First Entry, Year 1845. If by any chance someone in this world ever manages to decode these pages, I congratulate you. You have cracked a language that does not belong to any nation on this planet.
I'm writing this entry in Filipino, mixing in a few Ilocano, Bisaya, and Cebuano terms whenever I hit a wall with concepts that don't translate clearly. It's my own personal encryption system. Although the fact Filipino is derived simply from Tagalog and other languages are added from the Philippines because it is the national language, makes it feel like I'm simply making Filipino. The archipelago I was born into feels overwhelmingly like the 18th century Philippines.
I'm writing this entry in Filipino, mixing in a few Tagalog, Ilocano, and Bisaya terms whenever I hit a wall with concepts that don't translate cleanly. It's my own personal encryption system. The archipelago I was born into feels overwhelmingly like the 18th-century Philippines,the rustic coastal towns, the humid heat, the familiar flora, and the colonial-style architecture,yet every map I've laid eyes on depicts an entirely different world.
Still, I know better than to rest easy. Intelligent scholars exist everywhere, and given enough time, a clever mind might spot patterns in my syntax. Once we return from this expedition, I'm planning to learn a couple of dead local dialects to layer over my notes. You can never be too careful when you're a reincarnated soul living a second life.
I was lucky from the start. Our household happened to own a surprising collection of books written in English,a miraculous coincidence that allowed me to hit the ground running. Leveraging my past life on Earth as a high school teacher, I devised a strict learning regimen as a toddler: read a quarter of a textbook, pause, and construct a comprehensive mock exam for myself. I repeated this loop until I could pass the whole text with top marks.
My parents, simple and hardworking folks who made their modest living trading and restoring damaged antiques, thought they had birthed a prodigy.
Then came my long-lost grandfather. When I turned six, the old man suddenly resurfaced in my father's life. He wasn't just any wanderer; he was a renowned, wealthy explorer whose backing gave me the leverage I needed. With his fortune and the reputation I had built as a child genius, I bypassed the usual restrictions and spent the next twelve years enrolled in back-to-back four-year university courses.
• Ages 6 to 10: Archaeology
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• Ages 10 to 14: History
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• Ages 14 to 18: Physical Sciences
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Now, at nineteen, I find myself leading my very first major oceanic expedition toward an uncharted island. Or at least, we were at sea until a sudden fog rolled in, off-shooting our course and depositing our entire vessel right into the courtyard of these massive, overgrown ancient ruins.
— Guiler Driftwood
The scratch of the quill ceased as Guiler leaned back against a moss-draped stone pillar, blotting the ink dry before slipping the journal into his leather coat.
Heavy, frantic footsteps echoed through the ruined archway ahead. Three figures burst into the flickering light of the campfire, catching their breath in ragged gasps.
First was the Scribe, his leather-bound ledger clutched tightly against his chest like a shield. Behind him stood the Navigator, nervously clutching his brass sextant and map casing, followed closely by the Quartermaster, whose hands were still stained black with charcoal from trying to spark a blaze down by the lower court.
"Captain Driftwood!" the Scribe wheezed, adjusting his wire-rimmed spectacles. "We... we walked the outer perimeter just as you ordered!"
"And?" Guiler raised an eyebrow, his expression dripping with lazy indifference.
"There's something down in the catacombs!" the Navigator blurted out, his voice trembling. "Floating white shapes! Whispering voices in the mist! Captain, the ruins are haunted—we saw ghosts!"
Guiler let out a soft, theatrical scoff and closed his eyes, resting his head against the cold masonry behind him.
"Ghosts," Guiler muttered, waving a dismissive hand. "Right. I told you men to go easy on the emergency rations. Eat too many dry coconut husks and the indigestion-induced paranoia starts making you see your own ancestors."
The heavy canvas of the tent rustled as Peter, the young scribe, practically fell inside. He was pale, sweating, and clutching an unlit torch like a club.
"Commander Guiler, sir!" Peter gasped, his voice cracking. "They're... they're outside. The ghosts. They're around the tent!"
Guiler pressed his signet ring into the warm red wax on his journal, sealing the page shut before looking up. Before he died on Earth, he had spent years teaching middle schoolers—a job that required endless patience with panicking kids. Reincarnating into this world hadn't changed that part of him. By the time he was eighteen, he'd already burned through three four-year degrees in history, archaeology, and physical sciences. He knew his stuff, but he didn't care about looking smart. He just liked keeping things simple.
"Take a breath, Peter," Guiler said, his voice calm and low. "If the ghosts wanted to eat us, they wouldn't wait for you to fetch me."
He stood up, grabbed his coat, and walked out into the chill night air.
There were no ghosts waiting by his tent, but the landscape was enough to make anyone lose their head. Instead of the modest coastal island they were supposed to be inspecting, they were standing in the middle of a massive, silent city built entirely of pale marbled stone. Towering arches and ruined stone halls stretched out into the dark. All twenty-one members of their expedition had gone to sleep in their tents back on the coast and woken up here.
Beside the central campfire sat Barnaby, the middle-aged quartermaster. He was tossing dry wood into the flames, clutching a wooden holy symbol, his knuckles white. Scattered around the fire were abandoned packs, rolls of rope, and half-eaten rations.
"Where is everyone else, Barnaby?" Guiler asked, walking over to the light.
Barnaby jumped, then let out a shaky breath. "The dark got 'em, Commander. The dark and the specters. Miller and the scouts walked ten paces past the firelight to check the marble pillars, and the shadows just... pulled 'em in. No sound, no fight. Gone. I told 'em we shouldn't have set up near these old stones without a warding circle!"
Guiler looked around the edge of the campsite. He could actually sense it—a cold, heavy pressure lurking just beyond the firelight. Ghosts were very real in this world, and the bad ones hated bright light.
He walked over to a stack of abandoned gear and picked up a lantern, lighting it with a stray ember from the fire.
"They aren't dead, Barnaby," Guiler said, turning back to the quartermaster.
Barnaby stared at him. "How can you be so sure? Their gear is sitting right there!"
"Because ghosts in places like this are lazy," Guiler said simply, walking to the edge of the light and holding his lantern high. "This whole place is built on old magic stone that holds an charge, kind of like how a sponge holds water. The ghosts use that energy to push things around when it's dark. When the scouts stepped away from the fire, the spirits didn't eat them—they just slipped them through a hidden door in the stone to get them out of their space."
Peter crept up behind Guiler, staring into the darkness. "A hidden door? You mean like a spatial trap?"
"Yeah, basically," Guiler nodded, pointing his lantern at a faint, carved groove in the marble floor. "Think of the fire as a big 'Do Not Disturb' sign for spirits. Inside the light, the stone stays solid and normal. Outside the light, the ghosts can mess with the ancient mechanics in the floor. They dropped our crew into the sub-levels below us."
Barnaby wiped his brow, glancing nervously at the surrounding shadows. "So... Miller and the rest are just stuck downstairs?"
"Pretty much," Guiler said. "We just need to walk down the main hall, keep enough torches lit so the local spirits don't try the same trick on us, and find the stairs going down."
Barnaby spat into the fire, though he looked visibly relieved as he started tying extra torches together. "Well, why didn't you just say we were dealing with floor traps instead of haunting spirits?"
"Because it's both," Guiler smiled, tossing a spare torch to Peter. "Now light that up, kid. We've got nineteen people to go go fetch."