Bzzt. Slap.

Alex slapped at the insect that had just tried to bite him, sending it to its demise without a second thought. The jungle wrapped around him with its humid air like a blanket, and he hated every moment. He was from Argentina, and one of the many reasons he left was the humidity in Buenos Aires. Sure, New York didn't have heavy swings in temperature, but he liked not feeling like he was walking around with a wet blanket on his shoulders.

He sighed. It was something he would have to get used to again while they were on this jungle island.

Alex pushed through the last bit of heavy jungle into the clearing he had spotted ahead. It was hard to tell through the trees and in the night, but he thought he had seen some structures through the trees and brush. Considering they were looking for people Artur had sensed watching them, it was a good bet that any structures would lead him to those people. However, as he stepped out into the clearing, he had to reassess that assumption.

A sprawling complex lay open before him, and he immediately started falling back on his experience in history as an undergrad. A tall rectangular pyramid dominated the central area below him, and he realized he had seen the top of it through the trees. Around the pyramid were several structures, some large squares while others were collections of smaller boxes. If Alex weren't certain he was in the nightsea, he would have thought he had stumbled on South American ruins, like Teotihuacan or Chichen Itza.

"Except this is in better condition." He let out a low whistle.

The ruins below were covered in dirt and grime, and the faces of the buildings all had green or brown hues, but beyond that, he didn't see any structural damage at all. Alex squinted as he tried to spot any damage to the buildings. He may have been more on the political side of social sciences, but even he knew that ruins shouldn't be intact if they looked as old as this one.

"Which leaves two options." Alex started toward the ruins, shaking his head as he walked. "Either they aren't as old as they seem, or something else is going on."

Not a single person moved over the green slopes as he came down to the bottom of the area, and he assumed the entire place was abandoned. Why would be the question, but to answer that, he needed to know more.

"Would have helped if I dragged Wen along." Alex sighed as he stepped up to the first building on the edge of the ruins.

It was a squat rectangle about the size of a one-story home. He reached out and touched the wall of the building, feeling cool metal underneath his fingers. As he pressed into it, rubbing at the grime, it gave a little under his fingers. He raised an eyebrow at that. There was no way it was possible.

"Who in their right mind—" Instead of worrying about it, he opened his gate.

There was one way to confirm he was right, and as he embraced the electric thrum of power that shot through his body from his heart, he opened his senses up to the world around him. His curse allowed him to sense the metal around him, and his senses lit up in a blue glow as he stepped away from the building. Every surface of the ruins, including a path he hadn't seen beneath layers of dirt and grass, was covered in metal.

"It's all plated with gold." He shook his head.

It was so dumb, yet at the same time, it was an impressive feat. While gold was a soft metal, it would tarnish and fade over time like any other would if left unmaintained. There was also the problem of it being rare. Getting enough of it to cover a place like the ruins should have been nigh impossible.

He turned, pulling at the metal of the structures, but it was stuck fast. The entire outside of each structure was completely coated in a layer of gold, almost like it had all been painted on with super glue. He grunted as he pulled, but no amount of effort would pull the gold plating from the stone underneath.

"But, if someone had a curse, that could change things," Alex said. "Maybe a power like old king Meidas."

In Greek mythology, there was a man who could turn anything he touched into gold. At the start of the story, the king loved the ability to turn every little object around him into gold at a whim. It hadn't ended well for him when he had tried to eat. The touch ended up being his downfall.

"However, the problem is that it's still here," Alex said. "I always thought that when it comes to curses, the curse fades once the user is gone. Heck, even if you knock them out, that's usually enough to do it."

However, there was another option. The whisper in the air when he stood out on the deck of the Nighthawk came back to him. Listen. Build. Grow. Walk. He knew it was the first part of the words that every island core generated. A core could build a gilded temple, but not without consequences.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He walked into the center of the ruins and sensed more of the metal around him. However, there was no sign of anyone who might have been watching them on the ship. Unless they were dealing with the dead again, like back on Nowhere, he doubted that a lost ruin had some random people hiding in it.

"A dead end, in more ways than one." Alex shook his head, starting back the way he came.

He would send Wen to check out the ruin once he was back at the ship, but the mission to find any searching eyes had ended in nothing. He could check for a core after he was sure the ship was safe as well. It might also give the others a chance to see what the inside of one was like.

As he went back toward the jungle, though, he noticed a bit of movement off to the side. A shadow jumped between buildings just as his eyes focused somewhere else.

He wasn't alone in the ruins.

"I'll give you a chance to come out," Alex said. "But if I have to come and find you, you'll be sorry."

He flexed his fists as he let the power of his curse flow through his arms. With a deep breath, he began to gather energy inside of him, throwing the power through his gate as he pooled more aether into his body. While, for once, he had a lot of metal around him, with it attached to solid structures, it wouldn't be as useful as the metal he conjured with the second grade of his curse.

"No, Ikal!" a man yelled.

Thwip!

An arrow flew past Alex's cheek faster than he could see it, cracking against the wall of one of the buildings behind him. Alex turned toward the center of the ruins, catching sight of a shadow that ducked behind one of the buildings. He gathered up his building ether in his legs.

"Step."

His feet blurred as he took a thousand steps instantly, and he appeared at the edge of the building a moment later. Alex spun around the corner, hand outstretched and ready to summon metal to his aid. However, the moment he came around the corner, nothing was there.

"Arrows don't appear out of nowhere," he said, looking up.

As he thought, a shadow disappeared over the edge of the rooftop.

"Empty Vault."

Alex flung a hand down, sending out a blast of magnetic force and sending himself flying into the air. With the metal all over the ground, he didn't need to drop a coin like he might normally to throw himself in the air. In the next instant, he sailed toward the rooftop, grabbing hold of the edge and vaulting over with ease.

His ever-running shadow had disappeared again.

"You know, I don't like chasing ghosts," Alex said, shaking his head and pushing down with magnetic force again on the roof of the building.

He started floating into the air, holding his arms out to the side as he got a better view of his surroundings. Once he was about three stories up, he had a complete view of the ruins, and the running shadows had nowhere else to hide. He spotted the movement one building over from the air and held out his hand.

"Coin Shot."

A flash of blue electricity called the coin into his hand, and he shot it forward with a flick of his thumb and a burst of magnetic force. The coin shot like a bullet, whistling toward the two shadows as they ran for the next building. Alex started to descend toward where they were before the coin even hit, certain he would hit at least one of the shadows.

Ting.

He was left disappointed. The shadows had managed to escape, and he landed on the ground just as his coin disappeared in a burst of sparking electric blue. Alex checked down the length of the building but didn't see any more moving shadows. Whatever it was, it looked like it was successfully staying out of sight.

"I can't even sense them," he said, shaking his head.

Normally, he had some vague sense of people around him when his curse was active. It wasn't nearly as good as he senses with metal, but he could still have a vague sense of the living creatures around him and the small electrical signals they generated. Whatever he was chasing wasn't giving off either, or at least had some way to block his senses.

"That's the problem," Alex said, closing his eyes. "You're relying too much on the curse. You don't keep doing the same thing if it doesn't work. You try something different."

He focused on his hearing, trying to ignore the electric surges going through his limbs as he focused on all the sounds around him. Insects buzzed in the distance, and a faint breeze blew over the ruins, causing the grass to scratch against itself. All in all, the entire area was silent, except for two things.

Two people were breathing hard inside one of the nearby buildings. Alex tilted his head as he tried to pick out which building it was. After a few moments of listening, he could pick it out. He opened his eyes and charged for the nearest building, jumping through as he summoned a length of metal along his arm in a burst of electric blue light.

"Junk Arm!"

Pieces of jagged metal appeared down his arm, covering it in a protective layer that slightly extended his reach. He would only use one for the moment and mainly had it out to defend himself more easily if attacked again. He was ready to pay whoever it was back for the arrow.

Whoosh. Thwip. Clink.

As he came through the door, two things happened. First, a fist came at his face, and Alex just barely ducked beneath it. A strong, tanned hand had appeared from the darkness, and he only had time to observe that before the arrow shot from a corner of the dark room. It slammed into his shoulder, deflecting off the metal of his arm before it snapped and fell to the ground.

"I don't want to do this," a deep voice said. "But you're not giving me much choice here."

After the fist receded, a kick came up, and Alex threw down his bare hand to catch it and throw himself up with the force of the kick. His bones shook under the force of the kick, and a part of him was happy he didn't take the attack, just stood there. He swung his fist to the side in the direction of the attacker and felt a solid hit as he knocked the person back into the darkness.

Thud.

"Considering you've shot at me twice so far, I don't want to believe you," Alex said, catching himself on his feet after the leg was thrown back into he dark. "I'll just figure out what's going on once I put you down."