Lincoln's POV
Sixteen hours. Sixteen long excruciating hours to meet up with a fellow "treasure hunter" to find a stone or gem that probably doesn't exist, but since I was running low on cash I practically had no choice and it had been a while since I'd been on a good expedition.
I didn't know much about my partner aside from the fact that this was their first time actually hunting for treasure. I guess it was better than someone who did everything by the book, afraid to do a little extra digging or hiking.
The plane finally landed alongside the beautiful city in Madagascar that shone brightly as the sun set upon it.
Once I got off the plane and paid the pilot, I saw another plane land in the same spot mine took off from.
I saw a woman with long dirty blonde hair and blue eyes that shone brightly all the way from where I was standing. She was about 5'9" with a fairly athletic build and had on a red shirt and blue jean shorts, she had a red beady neckless on that complimented her shirt.
She had grabbed two large duffle bags from out of the plane a after a few minutes of her talking to the pilot he took off.
"Excuse me, are you Mr. Bell?" The blonde asked, her Australian accent was enchanting and her enthusiasm was infectious.
"Yes, I'm Lincoln Bell." I said as I shook her hand.
"Chloe. Chloe Johnson" She said shaking my hand dropping her heavy duffle bag full of luggage.
"You need a hand with that?" I asked her while she pulled out a rubber band to tie her long hair into a ponytail.
"Sure thanks, I've already booked a hotel so we can get a good night of sleep before we start exploring" She explained as we walked towards a blue building with a few windows on each side.
We went into the two bed room and Chloe started unpacking the bag she carried, and pulled out three different pairs of spare clothes, a canteen, black hiking boots, and a military knife.
"Good to know you came prepared." I said, feeling better that she kinda knew what to bring.
"Thanks, could you hand me the other bag? I wanna tell you about some stuff that'll help you understand what we're looking for." She said.
I didn't know anything about what we were looking for or who was or is looking for it.
She unzipped the duffle bag and pulled out a map, a bunch of books about survival, and a book about a guy named "Alandrios".
She couldn't help but take notice that all I had with me was a backpack that was even heavy or that big.
"Did you come prepared?" She asked with a smirk.
"Actually, I was hoping you could give me a little background info on this guy and his treasure." I asked hoping she'd tell me at least a little bit about the expedition.
She sat down on the bed next to mine and opened the giant book, Chloe was clearly fascinated with the guy and everything about him, including his treasure.
Apparently, Alandrios stole a gem (allegedly worth over 200 million dollars now) from his friends and hid it somewhere in Madagascar along the Eastern side of the island in the rainforest somewhere.
Once she was done with her very detailed explanation, I looked out the window as the sky enveloped into a purple blue-ish mesh of color as the people below set up lights around their homes and marketplaces.
"Beautiful ain't it?" Chloe said behind me, snapping me out of my trance. "We'd better get some sleep, I gotta rent a 4x4 for tomorrow and we'll get moving" She said taking off her shoes and socks as she climbed into the bed.
She was an attractive woman with childlike excitement for the trip, I couldn't deny that fact that she would make this hunt one of the best. Even if the gem wasn't worth as much as the book said or it wasn't even there.
