How about the group led by Captain Sebastian Bluerose himself? Being with the legendary explorer himself ought to be amazing, right?

They entered the forest ring from another direction, more northwest than west and they never intended to stay long there. At least the captain didn't and while he wasn't particularly hurrying his group, he also didn't intend to hesitate.

“Black trees, interesting,” he mumbled while writing down his notes, he would have more than enough time later for a closer examination, for this first endeavor he planned to get a general feel of the island. “Why though?” However, he was very good at picking up things while cruising through, so he cut a small branch and looked at it in a fast walk.

The bark was indeed black itself, not just blackened by soot. That would mean, that there was a function behind it or that another function caused also the trees to be black. On the inside, they were also more reddish, and the resin was very thick and sticky.

Could these trees feeding upon a special dirt? Or was it a defense mechanism? Maybe a lure? These and more questions went through the captain's head in light speed. Sadly, his Lifeform Radar was almost useless in a forest, as it also included plants, which made the trees the best cover against it, but he decided to keep that in for plant-based monsters and to find underground caverns.

With this, the spell was not fit to find forest creatures, which was also why he could easily waive the foraging part to Greggor. He just wanted to discover something to keep his excitement as high as possible, before he would eventually calm it down to a level where he would do everything properly and comprehensible.

“Stop.” He gave a quick order, as he noticed something. At the first glance it looked like a big bundle of undergrowth—indeed it was—but embedded to it seemed to be something different. “Ready your blades.” He sprang his own out and started to hack after imbuing himself and his weapon with magic. “I make the path, you widen it.”

Of course it was easy for him to cut through roots and shrubbery, as his blades were able to cut a sea boa into half in one strike. The men of his group used their cutlasses to support him, while the women stood guard and took care of the heavy equipment, as this wasn't a job for Water or Air Control.

It didn't take long until they cut through something that resembled a wall. “Hm...” It was made out of stone, and Captain Sebastian Bluerose went through his internal library to discern which one it was: “This is granite.” He said after touching it. “Also, it was worked, the fissures are from age, but the surface is mostly even. Could it be a building? Let's work around it and look for an entrance. Well, you will do that and tell me if you found one, I'll look if there are any other. Let's see if there was an ancient civilization here or if it's just a very unfortunate quarry that has been overgrown.”

In fact, there were several similar blocks close to it, and each of them would barely be enough for a room. The captain counted seven and there may be even more of them buried here, but without Ocher or Maroon, he had no way to tell without making a big digging.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Silently, he hoped these were just the tips of a much larger building he would be able to explore underground, but soon it was evident, that each of those blocks had an entrance that was blocked by a slab. “My educated guess would be that these were graves. Which means, that people used to live here and had the decency to bury their dead. That may mean that they also left grave goods, which leads to the next course of action: Opening them!”

“Erm... captain? What about curses? It's bad luck to disturb the deceased.”

“So far I never witnessed a curse, and if they exist, they have to be spells that also work postmortem, but I have no idea how to even begin such a spell. I mean, how to solve the upkeep of the spell, the mana has to be collected on one hand, and the collection itself would also have to happen. Maybe as a blended spell? Which would mean one spell for the mana collection, a second to feed it into all spells involved, one for what the curse is supposed to do, and then one to blend all of them together. It would need a four-star magic-user at least for a very specific purpose, though I guess you could make a living out of it? Oh well, everyone who is afraid of a curse, step back. Time to lift that slab!”

The captain used Body Enhancement to increase his lifting capacities. After spitting into his palms, he lifted the slab from the ground and moved it away, nothing noticeable happened, aside from the stink of earth and rot.

Leading by example, Captain Sebastian Bluerose entered the grave first, and while it was just a small room, he still needed a torch to light it up enough for him to see sufficiently. There were more stone slabs inside, but they were made out of basalt, which seemed off, but the captain was too busy to look for anything he could learn about the culture. Aside from a scripture there was nothing, the dead bodies were already skeletons in indiscernible rags, therefore Captain Sebastian Bluerose took a look at the letters.

They were hard to read, he had to concentrate his spell on his eyes to find the faint remains of the color that was used on the rock, as he went through the alphabets he knew. He couldn't read the message, but the few letters he could put together were familiar: “These could be Zenghian.”

Some of the crewmembers gasped, but most of them were not that educated: “What's that?”

“The Zengh are a mythical empire of old, the historians believe that it has fallen eight millenia ago. The stories tell of its vastness and its wealth, but they angered the gods and were punished, the empire was gone from one day of the next. However, there are some rare items of unknown origin that have this scripture and it's believed that these items—many stone tablets and art objects—were traded with the Zengh long ago and are the few surviving pieces of their culture. As those items were found in the east, I wouldn't ever imagined them to find them here in the beyond-west. Intriguing. Maybe they were explorers like us and landed here and couldn't leave safety? How did they navigate and how did they conquer the sea gaps? Or could it be older than the gap or the Mist Sea itself? Oh! Or was this part of the actual Zengh Empire and then a natural disaster struck, creating all this altogether? This is already a huge discovery!” This first island of their second expedition may be able to fill some void spaces in history!

Of course, this was enough for Captain Sebastian Bluerose to break out in a dance of joy, as this was exactly what he was looking for on this journey. It was ideal, and even if they decided to abort the rest of the planned expedition, this would end up with more than enough of a pay-out to finance the next one!

“Now let's open the next one!” He was already in full explorer-mode and hungry for the next discovery, forgetting all the implications this could have in the moment.