Dislodged rocks scattered across the ground as I slid off the upper ledge and dropped through the broken dome and down into the final chamber of the ruins. The air was stale and dusty, making me want to cough, but the temperature was fortunately cooler than the tropical jungle outside the ruins, the heat and humidity blocked by the thick stone of the walls.

The sunlight coming down from the opening was barely enough to see by, so I dug into the satchel hanging at my hip from a diagonal shoulder strap. Finding a torch, I removed it from the satchel. Producing a nickel plated lighter from my pocket, I flipped open the cover with my thumb before igniting the small device. It only took a moment for the tiny flame of the lighter to set the torch to burning.

Snapping the lighter closed with a flick of my wrist, I returned it to my pocket while holding the torch up for a better look at my surroundings. A twinge of pain ran through my right arm, and I gently placed a hand on the bandages wrapped around my bicep until the pain subsided. After previously encountering pressure plate activated spear traps on countless occasions, I was amazed wasn't better at avoiding them, either the plates themselves or the spears fired at me as a result of the plates being stepped on.

I reached up and brushed the spider webs from the brim of my brown fedora. Spiders always seemed to be everywhere in old ruins, but I was grateful there hadn't been any snakes. I can't stand snakes.

The perfectly square chamber where I stood had four pillars on each side, and they were covered from floor to ceiling in carved letters and symbols. The language was from an ancient dialect, but I was able to discern the writings on the pillars as warnings of doom, catastrophe, and evil of an unparalleled magnitude.

All of the pillars were evenly positioned along the walls, but directly ahead of me, they were spaced wider in the center to make room for a four foot wide and completely square box of stone. More carved warnings covered the box, telling me to stay away and not disturb the evil contained within.

Kneeling in front of the box, I brushed away some dry leaves on the floor and found something else underneath. Previously hidden by the leaves, rusty chains were piled around the base of the stone container. Inspecting the box closely, I found wear patterns in the surface, and upon draping the chains over the box, discovered they matched perfectly. The chains had once wrapped the box, but someone had removed them long ago. I leaned around the back and found the ancient hinges were covered in rust, but the rust had flaked off along the edges where the hinges moved, telling me the box had been opened.

Deciding whatever terror residing within had probably already been let out, I decided to risk opening the box myself. The lid proved to be considerably heavy, and my injured arm vigorously complained the entire time. When I opened the box, I was surprised to find it held a bronze jar. My mind flashed back to the old myths and legends, specifically the one about Pandora's Box. If this was the very one, I realized Pandora herself must have been the one to have opened it countless ages ago.

I'd always thought she'd made two mistakes instead of one. When Pandora had opened the box, it had let loose all the evils in the world. She'd closed it again to keep hope inside, but I'd never understood the reason for her choice. She'd released evil but kept hope trapped.

The world of today was still plagued by evil, and in desperate need of hope. Realizing what I had to do, I reached out, took hold of the jar, and opened it.