"Everybody, stay in your teams," Caduceus ordered. "Two earth mages per group in case of cave-ins, as before." The magician had found the tomb he had been searching for, and now he just needed to find what he was searching for in there. "The Helm of Aurochs is in here somewhere!" he called, reminding everyone of their goal.

He knew better than to try to force Tabatha from her reverent posture. It was part of the barbarian woman's heritage, after all. The Auroch Queen had been a fierce dictator, and a military force to be reckoned with. The woman in that mural was the same woman who ruled over Tabatha's tribe with an iron fist, and a dehlar hammer, a hundred years before the raven-haired warrior was born. She was merely paying respects to a great and terrible leader, before plundering her final resting place.

"Torgun!" Caduceus summoned the dwarf from the scouting party, knowing he could hold his own. The shaggy-maned miner ambled over, pickaxe in hand. "I need you and your team to stay here and watch the entrance," he muttered quietly, trying not to be heard. He didn't want the whole camp on edge. "I'll leave a pair of earth mages with you. Should anyone start to come down that tunnel, collapse it. I'll trust your judgment on how, when, and where. I've got a weird feeling about this whole thing. It's been too easy so far, and I feel like we're being followed."

It was more than a feeling, though. He'd seen someone or something far off in the distance, at the top of the canyon, while he had been waiting for word from Torgun. He hadn't brought it up before, but he knew it was a good idea to hurry up and get everyone inside. And besides, he could have been wrong. If he was mistaken, there was no sense in destroying the nearest exit and forcing themselves to take the long way out, into the mountains.

~~~~~

As the army of diggers made their way into the depths of the desert tomb, the paths branched off and two squads would go one way, two another, until all that remained with Caduceus, Chic, and Tabatha were a handful of the animated dolls, a pair of wolf shifters, noses ever twitching, three draconian lancers, and a couple of Tel Han mages. All of the magician plushies had been ordered to provide lighting via a series of heatless flames that they carried overhead.

The passage was narrow enough that they had to neatly file through, two by two, aside from the tiny automatons who could easily scramble between and around the legs of their larger companions. Tabatha and one of the shifters, named Logan, were up front with a gnome doll and a couple of kender dolls, which sang some "Hi-ho, hi-ho" song insufferably.

A soft howl of wind rang out through the labyrinthine structure as the ever present sandstone and limestone gave way to the harder, stronger granite of the mountains' roots. Veins of shimmering green plynt laced the walls and ceiling here and there, giving the corridor an eerie glow from the reflected light of the magical flames.

Soon, the magician thought, we will have the helm of the Auroch Queen, and we'll be able to prevent such a tyrant from rising again so easily.