the doors. Faroq is getting impatient - his true nature revealed. Reynolds too is becoming agitated, his rambling are begining to scare the men. Will require diciplinary action if it continues, let alone the possible court martial for attempting to run into the desert, if the wind doesn't strip his bones should he succeed.

Ammendment Day 27:
Faroq has opened the door! By God! It was so simple, whereas we had been speaking in Arabic and Swain, we needed to be speaking in the dialect of the King himself!

The rock split along the base, twisting like the serpant until a larde hole was revealed under the peak itself! Such machinations I could not even concieve in my wildest dreams must lie ahead of us.

Day 28:
We have entered the tomb, though it cannot be called such in my opinion. The room around me is large without seeming empty. Heiroglyphs adorn the walls, but in a pictography that none of us can define. Swanly tried to take a rubbing of the walls but, unusually, found no success. This is not a statement in regards to his abillity, but to the fact that nothing was copied onto the paper! The pictography, which we have christened "Anak" in honour of it's creator, is engraved into the stone, that's to be certain, but any method we have to copy it has failed. It is unfortunate that all we will be able to bring back is a crude pencil drawing of the oddly beautiful language.

Day 29:
We have finally broken through the door inside of the entry chamber. A stale air greeted us. I cannot help but be reminded of the Carter expedition into the Valley of the Kings, and the tales of a so called "curse". Poppycock. Their afflictions were brought upon by desert diseases, I say, not that it is my place to argue with the doctors.

The next room splits off into 3 paths. Have not decided where to go yet. Reynolds is lucid, often daydreaming. He seems to have noticed a common symbol repeating in the Anak, though we still have no way of decifering wether it is a name, or place, or even the word "And". Lord knows they didn't have the grammatical skills of the normal englishman.

Ammendment Day 29:

The best possible course of action is to go straight ahead, looking to the plans of common pyramid. We shall no be splitting up, thinking that would be a burden more than a blessing.

1:
The days have blurred together, so I shall be labelling my entries numerically until I can piece together a calandar of events.

We have walked for what seems like an eternity. Faroq and Reynolds have become objects of my sheer rage. Everytime either of them speaks, I feel like I need to remove the head from their body. Reynolds however is proving useful, he has managed to identify several repeating symbols in sequence. This must be some form of dating system, or even a full name. We must be close to something... I can feel it in my bones.

2:
At last! after wandering aimlessly, we have found another chamber. This one is huge, and filled with sand. the sand is thankfully dense enough to stand on without sinking in too far. 2 other passages lead off from either side, and we have assumed that all of the paths have lead to this room.

We plan to send men into the adjoining passage ways in case we find any other exits.

Reynolds is begining to scare me. His aptitude for the Anak symbols is... uncanny. He says the symbols are not documenting any particular event, but are just repeated phrases. This is disappointing. I had hoped these Anak symbols would tell the story of the King, but any progress is progress. Swanly, our resident translator and cryptologist has proven himself useless in the face of the unknown.

He'll be digging with the rest of them.

3:
We have discovered... bodies in the sand. Akin to the terracotta warriors of China, they are entombed within a hard shell of... crystal. At least we think it's crystal - it resembles such, and chips refrect light in the same manner. Each body is moderately preserved within, though signs of emaciation are evident upon the flesh. The garments upon them are egyptian, or something similar for the period.

There seems to be a huge number of bodies in the pit, and it seems to be bottomless. Digging seems to be useless. The crystalised bodies we have unearthed will accompany us back to the British Museum.

Reynolds is as mad as ever. One of Faroq's men has died of fatigue.

4:
Break through! upon study, we have found a push button in the sand chamber! on the furthest wall from our entry point (My personal compass seems to have failed, as I assume it has happened to the rest). Upon inspection and usage, it has drained the sand from the chamber. The pit is huge. though upon pushing, we have made a set of steps down into the abyss.

There are no entry points on the stairs. We have walked what what must be an hour or so.

Still no entry points.

We have reached the bottom. A large hole is in front of us, blocked by crystals shifted by the machines. A single door is the other means of exit from the chamber. We shall be exploring that tomorrow, if it ever comes.

5:
Reynolds is missing.

His madness has carried him away.

Myself, Faroq, Swanly, and Michaels are still under my charge. though Faroq himself would dispute it. We have heard nothing from the men we sent into the tunnels at the top of the chamber.

We have begun our decent through the door, knowing the hole would be too much effort and obvious suicide.

We plunge deeper still. Going ever down into the darkness...

6:
We do not know where we are...

We don't know how were are still alive.

We are all scared, and tired.

The room we have walked into is devilish.

Pots adorn the floor. Canopic Jars by design but too large for a single organ. A full body seems to fit though...

Inside one jar was a mass of flesh... with Reynold's uniform scattered around the base. Poor man. How such a decomposition could have happened so soon I do not know.

Faroq tried to kill me. I cut his fingers off.

I'm so tired... Maybe a nap will refresh me.

1:
I must continue the record that the captain started. My name is Ian Swanly, a private in this man's army. Through some miracle I have stayed sane. The injured Faroq and Michaels accompany me. Sir Gregory lost his mind some time ago... joining our comrade Reynolds in entropy.

We have travelled back to the sand chamber. The crystals that once blocked our passage have disappeared. An ill omen. We have managed to secure some rope from the body of Kasim, one of Faroq's men who went along one of the side passages. Porr fellow must have come back and missed the first step.

We have reached the true bottom of the sand chamber. The crystals are not here, though remnants lie where they should be. I fear we will die here.

2:
We have wandered along the passage at the bottom of the chamber and found the treasure of Anak-Solomun! A vast trove sits in front of us, enough for all the tea in China! We are headed back to the real world to get assistance in liberating the gold.

3:
Oh god... We didn't know.

The men in the stone were still alive!

We went to take some gold to finance our trip there and back to this fucking hellhole. They abushed us! They knew where to hide!

Michaels was torn to bits... I don't know how but he was ripped seven ways from sunday...

Faroq... poor soul. He'd obviously seen the door controls. Planned to seal us i should we try to betray him. His last viperous movement was to seal himself inside... He saved me.

I'm the only one left.

* * * * *

October 16th 1916

It has been a lifetime seemingly since my adventure to the hell pit. I am an old man now, as this journal will attest. I have seen children, grandchildren and the death of great men and gods.

My accounts were dismissed by the society as "Ramblings of heatstroke". They weren't there.

They became "Pulp Fiction" - a new form of literature. The root of my fortune.

It is said that on one's deathbed, all of the pieces in Life's puzzle come together. I finally worked it out, what that structure in the sand was...

But that secret dies with me. None must know of the designs. Or the Anak cryption.

Though I confess I have 2 theories - one arcane, and one extraterrestrial.

Neither will be condoned by society, so this tale of Pandemonium from beyond the stars goes with me into my own tomb.

God know, I deserve a rest.

I hear them.

The Jackals on the wind.

The watchdogs of the King.

My ever present and would be reapers.

I feel they will get their prize tonight...