Relt Peltfelter and the Legend of the Wandering Desert

[Relt PeltFelter]

(see recruitment thread here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?22834-Mr.-R.-E.-Cruitment-Esq.-Humbly-Asks-You-To-Peruse-this-Sundry&p=184039#post184039))

The sun sat in the sky like an old, fat bluebottle first thing in the morning; just creeping up over the horizon, reveling in its own orangey crapulence. Its early rays were already beginning to bake the endless, rolling desert dunes. The air was still; no breeze would come this day to soothe the sun-baked ground. Nothing moved save for the occasional twitchy hopping of locusts, keeping as few feet as was possible on the burning sands at a time. The gentle dunes continued, unchanging, as far as the eye could see in any direction, save backwards.

That is to say, backwards relative to Relt Peltfelter, who stood at the edge of the great, flat desert and gazed out into infinitely vast, scorched terrain.

It was difficult for her to believe that this had been a forest three days ago.

- - -

The story of the Wandering Desert has been told on Althanas, in one form or other, for several thousand years. A legend mentioning it is known to occur in the histories and prehistories of every civilization. The legend, as it is usually known today, goes something rather like this.

In a time when the world was very young, there were no forests, or mountains, or cities. There was only the desert and the sea. In the desert lived a nation of humans, who had built a mighty and powerful kingdom.

Nothing was more important to the people of this kingdom than their tombs; every man had to have one, dug deep into the stone beneath the sand, in which his body would lay. Having their body lay in the soil of their native land was the most important element of these peoples religion, and was considered more important than venerating their gods.

The tombs of kings were enormous stone structures, shaped like three-sided pyramids, and ringing the kingdom like the teeth of an enormous mouth. The people of this nation grew prideful, boasting that the works of their beautiful temples and tombs surpassed even the majesty of their strange and now long-forgotten gods.

Their gods grew wrathful at this, and struck the kingdom with a potent curse. Every man, woman and child of the nation died suddenly, and the desert in which the kingdom was built was torn from the surface of Althanas and made to wander the world forever, never staying anywhere long, so that those buried in this forgotten kingdom would never know rest or solace.

- - -

Relt had heard the story that morning, as she strolled irritably through the bustling streets of Radasanth. Relt Peltfelter was not, as should be made obvious quite quickly, a native inhabitant of the planet Althanas. She originated, as so many things do, from San Francisco, California, in the year 2025, and the circumstances of her arrival here are so embarrassing that she prefers they go unmentioned in public.

The short-statured girl sat sprawled over a wooden bench as though she owned it, a significant portion of her cocoa-brown skin on display compared to the rather conservative dress of the native women. Her mirrored sunglasses reflected the crowds of people going about their own business.

Relt had thought that being in a city again would help her to relax, as it would be more like the world she had found herself snatched away from, but of course that was not the case. This city stank, the buildings were all too short, and it felt like she’d been exiled to some kind of shitty Disneyland knock-off. Not to mention the apparent civil war which was brewing.

“It’s back again,” a voice said behind her. Relt turned around, startled, but realized that the speaker was not addressing her. It was an old woman seated at a market stall, speaking to a crowd of wide-eyed children. “Yes, the Wandering Desert. Back again,”

“Tell us the story again, Gramma!” one of the children shouted. Despite herself, Relt was interested, and crept a little bit closer.

“Alright, children, alright,” the old woman said as she tapped the ash out of her pipe. She relit it and took a deep drag before blowing a smoke ring. The children were fidgeting and fussing impatiently. Relt stood nearby; a couple of other gawkers had gathered around as well. Free entertainment was free entertainment, Relt supposed.

The old woman told the legend of the Wandering Desert. She told of the untold treasures and riches which lay buried in the banished kingdom. She told of the time, when she was a child, that the Desert had landed in Corone before, and of all the adventurous young men who had journeyed into it, never to be seen again.

“Scouts for the Empire have been coming back with sand in their boots,” the old woman said, “They go into the forest to try and root out some rebels, and come back sunburnt and begging for water. The Desert’s back, mark my words, and it’s landed in the east of the forest. But will anyone find the treasure this time?”

“Yo, over here, old lady,” Relt said, one hand half-raised in the awkward way of someone who is working out unrelated details in their head, “How long does this desert thing stick around, usually?”

“Oh, well, when I was a child I recall it being there for at least a week. So many brave men, lost to the sand…”

“Yeah yeah, whatever,” Relt interrupted, “But I mean there’s a few more days left on it for now, right?”

- - -

And so Relt stood at the edge of the desert, a dozen gourds of water bongling around in her backpack. The only real objective she had here was to have some fucking fun. She wasn’t in a rush to get home; oh she’d have to try eventually, but there weren’t many adventures worth having in San Francisco. But here, this…

“This is some serious Indiana Jones shit,” she said to herself, her eyes gleaming.

[Rayse Valentino]

A legend was only a legend if it was fiction. That's what Rayse figured. After all, if that wasn't the case, when does the legend end and reality begin? He never bought this nonsense about a desert that liked to go sightseeing... until today. A local guide had brought him to the edge of the desert, where the forest suddenly disappears. The divide between the trees and the sand was unreal, like he was stepping between worlds. There was no transitional point, even the color of the ground went from a dark brown to a bright yellow. And the heat. It hit him like a warm breeze, like the whole desert belonged inside a transparent oven.

"This is as far as I go, sir," said the guide. He was a stout man in a green tunic with a balding head.

"That's fine," replied Rayse between puffs of his cigarette, handing the man a few crowns for his trouble. The guide had a slight nervous twitch as he took the money, perspiration growing on his skin as his eyes watched the desert as though entranced. As he left, he dared not look back.

People feared what they did not understand. Faced between the real and unreal, people seek safety in what they know. This desert was a monster, a beast that devoured the same as any living creature. They were right to avoid it. They were right to fear it. Rayse, however, didn't. These people had never actually seen a desert in their ignorant lives, but Rayse had been to Fallien. However, while the Fallien sands were more brown and were littered with stones, this sand was pure.

In any case, if nobody ever made it out alive, then the legend was built around hearsay. If it was true, then there was a way to make it through. There was a prize somewhere. Being a man wholly fused with the element of fire, heat was an afterthought to The Contractor. He was in a unique position to see if there was any truth to the story. Stepping out into the sand, he took a deep breath of the hot air, getting a distinct sense of deja vu from his trip to Fallien. In his traveling bag he had a few canteens filled with water, and more importantly roughly four packs of smokes. From what he knew of the story, there were only a couple of days left before this whole place decided to go on a field trip to some other part of the world. Judging by the fact that this story doesn't reach beyond the borders of Corone and the last known sighting was decades ago, this was his only chance. It was strange what a man would do for money.

That was when he spotted her. A young girl with brown skin, lightly-dressed and walking along the sand like it was nothing. At first, he thought he was seeing things. A girl going into the desert by herself? The possibilities raced through his mind, each one a horse that kicked the other horses in the race. At the end of the carnage, one horse made it to the finish line. It was the steed of opportunity. She must know something I don't.

He walked over to her, and yelled, "Pardon!" when he was a few meters behind. As she turned around, he put on his most earnest grin and said, "Adventurer extraordinaire and monster slayer at your service. Surely you don't intend to explore without my services? Whether or not you accept is of no consequence to me, but if I find the treasure first then don't expect any handouts!"

[Relt PeltFelter]

“Oh why did I think this was a good idea,” Relt moaned to the unforgiving bleakness around her. Her body had begun reminding her that, in addition to marijuana, and video games, it required water. “It’s…it’s like a beach without the part of it that makes you want to go to a beach in the first place. This sucks dicks. Eight of them. Eight dicks,” She chugged another gourd.

She had finished five water gourds.

She had been walking for half an hour.

It has been remarked upon elsewhere that, outside of approximately a two mile radius of the streets of San Francisco, Relt is not the most capable of pioneers. The natural world, while fascinating to her when catalogued pinned to the pages of a book, was largely just bewildering and foreboding in person.

Relt's current distance from San Francisco is not capable of being expressed in traditional three-dimensional terms, the main point stands: Relt, alone in the wilderness, is analogous to a red-bellied piranha swimming aimlessly in a gallon tank of third-rate tequila, or to be more direct, a red-bellied piranha gasping for breath under the desert sun.

Armed with this knowledge, one would easily assume that the genial individual who offered to assist her would be welcomed with open arms. To assume this would be to miss a very elemental aspect of Relt’s personality.

“Yeah, yeah, I don’t want any. Got shit to do. Desert shit. So why don’t you just bag off, jagoff?” she grumbled, waving him away and continuing her long trek.

The stranger seemed momentarily taken aback. He had thought himself rather charismatic just then. “Very well, but I may as well tag along with you. I’m sure we’re both headed treasure-ward, are we not?”

“Whatever. It’s a free, uh, desert,” In the face of all good sense, she opened another water gourd and began slurping it down. “Augh,” she muttered to herself, “Tastes like the stringy stuff you scoop out of a pumpkin. I should have just paid extra for real bottles,”

“You know, I happen to have a few extra canteens with me. Perhaps if your, uh, gourds aren’t-” the man stopped to look back at the trail of sad little hourglass shapes behind Relt, “-doing the trick, I could sell you one of mine?”

“Fuck off,” Relt had stopped walking. Her castigating dismissal had been an act of auto-pilot, as her primary mental energies were currently occupied with scanning the horizon. Through the shimmering haze there had been a hint of angularity among the rolling dunes; the tip of a pyramid, perhaps? It seemed unlikely to present itself again, but Relt was fairly sure she remembered which direction it was in.

She stopped, and stared down at the sand through her mirrored glasses. Her feet shuffled a few degrees to the right, grinding against the soft substrate. She looked up at the horizon again, holding out a thumb to sight against. This strange ritual accomplished, she nodded to herself and began marching purposefully into the desert once more. Yeah, she was the boss. She had this shit on lock down, even if there was some random creepster trying to get his mitts on her Secret Desert Treasures.

[Rayse Valentino]

It's hard to know how to do the right thing. Not in the sense of justice of goodness, but in the spirit of getting your desired result. When you get into an argument, you're looking to win. You think: What's the best way to win? Do I present some evidence with detailed analysis, hoping they're open to changing their viewpoint?

Or maybe you just threaten them with the tip of a sharp knife.

Rayse was considering the latter, as he walked at the girl's side. Well, to her side with about a dozen meters of sand in-between them. He kept his distance, but they were going in the same direction. Another cigarette butt fell from his lips as he quickly replaced it with a fresh one. Smoke seeped out of his mouth almost constantly, like he was a campfire reduced down to embers. However, he didn't really need to drink that much. He took maybe one or two swigs of water the past half hour, while going through half a carton of cigarettes. He didn't sweat, because the heat didn't affect him, but his frustration was evident. He wasn't wearing the fake grin he had on earlier.

Who does she think she is? Talking like that to me? She should've thanked her lucky stars that I didn't just stab her and move on.

He didn't know whether her confidence stemmed from insight or stupidity, but she was right about one thing: He wasn't going to harm her. His threshold of tolerance for a woman was fairly high; The only one he ever stabbed was for raging a civil war that nearly tore his homeland apart. It's pretty hard to top that.

There was no particularly good reason for him to go along the same path as her, however. The way she walked so purposefully was unsettling to him. Every now and then she would adjust her pace to a slightly new direction, and he had no idea why.

You ever get that gut feeling? The kind that says, "If you don't do this, you'll regret it for the rest of your life." Well, maybe not that extreme, but the regret would damn well last a while. Long enough to make the rest of this trip more of a pain in the ass than it already is.

It was then that he noticed her expression had changed. He had been watching her most of the time out of the corner of his eye, otherwise just staring down at his feet kicking up sand. He followed her gaze and looked forward, and could see something he couldn't believe: A huge wall that spanned the entire horizon. Now, it couldn't have been that long, clearly it was much closer and he somehow failed to notice it before. But, how? Even if he wasn't paying much attention to where he was going, something like that would've shown up quite some time ago. Maybe it could only be seen up close? But... but then how did she know it was there? That gut feeling paid off. The wall was a light brownish-yellow, similar to the sand. Various shapes were carved into the wall as far as he could see, but none of them made any sense. Symbols? A language? Who knows.

As they got up to the wall, which was so tall they couldn't see the top of it, they met once again.

"What now?" Rayse asked, as if she didn't refuse his invitation before.

"Whatever," she mumbled while walking away from him along the wall, leaving another emptied gourd in the ground.

Rayse tried to ignore that. He kept assuring himself that nothing came easy, and patience tends to be rewarded. He walked in the opposite direction, trying to find anything resembling a door. He tried to toss one of his empty cigarette cartons over the wall, but it fell back down next to him. Even if he had one of those fancy hooks, there didn't look like anything to hook onto there. He rubbed the wall with his fist, but it was fairly solid. He looked back toward the girl's direction and noticed she was gone.

Wait. Gone?!

Where? How? There is no way she could have left his sight so fast unless... did she find an entrance? He ran along the wall towards where he last saw her, but stopped with an expression of terror and bewilderment when he finally found 'her'.

He looked at the wall. It was there, solid and everything, but... there was some of the girl on it. Like she was levitating a few feet off the ground, except it looked like she was standing on the wall even though nothing was jutting out. The worst part was that her entire top half was missing. She was angled away from him, and from his vantage point he was looking slightly up, but it still didn't make any damn sense.

"The hell is going on?"

[Relt PeltFelter]

It is in the interests of dispelling any notable worries a sensitive reader may develop that it be made clear that Relt was not, in fact, bisected and thrust through a solid wall in defiance of all Euclidean geometry. The ancient machinations which resulted in this outcome were of a decidedly less sinister bent. It was actually quite an impressive piece of engineering; Relt would have whistled appreciatively if her lips weren’t all dried out and rogie from gourd water. She had spotted it pretty quickly; she was kind of glad this asshole hadn’t for whatever reason, he was starting to get on her nerves with his cheery amiability.

The entrance was a low, squarish doorway in the wall. Just through the doorway was an immediate incline, about forty degrees, the surface of which was perfectly mirrored. How the hell it stayed mirrored in the face of ceaseless wind-blown sand was beyond her, but it worked quite well. Built into the wall above the mirror was what appeared to be a section of the exterior wall, mounted back-to-front, and skewed so that, from the outside, the opening appeared to be just another portion of wall. Thus a Relt standing halfway up the ramp would appear, to any ill-ogling observer to be clipping through the wall like the player character of a poorly-programmed first person shooting game from 1997.

“Are you slow?” Relt asked, walking back out under the post-and-lintel entryway to glare at her undesired compatriot. “It’s just some kind of crazy Houdini-door, stop being such a bitch. If you’re gonna tag along with me, Short Round, then do try to keep up. Shit like this is probly a dime a dozen in the tombs or whatever,” Relt grabbed a handful of sand from the desert surface, juggling it back and forth from hand to hand and making little “ah, oo, fuck,” noises from the heat it exuded. She tossed the sand at the top of the incline, and it slid down with a silvery, silky sound, illuminating the ramped nature of the secret mirror.

“There, now the Nazis can follow us to the magic cup room with the old ass dude in it,”

“What?” The stranger asked, still trying to fit the secret entrance into his head. But Relt had already scampered back up, and was gazing out onto a necropolis.

Leading from the secret entrance was a street, lined on either side by great stone statues; many of these were fragmented, but those that were intact depicted some slightly bland-looking men holding weapons and agricultural tools. One of the enormous pyramids lay at the far end of the road, though a few likely-looking temple buildings sat closer by.

“What do you see?” the stranger asked. Clearly the man was taking an optimistic approach to this conversation.

“Wonderful things,” Relt called back, shading her eyes with her hand.

“Really?” the stranger replied.

“No, idiot, it’s just a bunch of buildings. But they’re pretty cool, I guess. They probably keep the really good treasure and stuff down with the dead people. Are you gonna fucking come up here or not? It isn’t magic or whatever, it’s just a ramp!”

Were Relt looking in his direction, she would see that the man’s patience was wearing thin as he stepped cautiously through the hidden entrance. He was clearly unused to such verbal abuse.

It occurred to Relt that it would probably take her significantly longer than the three days allotted to search this thing alone. She sighed and turned back to face the straggler.

“I can not believe I’m fucking saying this, but maybe we can work together on this thing. Can you do anything cool, like, I dunno, smell gold or fart out a metal detector or something?” The girl seemed to think about something for a while.

“Oh, my name’s Relt, by the way. That might be important later,”

[Rayse Valentino]

Relt? Sounds like a name for a horse. Whoa now, Relt! Good girl.

The thought amused him long enough to not simply bury her up to the head and forget about her. He thought about his reply for a moment, but there was only one clear answer.

"I'm Rayse," he said. "Rayse Valentino." He walked up the ramp, looking up and realizing the nature of the illusion himself. A small feeling of foolishness followed him. He was hedging a bet as to the nature of Relt, and decided that the best way to hide lies was in honesty. "I actually came here with a bit of a plan. I believe that the reason that adventurers have never returned from here is because of the heat." He put his palm on his head and slid upward, clearing the bangs from his forehead. "As you can see, I ain't sweating. Heat is no problem to me."

"So you're like some sorta monk?" Relt replied. "You know, the kind that walk on hot coals and shit."

No. Nothing like that. "Yes."

"Cool," she said, a bit too dehydrated to see the humor in her reply.

They walked along the main road, looking over the decrepit half-destroyed structures that littered their view. It was a bit odd to see so many ruins, considering that the wall that guarded this damn place was fully intact. Then again, with enough trial and error anybody could figure out which wall was fake. Rayse in particular was looking for something specific, namely what kills people once they get in here. Nobody got out of here alive last time this desert dropped by, so what did them in? It certainly wasn't the front door.

They were both heading for the large temple at the end of the road. It wasn't at the end per se, it just sort of obstructed the street. It was a huge pyramid type of deal, with three big triangular sides. A few parts of it were missing, but was a bit more intact than the rest of these buildings. Rayse went around it for a bit, and noticed another road that went into it, a road that lead to the wall. He assumed that this geometric structure was at the center of four roads, perhaps at the center of this whole necropolis? All of Rayse's adventure senses were tingling, marking the pyramid as the first area to explore.

They had both run into a bit of a problem however, as there was no entrance. Not to say that there were not any doors, because there was a huge stone double-door that formed an arch. The problem was that there was no discernible way to open it. No knobs, nothing. Pushing it did nothing. There were a few slips in which air escaped, where the doors met the rest of the temple.

They spent about ten minutes looking around for any mechanism that opens it, and then Relt started getting really sweaty and impatient, "This sucks, let's just go look in another one of these dumps, like maybe there's a key or something. Oh! Maybe some magic words? Let me try... OPEN UP YOU PIECE OF SHIT AND GIVE ME ALL YOUR TREASURES!! Nope, didn't work."

Rayse was not interested in searching all of the ruins for clues as to how to open this goddamn door. Another theory cropped up in his mind: The travelers all died from boredom, or annoying side-kicks.

"Hey, I found something. Look at where the doors meet."

"Huh?"

They both walked up to the doors, Relt slightly in front of Rayse, and the Contractor pointed at the door, causing the girl's eyes to follow and squint at trying to see something that wasn't there. Then, Rayse suddenly jumped forward while pushing Relt's back, causing her face to nearly collide with the door before they both disappeared into flames. The next thing she knew, the surface of the door was replaced with a long corridor, illuminated only by the brief flash of the flames before they died out. She fell to the ground with a thump, while Rayse landed gracefully on his feet. They were on the other side of the double doors now, having passed through the little slits while in the form of pure fire.

Before the lights went out, he saw a lever and without thinking, pulled on it. It slid down, and the doors behind him opened. A sudden screeching sound pierced his eyes, causing him to put his hands over his ears as small creatures flew from deep in the corridor and out the door. He crouched down, avoiding the flock of what looked like birds (although in the moment he opened his eyes he saw something his brain could not process). After they all passed, he got back up and sighed. Now, he had perspiration running down his face, not from the heat but from the act of transporting two people through a tiny crack in his fiery form. He only hoped that the earlier distraction was enough to quell any suspicion from Relt.

[Relt PeltFelter]

There are not many events which can render so talkative a mouth as Relt’s speechless. Events of this variety have occurred with far greater frequency, following her undesired transmigration, but usually they have been events of mortal peril or otherworldly revelation. Tumbling through what appeared to be a tiny crack in a pair of doors which had been clasped shut for thousands of years succeeded in that insurmountable task of shutting Relt’s yap simply by being inexplicable. The shrieking maelstrom of flapping birds was merely icing on the confusion cake.

The girl stood up, looked at the open door. She rubbed the back of her head, then turned towards the mysterious benefactor who appeared to have shoved her through solid stone. “Welp,” she said, finally, tugging her backpack into a more comfortable position and walking deeper into the tunnel. Rayse followed; evidently he had expected something more, but was not unhappy to receive less.

The tunnel opened, rather abruptly, into a hollow structure which must have been at the center of the building. It was triangular, as one might expect of a hidden chamber inside a three-sided pyramid, and built with a wide sandstone walkway surrounding a sunken area of confusing geometry. Relt fiddled with her cell phone, activating the cold white glare of its flashlight function, and played it over the middle of the room.

“Oh shit,” she said, as the nature of the thing dawned on her.

“Something the matter?” Rayse said without concern. He was examining the peculiar hieroglyphics which coated the walls in a manner bordering haphazard.

“It’s a map. Of the whole, like, necropolis-thing,”

“A map?”

“Yeah, like a model with tiny buildings and stuff. See, check it,” Relt hopped off the walkway, landing on an intricately carved mastaba. A tiny statue of a vulture snapped under her flip-flop. “Woops. But whatevs; see, this thing in the middle is the building we’re in now, right? And this thing here-” Relt stepped towards one edge, “-is the wall we came in through. The back way, I guess, since there’s this whole elaborate gate thing at the other side,”

“That would explain the illusion of the entrance, certainly. So where’s the treasure?”

“Hm, well, probly not in here. This is just I guess a visitors center? It must have been hard for everyday jagoffs who lived around here to find Granpappy Akhenhotep III’s grave or whatever, so I guess this map was to show them where everyone is buried,”

“Well, excellent. Except that we can’t read any of this weird picture-writing, can we? So how does it help us?”

“Uh-nuh,” Relt shrugged, stretching out and sprawling contentedly across the roof of the model of what was, unbeknownst to her, the tomb of High Priest B’nutt, “But at least it isn’t crazy stupid hot in here,"

“Yes, clearly comfort should be first priority when hunting for treasure in a disappearing city which no-one has ever returned from. Thank you for being so on task,”

“Man, chill out. You’re being kind of a bitch right now,”

Trekking through a desert was nothing next to enduring this insufferable child. His fingers flexed uncontrollably, the thought of strangling her giving him some small measure of comfort. He stepped down into the maze of miniature tombs and temples, striding closer to the irritating girl. Some scathing remark began to flare on the tip of his tongue-

-and died. Suddenly he felt pretty relaxed. Why get so worked up over something as simple as treasure? They would find it eventually, and it would be just as cool then as now. And he was being kind of a bitch.

Rayse blinked. “What the hell was that?” he murmured, shell-shocked.

Relt looked up from her cell phone. “What the hell was what?” she asked.

Rayse shook his head roughly; he had experienced the strangest sensation of alien emotions invading his head. Was it this temple, some long forgotten mystical ward intended to destabilize intruders? Or maybe…was it the girl? No, it couldn’t have been. Could she have planted those feelings in his head? She didn’t seem to have done anything, or cared about his discomfort. Something wasn’t right; he would have to remain especially vigilant against that sort of intrusion. Rayse did not like the sensation of being unable to trust his own mind.

Trying to bury this unease, the Contractor braced himself against a tiny temple and went to hoist himself back out of the sunken model, but the sculpture moved under his weight. It ground a few inches into the floor with the sound of chewing sand. The walls of the pyramid resounded with oddly mechanical clanks and thumps for several minutes, then fell silent.

“Great, you broke it,” Relt remarked snidely, “Sat here for thousands of years, and you broke it. Dunno how you break a whole temple, but-AUGH”

Without warning, the room filled with light. Burning oil poured from unseen apertures in the walls into rusty braziers, illuminating the chamber and casting eerie shadows that danced obscenely as the flames settled. At the furthest corner of the necropolis map, an enormous pyramid opened like a blossom, a shaft of even greater luminance pointing upwards. Relt tried to rub away the flaring after-images in her vision as Rayse crossed to the newly opened passage.

“A tunnel,” he said, looking down, “With a ladder leading downward. If this doesn’t scream treasure, I don’t know what does,”

“Well go on down, then," Relt snorted, "Ladies first,"

[Rayse Valentino]

None of this was making much sense. There was an air of things being a bit too easy around the two, making all of their actions suspect. Given, they technically cheated their way in, but it couldn't have been the first time. Now, the girl suggested going into a deep, little hole. A few traps designed to simply make the ceiling come down would be good enough down there. He decided that if he saw anything that looked like the remains of a living thing, he was outta here.

He went down the ladder, being guided by the cell phone's light. When he reached the bottom, he waited for Relt to come down. At the bottom was the start of a tunnel. The ceiling was very low, just a few inches above Rayse's head, but it was wide enough for maybe ten of him to walk through with arms locked. He could see all this because there were sunken square blocks in the walls from which light poured through, likely more of the torches from above. The idea of the entire pyramid having this elaborate system of transporting oil and lighting torches played up the death scenario in which everyone burns to death, one which wouldn't affect him.

As they walked through the tunnel, Rayse kept a keen eye out for anything that looked out of place. The tunnel was surprisingly well-kept: the walls were smooth, without a single scratch on them. The torches cast shadows that moved as though the lights were flickering, but as he passed by the sunken slots where they were housed, they were gentle and giving off an even glow. He didn't think too much of it at the moment, as his focus was on the ground, looking for anything which might clue him in to a potential trap.

Relt, however, wasn't as studious. She had an expression on her face like she just ate something sour, and she walked behind Rayse, trying to concentrate on the image being displayed on her cellphone. The Contractor looked back, curious at this sudden change of character, but then it hit him: She's claustrophobic! This small space, the low ceiling, it was getting to her! He couldn't help but smile- he finally found something that bothered her. It had been a while since they started traveling together, and his frustration didn't only stem from her berating him. That king of thing was trivial. The real problem that hammered away at his mind was: What if I was wrong? What if she didn't know squat, and was just some crazy girl who ran away from home in search of riches? Some idealistic little tramp who was naive enough to think that anything here was ripe for the taking.

He didn't like being wrong, but he slowly came to terms with it. It wasn't that big a deal, he concluded. Yet, there was no reason to ditch her. He's been with her long enough to find some use in keeping her around. The thing she's good at is seeing the big picture. Rayse looks in the corners, the dark spots for clues. Relt quickly determined that the above room was a map of the necropolis. She found the fake wall. There was much to be gained from having another perspective, maybe that's why adventuring usually fares better in groups.

They couldn't really see an end to the tunnel. It was rectangular in nature, so it all seemed to converge on some point in the distance, but the light was too dim to see what was there.

That was when something cleaved Rayse Valentino in two. It only happened for a moment. Something from the wall, something dark and long, reached out and swiped at his torso in the blink of an eye. He stopped, noticing that his body was temporarily split in two, a layer of flames connecting his upper and lower body, and then looked back at Relt, who didn't seem to notice anything as she stared at her cellphone. If he wasn't part fire, that would've been the end of him right there. It was so silent and deadly that it sent a chill down his spine. He spit out his cigarette and turned around, and he saw it much more clearly: A thin shadow extended from the wall to the middle of the tunnel, floating just barely in front of Relt's neck. From her vantage point, there was no way to see it- it was just too thin, but Rayse was taller than her, and could see some width on it from an angle.

"Get down!" Rayse yelled, which made an already-agitated Relt fall down to her knees. The shadowy blade passed over her head, cutting a few hairs that fell in front of her face. The Contractor looked toward the wall, and he saw at the origin of a blade... a shape. At first, it looked like his own shadow, but then he realized it was moving of its own accord.

Then, it stepped out from the wall, mimicking Rayse's outline, just barely darker than the surroundings to form its almost-transparent appearance. He looked behind them, and more of them were stepping out from the walls, some taller than him, some shorter.

Relt looked around too, and saw them, "Oh shit! Crazy shadow monsters! Run!"

They couldn't go back the way they came. They ran forward, just barely missing the shadow monsters being formed from their own shadows as they passed by the torches. There would be an army of them chasing them soon, and they were going to catch up.

Their only hope was reaching whatever it was at the end of this damn tunnel.