Called to the Desert Region

[Izvilvin]

"Storm's brushin' the side a' th'wall," a voice called.

It was an accurate statement. The bleached walls of Jya's Keep endured the constant sandstorm that battered them, a myriad of particles dancing along the waters of the surrounding moat to pound steadily against the stone. This construct, one of dozens on the island of Irrakam, had endured generations of similar abuse. There was no fear in the timbre of the man's voice, no concern for the stamina of the Keep, only a resigned acknowledgement that a forceful scrubbing would need to be done after the storm passed.

"Not much more'n usual, seems like," his suntanned colleague mumbled, hoping to forget the very idea.

The men stood by an ivory-colored gate near the port of Irrakam, their faces covered in thick, white fabrics to protect from the sand's barrage. Before them lay the port of the island, where less than half a dozen transports would pass this very week. It was easy work for meager pay; they were provided lodging and nourishment.

Simple as it was, grumpy as they might have been, the two human guards of Jya's Keep each kept a calloused hand mere inches from the handles of their steel blades. The casual onlooker, lacking the experience of a warrior, might not have noticed the poise with which they stood.

To Izvilvin Kazizzrym, who stood meters behind them, it was as obvious as the buffeting wind which stung his black cheeks.

The drow peeked out over the crest of a dune, lavender eyes narrowed to get a better view. He'd used his Icarus Ring to leap onto the shore minutes before the ship rounded the corner of the island to come into the guards' line of sight, and stepped nimbly along the hills of sand in a roundabout to look back upon the high arches of the gate.

He exhaled with enough force to blow a pinch of sand off of the dune in front of him. It had been years since he'd felt this heat, felt the burn of the desert sun on his brow, since he thought of his life in Fallien's desert. One thing had brought him back - he plucked it out of a pouch and unwrapped the note with nimble fingers.

"Ten miles east of Jya's Keep at the next full moon."

So many times, he had received similar messages from agents of Step. Enough times, now, that he visibly winced upon first receiving the call - Step had been disposed of, entirely, years ago, but the instinctive repulsion he felt had become too deeply buried in Izvilvin's heart.

This situation was much different, however. The warrior felt the thirst for adventure in his core, the possibility of the unknown, the future. He was tethered to noone, but someone had reached out to him for one reason or another. It was enough to drag the drow out of his Alerian homeland and back to the desert once more.

He tucked the note back into his pouch, and slunk away with speed. He left only the slightest of impressions in the sand.

[Alydia Ettermire]

Two and a bit weeks prior...

Paige Turner knocked on the door to her attic and let herself in. Rather than being a moldy, dusty trap for all things unwanted, this was a clean room, furnished with a couch, a table, and a small bookshelf. Said bookshelf was crammed nearly to bursting with books on Corone's history and geography. The table was bare save for a single lantern that sent flickering light dancing with the shadows. The couch, large and plush, was usually covered by a protective cloth... but once, maybe twice a year, a certain red coat came to town.

"Aly," the newspaper editor spoke up to drag the Alerian's attention from her book, "I have a message from Bron."

Bron Retla's relationship with the Alerian thief went back to her detective days in Ettermire; if not for him, she would have only ever been either a petty criminal or a stellar sleuth. But he had elevated her, given her a few resources, and that, combined with her charisma and boldness, made her a rising star among the greats of Althanas.

If only she could decide whether she was a thief who sometimes saved lives and solved heinous crimes or a heroine who occasionally stole stuff.

A frost-blue eye peered at the human from beneath a broad hat brim. "What is it?"

"He wants you to check out a ruin in Fallien, not far east of the Jya's Keep."

Aly turned back to her book. "There is nothing I want in Fallien until after Raiaera is cured, and nothing Bron wants, either."

"Not even a Tear of Fallen Kings?"

The tome vanished and Alydia reached for the sheaf of papers in Paige's hands. "A Tear of Fallen Kings has no business being in a Fallinese ruin." They were rare items from a tiny, land-locked country half a world away from the desert island nation. "I thought they were all lost. If this is true, Paige-"

"Next month the Tear. Next year a cleansed Raiaera."

The thief scanned the speculative proof beneath her fingers. "He told me he wanted no part of my 'repulsive Raiaera obsession.'"

Paige shrugged, knocking some dark brown hair from her shoulders. "We all talk. He and Sintta are becoming friends. And the sooner this is done, the sooner we can all get back to doing what we signed up for."

"Charter passage." Blue eyes looked into green ones. "I'm on the first ship to Irrakam."


Present

Centuries of lashing sandstorms and shifting dunes had buried the ancient keep, making the ruins nearly impossible to find.

Nearly.

Having cleared the front and roof over the course of an hour, the thief stood atop the smooth stone blocks in the bitter cold of the pre-dawn desert, marking out a rough path in her mind. Old strongholds were often trap-infested, and Alydia Ettermire was in no mood for dealing with the games of the long dead. Here was a branching of paths: kitchen and servants quarters that way, this way to the shrines and bedchambers of some forgotten god-king, this way to the bedchambers of visiting nobility. Straight ahead, through the Grand Corridor and into the Garden Courtyard - now piled high with innumerable quartz flecks. Then the throne room, where a man powerful beyond imagining conducted the business of running his kingdom and ruling his subjects.

If this building held true to typical Fallinese architecture of the period, the treasury should be below the throne room and the vault should be below that.

A neat circle of stone vanished beneath her palms, she peered into the darkness, and dropped. Dust disturbed for the first time in eight hundred years billowed away from her voluminous coat and she stood, looking around. She was in a sort of throne room, but it was hardly typical. For one thing, a glowing chunk of purple crystal as big as a Draconian's fist levitated above a podium in front of the god-king's dias.

"That's not what you're supposed to look like." Red lips curved into a frown as the woman walked over to investigate the crystal without touching it. A click sounded around her when she reached it, and she vanished into shadow. The feared trap didn't spring - instead, blue fire rippled out along channels starting at the throne, illuminating vast walls covered floor to ceiling in a long-dead picture language.

"That's peculiar." Aly examined the writing. Maybe there was knowledge she could glean here.

[Izvilvin]

Yet again, the dark fingers of the warrior plunged into the sand and swept it as far aside as it would go. Half of what was moved came back again, sliding tauntingly back into place.

Izvilvin had spotted the protruding peak of the buried ruin from many paces away, its yellowed stone like a beacon in the night to someone with eyes so keen. The sun, its face just now beginning to peek over the horizon of the ocean, provided a subtle shine to its aging surface.

He could suffer only a few moments of the losing battle, learning quickly that digging by hand would bring him no closer to the entrance of the structure, wherever it was. His fingers rose up to grasp at the leather-like mask which covered the lower half of his face, pulling it down to reveal a handsome chin.

Was he supposed to meet someone here, outside? Would the key to entering the keep, or a helpful aide, be nearby in mere moments to escort him onward?

He knew this wouldn't be the case. A feeling lingered in the air, a hint gently tugging in the corners of his mind and trying to prod his understanding. This was what remained of Alydia's shadow magic, which touched upon Izvilvin's innate sense of cloaking or similar magical enchantments - he could not comprehend the specifics of the sense, but knew that some form of magic had been nearby in the past hour or less.

Sliding his slippered feet onto the surface of the ruins, the drow grasped tightly around the handle of Mjolnir, slowly unsheathing it from his hip. The blade hissed and crackled in greeting, popping in response to the blowing sand which struck the white-hot, enchanted sword. He began to tap the point of the weapon against the stone.

Tink. Tink. Tink. Finally, tonk. The dark elf's ears heard the hollow echo from within the room below.

With a ferocious swivel of his hips, Izvilvin brought the blade high and plunged it down into the structure beneath his feet. Mjolnir sunk deep into the stone with a heavy thunk, but was pried out of it almost immediately. Again and again, he drove his beloved blade into the rock - from an outsider's perspective he'd have looked like a madman, but each strike was expertly aimed with specific purpose.

Finally, the sword slid easily back into its sheath and Izvilvin stood in the middle of a rectangular outline in the surface. There was no stealthy, no safe way to proceed, and so he did not consider trying to develop one. The warrior leaped up and stomped down, driving the stone downward and into the room below.

Disoriented, Izvilvin could only roll as his feet slapped against the rubble beneath. The rumble echoed down the nearby chambers and light spilled into the otherwise pitch-black cavern, as the hole in the ceiling delivered the drow into the ruins.

He ended up on a knee in a narrow hallway, eyes quickly adjusting to the darkness to provide him with his bearings. He could begin to see the dust settling around him, moved for the first time in centuries. He began to make out the outline of the doorway ahead, the corners of the stone frame adorned with rubies which had long ago lost their luster.

He pulled his mask back over his mouth, breath held, listening as carefully as an experienced hunter could. Nothing was heard. Not a sound permeated the corridors around him, save for the sand still dropping steadily into the hall from his makeshift entrance. If there was any movement in the ruins, it was not nearby.

[Alydia Ettermire]

Hundreds of years after the last word had been uttered in these halls, in a language far removed from the tongue of the masons who had carved these symbols, a vastly different creature struggled through the symbols and syntax spread before her. She had only ever spent a few days studying it, and only because one of her people was so passionate about it. Fortunately for her, she had a phenomenal memory and a good head for languages, but that didn't make her task much less of a struggle.

"In the...seven...ten. Seven-ten. Seventieth?" Aly frowned. How had this culture arranged their numbers? Was it seven tens, was it seven and ten, was it seven and ten parts? Ten parts of what? A hand slipped up to wipe a thin coating of sand from the wall. Okay, there was a little line between them. "Seventeenth... cycle? Of our...he-will-live-forever... lord of all...uh-huh, titles, titles, and more titles. Were all these necessary? His name being... completely marked out because the following generation hated him. Great. Perfect."

Alydia passed the scrapings where the king's name had been, bright eyes scrutinizing grimy pictographs seven or eight times her own age. "The...people from the Land of Crystal Kings...oh. This must be referencing the Aoldarii. That would make sense if it's really a Tear. Came...with - came carrying? Came bearing a...tribute?...to his resplendent majesty from whom the sun receives its blessing to rise each dawn... really? Humans. Funny, dear creatures, but they take themselves too seriously."

She sighed, then whipped around at the distant sound of crumbling and a trap going off. Zaki, doubtless, with Asad along for the journey. They were early; they weren't meant to reach her for another day. Their company would be welcome, regardless; this culture was Zaki's passion, and he could translate faster than she could. Why didn't they just go by the roof, like they know I would? I left the way open for them.

She paid it no more thought; there was a mystery here. "Blessing for the sun to rise, yes, yes. More kissing up for about a column, then... The Aoldarii from the Land of the Crystal Kings brought with them a... is that gift? Payment? 'Please don't eat me, we're human too' token? That would bring upon the...lands...of we-hate-him-now-so-he-has-no-name... fish? Flying fish? That doesn't make sense. What's this next o- Plenty? Better. Plentiful sky-water. Okay, good gift for a desert. In his wisdom he decided to... tie? himself to the... Oh, tell me you didn't ruin a Tear of the Fallen Kings like that."

Patience lost with the writing on the walls, Aly went back to the podium, crouching down to see if there was writing on it. "All right...can you tell me how to get you out without having the whole place crash around my ears and my friends'?"

[Izvilvin]

The drow moved through the abandoned halls like a breeze through the meadow, only the toes of his feet meeting the ground, the gentlest of steps guiding him through a lightless tunnel that he could scarcely tell was angled downward.

Though unfamiliar terrain, Izvilvin had spent enough time in Fallien to know that these were ideal grounds for creatures. What type, he wasn't sure, but creatures nonetheless. Perhaps a sand worm's lair, perhaps a scarab nest, or perhaps nothing at all.

And the rubies. These ruins were inundated with them, so far as he could tell - every few feet revealed a supporting pillar in the wall, yellow as the sand above, but with one or two rubies embedded into them. They were as big as his head but utterly lacking in shine or any sense of value, for a reason that the warrior could not begin to understand. As he proceeded it seemed impossible to count how many there were, but as he continued on, they obtained an eye-catching glint. Light, in the distance. Blue light, flickering in the tunnels.

With the patience of a practiced rogue, Izvilvin reached the mouth of the passageway leading into the throne room. There, his patience left him and he stood, dumbfounded, gazing at the relics of the past painted across the walls of the room. They danced in the light of the blue fire, telling him that they meant something that he couldn't possibly understand, no matter how much time he was given to study them. He was not a scholar, like Alydia, but knew that deep significance lay within them - either the remnants of a lost people, a history of Fallienese ancestors, or something entirely different. It could have been a playroom for the children, for all he knew, but it was spectacular.

His wits slowly returning, the drow's keen eyes then moved to another part of the room, where a familiar figure stood transfixed and crouched by a podium. A gem was above it, as big as the rubies he'd passed along the way, though vibrant in color.

She looked perfectly at home, he thought, surprised as he was. "Ol uriu tlus fol draeval, abbil," he said, though in his surprise he had forgotten to remove his mask.

"It has been some time, friend."

[Alydia Ettermire]

Aly studied the object for a long time, trying to figure out what the triggers were if the item was stolen, whether they'd already gone off (doubtful, since the gem still hovered), what was likely to happen when she took it, and whether it was worth it. She didn't like the look of the magic that had been worked into the crystal, and certain types of magic reacted badly with her shadows. It didn't reassure her that the inscriptions on the podium included the words "curse," "eviscerate," "sickness," and "damnation."

Ancient human cultures took their curses seriously, and she wasn't in the mood to have one removed.

Her left hand held her chin, her right hand planted itself at her hip, pushing her trademark red coat a little to the side. It was a pose so practiced as to be unconscious; it made her look incredibly thoughtful and very smart, so she'd perfected it during her detective days. Nowadays, it was just easier to think in that posture if she was standing and contemplating at the same time. There had to be a way to get this thing; mere humans had put it in there centuries before, hadn't they?

She heard the footsteps at the entrance without really registering that she wasn't alone; already convinced that they were Zaki and Asad, she had no reason to believe it was anyone else. Her mouth opened, starting to form words in Fallinese, but the words that reached her addressed her in her native tongue.

Alydia's breath caught in her chest as language became voice. She knew that voice, but she'd thought the owner of it dead for years. He'd gone into the same hell pit as she had on what had amounted to a suicide mission. She'd only barely managed to escape alive. Without access to the sort of tricks she had...

But the pitch and tone, the surprise, the joy! She knew that voice. And she was terrified to turn around and view the man in case this was all one cruel dream or an image wrought from ancient malevolence. But why would they pick him?

Scarlet slowly undulated as the thief who had once traveled with the warrior turned, clinging to skepticism, holding to hope. He was taller than she was, but not by much. He carried his weapons as though they were comfortable, extra limbs, and what little skin she could see in the weak, flickering light was just as black as hers. And those eyes. Purple was such a rare color. It almost had to be him.

"Izvilvin?" Soft-soled boots drew her toward him, step by deliberate step. "Izvilvin Kazizzrym? Zhah ol llaar dos?" The last words came out in a whisper, asking a question that would have been absurd if it wasn't so valid. Was it really him?

She reached up when she was within a step of him, tilting her hat up so that her face was not obscured from his vision. For a woman who let so few see her as such, so rarely, she might as well have been letting him gaze upon her naked. Her right hand reached up slowly, thin leather glove gentle on his leathery cheek, and slowly she dragged the mask down. There was no mistaking now. That face belonged to only one man.

A laugh pealed out from her, a mix of surprised and joyful, and she turned quickly to wipe away a pair of tears that had sneaked into her eyes without her permission. "Ol zhah dos."

She turned back around, just as quickly, grabbing hold of the famous warrior's neck in an embrace so fierce it almost could have been lethal. "Usstan ssiggrin dos zhahen elghinyrr!" I thought you were dead.

[Izvilvin]

He watched her eyes darting about his masked face rapidly, studying - discerning if what she saw was real.

Izvilvin, too, could scarcely believe it. And below the surface of the desert, of all places! His mind scavenged through memories and time, trying to find when last the two drow had seen each other. Was it really so long ago, when Alydia had helped him destroy the past that wouldn't let him go?

He didn't balk when she reached for his mask, the cool touch of the woman's fingers more than welcome. When Alydia spun and then returned to lock him in an embrace, he returned it and dug his face into her hair, the sweet and spicy scent of Alydia temporarily blocking out the musty scent of the ruins.

When at last they parted, Izvilvin pulled the mask around to the back of his neck. "Naut elghinyrr quin," for he wasn't dead yet, "d'elezz fol xal kestal dkinos," though some surely wished otherwise.

A wide grin greeted Alydia then, for of course there were far fewer enemies to Izvilvin Kazaizzrym now than in the past, and thanks to the help of the fetching dark elf before him. Step was no more, a distant memory, along with the constant attempts on his life which had once been commonplace.

His eyes flashed and shifted upwards, above Alydia's wide-brimmed crimson fedora, as the warrior took careful notice of the suspended purple gem for the first time. They lingered there for a moment, locked into focus, before Izvilvin once more looked to Alydia. The navy-hued fires rumbling low in the room cast a gentle glow around her skin, utterly without luster in the face of her cool, frosty eyes. "Zhah nindol vel'bol udos inbal doer whol?" he asked, for the drow did not been given a clear reason to be here; the gem, striking as it was, seemed like the possible goal to him.

A split-second later, the elf's face brightened and he dropped a hand into his pouch. He revealed the note that had been left for him just days prior. "Dos?" Had it been sent by Alydia?

[Alydia Ettermire]

Aly frowned at Izvilvin's question, shaking her head. She'd had every reason to believe him dead until just a moment before; it did her no good to summon a ghost. Her frown hardened when she looked upon the note that had summoned the warrior to her side. Not only was it exactly, cruelly, in Step's style, but she knew the handwriting very well. "Bron."

Shortly before their fool's errand into Step's headquarters, Izvilvin had helped her take down her final target from her detective days, a vicious serial murderer by the name of Shynt Aubrey. When they'd split up at the gates to beautiful, orderly Ettermire, she'd given the warrior instructions on just how to find her again. Those instructions had led him to the workplace of her oldest and closest associate, Bron Retla. Bron had known, all this time, that Izvilvin was alive. That the missive was secret meant that it hadn't been her friend who had asked to vanish into the ether; it meant that Bron was playing games with her.

"I'll kill him later." The thief abhorred bloodshed, but she hated disloyalty even more. There was no excuse for this secret. Yes, Bron had so many other interests that they were both better off if she didn't dig too deeply into, but this... He shouldn't have kept this secret. Even if she and Izvilvin decided that the best way to care for each other was to have no further contact, that should have been up to them. It didn't help that fewer than twenty days passed for her between "losing" the warrior with whom she'd faced so much hardship and helplessly watching another friend die in the worst days of Eluriand.

A deep sigh streamed out of her nose and she dropped back into her native language, motioning to the crystal and the walls with her right hand and reaching for Izvilvin's hand with her left. It was almost as if she feared he'd vanish if she wasn't actively keeping track of him. "This is the court of a powerful king from a time shortly after Fallien became a desert. Either he was very influential or very evil, because his name has been erased from his own stronghold. See where all the deep gouges are in the text? That was their way of erasing him. The accomplishment he seems to be most proud of was receiving a Tear of Fallen Kings, which is a legendary crystal from an old kingdom halfway around the world. I've been to that area; there's nothing left now. Tears of Fallen Kings were said to be very powerful. They could extend life, they could affect the weather, they could clear out curses of magnificent power."

Alydia's voice echoed in the room at the last word, resonating in time with the amethyst pulses of the great glowing gem. "Such as the blight in Raiaera. This king, his legend reads, bound the power of this object to his immortal soul. It was a phenomenally bad idea, because instead of making him a living immortal, a god..."

Her blue eyes tracked the sea of pictures, searching for the proper explanation, and eventually she pointed to an image of a large green man on the wall. "He's become an immortal dead creature. The Tear and the king are both cursed. He's probably still in these halls somewhere." That thought stopped Alydia cold. If Bron had known there was a chance the crystal was corrupted...

"Which would explain why Bron summoned you here."

[Izvilvin]

Izvilvin could see from Alydia's expression that no, it had not been her who'd sent the note, before she spoke the name of one who did. He began to understand, then, for though he had spent only moments in Bron's presence, the man had seemed eager to reassure Izvilvin that heading back to Alerar, to home, was a good idea. Just to summon him once more to Alydia's side at a later date.

All he could do was shrug and tuck the note away once more. He didn't know Bron well enough to speculate, and if Alydia trusted him - despite her occasional frustration with him - then Izvilvin would follow her lead.

Slipping his hand over Alydia's, the drow walked slowly behind her as she began to speak, to explain. Both pairs of eyes explored the history depicted on the paintings around them - Izvilvin ignored what text there was, knowing that he'd be unable to understand them. As his companion spoke of the fallen king's disgrace, the warrior reached out at one such gouged location. His fingers traced the stone where the name was once displayed; the material had been carved out with a sharp tool in what had been anything but a delicate process. He could imagine a man from the past, a mining pick or similar tool in hand, repeatedly ripping at the wall to remove the reference.

He let Alydia's words sink in once she had finished, taking his hand back and placing it on the cold hilt of Icicle.

The melodic, sharp words of their native tongue came shortly after. "A lich?" he asked, though he wasn't sure Alydia, despite her wisdom, would have a definitive answer. "Let us hope not, if some followers remained alongside him as he turned. A lich could create powerful allies with necromancy. Mere zombies if we're lucky, but if we're not..." he let the thought hang without completing it. Zombies would fall by the dozens, slow and rumbling as they were, and sensitive to even simple iron blades. A lich, though, would shrug off even expertly-placed attacks from the warrior's arsenal.

"If this king bound the power of the Tear to his soul," he began, piecing together the narrative Alydia had unraveled, "does the Tear lack its full power so long as he lives?"

He shook his head quickly. Of course the fallen king was no longer alive, in the way Izvilvin defined it. "You know what I mean."

There were not enough clear answers to put him at ease, of course. His ears and eyes were scanning the room even as he'd asked the question. Now, his gaze went once more to the purple gem, in which he could see multiple reflections of himself looking back. "Our next step, then?"

[Alydia Ettermire]

Alydia shook her head, reflexively pulling her hat back down over one eye and planting her hands on her hips. “No. Not a lich. Not quite. If I have the legends right – and I may well not; Fallienese myths were never my specialty – he’s a lot like a lich, but his soul isn’t bound into a protective object. The Tear keeps him going, but it doesn’t give him power over the dead. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the corrupted Tear will also be affecting anything that died in here and will lend him command over them. The worse news is that the ancient god-kings were often buried with a handful of highly trained warriors and a few attendants.”

The ancient palace’s silence suddenly became oppressive. Surely by now their presence was known.* The ebony-skinned thief drew in a slow, deep breath. “There’s a deeper level to this keep. It’s where the burial and treasure chambers are. So long as this gem is floating here,” she motioned to the Tear, “we can’t destroy him. But if we take it down now, we’ll call down everything he can throw at us all at once, including himself. I’m not sure what all he can do; there are symbols here I don’t know. I have a man coming tomorrow who could tell us everything, but there’s no way in Haide I’ll throw him into danger.”

A frown creased her face. Should they just leave? But what if they didn’t run into Zaki and Asad? It could put them right in harm’s way, especially if the ancient king was angered at the trespass. “There might be a way to purify the Tear, but not without taking it down from its place. There are probably other guardians to the tomb that I wasn’t able to translate and haven’t heard about. Either way, it’s an object of great power, and a buzzing hornet’s nest very close to the Jya’s palace. I can’t risk that artifact maybe getting into the wrong hands, and you have close ties with the Jya, do you not?”

Running away was no longer an option. They’d awakened the tomb, they had to deal with it or innocents would suffer. Friends would suffer. It seemed they were always sticking their feet into each other’s problems, even from the very first time they’d met.*

Alydia reached into one of her many pockets; she knew Izvilvin well enough to know that if she was going in, he was. She knew that even if she’d decided to bail, he couldn’t let a threat to a land he considered a second home stand. Not this sort of threat, anyway. She also knew that it was not going to be a fun trip down into death’s lair.

A red ribbon emerged with her hand, smooth as only spider silk could be and as red as her hat and coat. “We might need to move abruptly and fast. I can move you with me, but there is danger in the darkness. This will help protect you.” Without letting him question, she wrapped the ribbon twice around one of his powerful biceps and tied it with a knot. Her hands trembled a little bit; she had every reason to fear the undead.

“Do you want to look for the door, or do you just want me to make one?”

[Izvilvin]

The warrior listened carefully, his calloused hands resting atop the handles of his trusty blades. He took in the words of his dear friend, his ally, one he respected and trusted duly - one who had earned this trust numerous times, who had saved him and reminded him over and over of the value of friend and kinship.

This ancient king sounded enough like a lich to him, enough to bring a grimace to Izvilvin's face.

She was right to suspect his concern for the Jya and the region as a whole. He had fought numerous times on Fallien's behalf, whether it was helping repel harpies, sand worms, even a dragon, or running errands for the keep and its stewards. This was the only land that had shown him any acceptance, whose leader would publicly defend him at the cost of her own image in the eyes of her people.

Alydia was right, too, to know that Izvilvin would not entertain the idea of not accompanying her within the depths of the ruins. "Make one," he said, though he was not at all at ease with the idea.

The friends moved toward one of the walls near the back of the room, near the throne, and Alydia placed her palms upon the stone not far from one of the trails of blue fire. Izvilvin had placed a hand on her shoulder, as if afraid she would melt into the shadows and leave him to fend for himself. In a moment an oval portal appeared, big enough to fit one of them at a time. Alydia stepped into it without hesitation, and Izvilvin followed at the same rate, refusing to release her shoulder.

Though there was no magical teleportation that he was aware of, and it truly had been similar to passing through a door, it still took the warrior a moment to regain his bearings. It was darker here, the decline of the floor was more pronounced, and the musky odor was more intense. He noted with relief that Alydia's doorway remained, and so he was not trapped. As well, there was now a way to get back to the gem, if needed.

They were in a hallway not unlike the one he'd taken to reach the throne room. There was no light, which was not a problem for the two dark elves, and he could still make out the ruby-holding columns along the walls. The floor was overlaid with a neat, uniform layer of dust which had not been disturbed by air or creature. A positive sign.

"I do not hear anything," he whispered, trying to reassure his companion. In truth, he was able to hear the rapid beating of Alydia's heart.

They began to walk down the path, side-by-side in the wide tunnel. Both practiced users of stealth, it remained utterly silent. Only a few moments passed before he indicated something coming up along the way, on the left, a break in the tunnel wall that led elsewhere. Unlike a modern structure in Irrakam, for example, this was a doorless frame leading into a room off the main path. A tattered, eroding cloth hung from bolts at the top of the frame; long ago it would have been a simple privacy measure.

He went to the side of the frame and gingerly moved the remains of the cloth, holding it to the side so they could peer in. Inside there were a handful of surfaces, about waist-high and slightly longer than Izvilvin was tall. There was little sense of color with his darkvision, but the warrior imagined them to be yellow as the stone in the lighter areas had been. They were in utterly pristine condition, as if crafted by skilled dwarves who knew they needed to last for a very long time, as most dwarven structures did.

"Barracks?" he wondered aloud, seeing how the room could meet that need. He looked down the hall again to see if more breaks in the wall were present. He couldn't quite tell. "I wonder how many there are. Just how vast was this kingdom?"

[Alydia Ettermire]

The strong hand on her shoulder was both a reminder that she was not alone and that her company was one of the most capable beings on the planet. That was thin reassurance when they both knew what they were walking into, but it was reassurance nonetheless. If there was any one being she'd want to have her back in the lightless, breathless tomb ahead, it was the armored Alerian behind her. If there was any one being she'd want to send with him into that same danger, she'd probably have named at least half a dozen people before herself. Give her golems for days; she could tear those apart like they were paper. Anything that involved real fighting, however...

She was a scholar, an historian, and a thief. She had two small blades and no idea how to use them; she wasn't built for battle. I hope I don't let you down, friend. As far as I'm concerned, you're just walking out of the grave. I couldn't bear to put you back in.

Shadow condensed beneath her hand and spread into a portal. When it vanished, it pulled a thick section of stone with it, into the eternal darkness where she stored everything she stole. A deep, hollow sigh sounded from the vast space before them; centuries of dead air expelled a foul, musty breath over them. She could put seal it again later, when all of this was finished. Less than a minute passed between the pair stepping into the next part of the building and the warrior finding a door.

"At its height, ten days on a swift horse north to south, eight days east to west." Alydia's answer fell softly in Izvilvin's ear; though they had yet to find any active tomb guardians, she was instinctively trying to make her presence minimal. Her eyes probed the walls, looking for any further clues in the abandoned quarters, and finally she spotted a small bit of ancient script, which she ran her fingers over to draw the former assassin's attention. "Worker's quarters, no doubt."

She considered the strange, ancient characters. She wasn't familiar enough with this text to read it; it was far different from the formal pictographs in the throne room. Despite that, it was enough to give her a more accurate idea of the castle's time period. "Judging by this, the castle was in use somewhere between seven and nine hundred years ago. That was just after it went into decline. I'd say that when this place was active, the empire was no more than half its former size. Buildings in the old capital were much more magnificent."

A distant grating sound caught Alydia's ear, freezing her lungs and raising every hair on her arms and the nape of her neck. Something was awake. Something was moving. There was no way it could be friendly. She looked to Izvilvin, only to find him already looking at her. Either he'd heard it too, or he'd heard her pulse spike. She drew in a deep breath to steady herself.

"That'll be the welcoming committee. When we find statues, let me handle them. When we find...something else... I'll trust you there. But no matter what, we're not splitting up this time."

The red-coated thief swallowed hard against her rising anxiety, then stepped back into the hallway. Time to steal a god-king's second reign of terror.

[Izvilvin]

Workers, he thought. It made sense. Of course a place like this required upkeep, and of course a kingdom had many needs for capable men. That thought, and the description of the vastness of the kingdom that Alydia provided, had Izvilvin standing straight and considering just how magnificent it must have been.

He pondered more as she continued. The kingdom had shrunk a great deal, as she'd explained - were these carvings written around the same time that the construct was built? Or were they added later to document the fall of the king and his kingdom? Despite his many questions, Izvilvin too could tell that this documentation was far different from what they'd seen in the luminescent throne room of the king.

Distant sounds took him from his thoughts, and he looked to Alydia a split-second before she looked to him. Their eyes locked. "Agreed," he said, determined to stay by her side until they were both safe once more.

Izvilvin followed Alydia back into the hallway and looked in the direction indicated by his keen ears. There was a sustained noise, a constant and deep metallic sound. Not that far away, perhaps two dozen strides, a lumbering creature was coming toward them. It was at least two feet taller than Izvilvin was, and a foot wider, with wide shoulders and meaty legs. It wasn't a zombie or a golem, but a giant humanoid the warrior could not identify - behind it, a massive mace was dragged along the ground, digging into it and leaving shallow markings in the crafted stone floor: the root of the grating that alerted them, and loud enough to drown out the steps of the creature's huge legs.

"Stay distant from the reach of that weapon," he pleaded, gazing back at Alydia with calm, determined eyes. He knew not to worry about that, for Alydia was far from a fool, but something about the guardian's movement did not seem quite right.

As if in response to his thoughts, its suddenly halted its approach Far too easily, the creature scooped up the mace and leveled it ahead of itself - now, Izvilvin could see that its spiked head was as wide as he was - and it began to rush forward in a charge that shook the walls and ceiling of their hallway.

The warrior drew his Cillu kukris, their beautiful hue hidden by the darkness, and broke into a sprint to close the gap and ensure that he was the monster's primary target.

They approached one another just past another doorway to Izvilvin's right, and the guardian pulled his mace back. With tremendous force and speed, the weapon swept out horizontally. Izvilvin, not slowing a bit, slid along the dusty ground under the weapon strike, the force of the swing pulling his hair up into the wind. It crashed into the side wall, burrowing into the stone and into the room by the doorway, reducing bricks to dust.

He leaped up quickly, but the weapon was so long that the creature's right arm was the closest and only viable target. Izvilvin drove both of his kukris into the meaty, muscled bicep of the beast, their curved blades digging deep and becoming handholds for the agile drow who now dangled by the exposed limb.

[Alydia Ettermire]

The last thing Alydia wanted to do was get in close to that fight. She knew she could steal the dead, but she'd had no luck stealing the undead. There was precious little she could do to directly help her friend; he knew well that she was useless in head-on confrontation. Even so, she danced lightly across the smooth sandstone floor, looking anxiously for any opening. Did it have a weakness, could it reveal more about the curse that animated it? Could Izvilvin handle it, or would her lack of fighting skill doom them both?

She winced when the mace smashed into the wall. Didn't this thing have any respect for the historical record? But that swing gave her an opening, if only for a moment. With an armed-to-the-teeth warrior hanging off it and its mace embedded in the wall, the zombie was badly overbalanced.

Shadow deeper than darkness swallowed Alydia whole, dropping her right in front of the gigantic guardian as he wrenched his weapon out of the wall. The dead eyes focused on the new target, but before it could reduce her to a feast for the scarabs, she touched the weapon with a gloved hand. That same magical shadow uncoiled from her palm in an instant, yanking the mace from his hand and into the nether beyond his reach. It looked dumbfounded for a second, then it roared, sending a wave of putrid air roiling over Alydia.

Izvilvin forgotten, it slammed its meaty fists at the smaller creature who had dared come within its range. She skittered sideways and the floor shook beneath her feet, cracking beneath the thing's unrestrained power. The thief's first instinct was to flee to the safety of the shadows and let the monster focus on Izvilvin, who had trained his mind and body over long decades to fight, to kill, to overcome. Instead, when it lunged again, she whirled, cracking her vlince coat, then bolted a few steps to stay just out of its reach.

Movement. Noise. Keep its attention.

So she danced and dodged like a little bird, trying to give her companion an opening.

[Izvilvin]

Their curved blades purposely angled downward to tear deep into and catch hold of the arm of the guardian, Izvilvin held onto the handles of his kukris with the strength of a vice. He knew there may be precious moments before the creature was able to shake him loose, remove its mace, and bring it to bear once more.

Harboring unnatural strength, unhindered by the bounds of life and enhanced by a power Izvilvin could not quite comprehend, the guardian held him a foot off of the ground and did not noticeably react to the deep gashes in its arm. The warrior expected this, having faced undead and magically-animated opponents in battle before, knowing they did not bristle form pain or surprise. Pulling up and lifting his arms, the drow retracted his kukris and tore out a chunk of fleshy mass along with them. He whirled his arms in an arc and managed to drive the weapons into the creature's flesh, again, on his way back down to ground, drawing deep lines across its forearm.

Izvilvin rolled to the side gracefully and popped up in a low stance, ready to respond to any of the beast's movements, however it had already turned its attention toward Alydia. She's getting too close! he thought.

Then she made its weapon disappear, swallowing it into the same dark place where she seemed to keep all of her many toys. Izvilvin smirked, but the creature responded quickly by approaching her and forgetting about him. He would need to respond quickly.

Though it no longer had its weapon, the guardian was still possessed of tremendous strength. If it got hold of either of them, the warrior knew they would be torn apart in seconds.

Stomping and shaking the dust from the ground, it barreled forward toward Alydia. But after just its second stride, it fell lower than expected and slid, overbalancing and ending up face-first on the ground. Just below the knee, its leg had been severed and a clean, solid stump covered in ice was in its place.

Izvilvin held Icicle in both hands, having placed a perfect slash through the guardian's calf with all of his power behind it. Racing, he ran along the writhing creature's back as it tried to brace and rise once more. Lifting his arms above his head and with a determined grunt, the warrior drove the icy Damascus blade deep through the neck of the creature. Icicle struck the ground below with a metallic thunk.

He held on with both hands, placing his feet firmly against the monster's shoulder blades. He wrenched back and forth, tearing and ripping at the tendon-like muscles holding the creature's head in place. After a brief time, the guardian finally stopped struggling.

Izvilvin looked to Alydia and removed his blade, its perpetual mist barely visible in the darkness. He sheathed it.

"Let us hope there are not dozens of these," he thought aloud. "Or that your pocket can indeed hold as many items as you wish."

[Alydia Ettermire]

"Something as large as an airship, if necessary," the red-coated thief murmured absently. With a wave of her hand, the oversized mace reappeared from the darkness to pulverize the corpse's skull. No sense in risking that it might, despite Izvilvin's thorough kill, come back to haunt them. Her mind was already on the next step. They needed to find the main treasure room, because with any luck, there would be something in there which could break the crystal's curse.

If not...

She didn't want to think about that possibility.

From the worker's quarters...

"Given the architecture and the standard layout of the mausoleum during the given time period, hoping that this king was a traditionalist... Throne room's back that way, T-corridor in front..." Aly bit her lip, thinking. Most of the old tombs had been plundered and defaced; a pristine one was rare, and not many Fallinese had an interest in the splendor of their distant past. There was next to no challenge, next to no wonder, next to no indignation if one of the ruins up and vanished, so there wasn't much call for Alydia to make herself an expert on them. She was regretting that now; a little expertise would have gone a long way. Her musings didn't mean much to Izvilvin, either; his expertise was of an altogether different sort.

"If we go right, I think it leads to the plumbing system. They wouldn't have survived long out here without a way to make the sands give up some water. According to the text in the throne room, that was the original purpose of that crystal." She shook her head and adjusted her hat. That wasn't important, because they needed to move.

"The burial chamber should be to the left. There will be traps, but I think I can spot and deal with them. I'm more worried about what might be beyond the traps." She cast her eyes back to the monstrous zombie they'd just slain. "Have you ever known a ruler to have just one line of defense?"


~*~*~

The pair sneaked silently through the ruins, not disturbing so much as the thin layer of dust that had accumulated over the long centuries. Once, Aly's less-than-perfect knowledge of ancient Fallienese royal burial customs led them down a hallway that immediately sealed behind them and started pouring sand down. Irritation and embarrassment burned with equal intensity beneath the broad fedora, but getting them out of that trap was as easy as stealing the thick stone slab that was meant to seal their fate and replacing it behind them.

After that, she was less bold and more thoughtful, paying closer attention to the perfectly smooth floor tiles laid in ages past and the claustrophobic tunnels that led into deeper, cooler ground. At length, she held up her hand, stopping Izvilvin in his tracks. "We've got a pressure plate here, and company just beyond that." Her voice barely carried; it didn't need to. She still worried that whatever was beyond - undead, construct, some horrible amalgamation of the two - might hear her.

"This will take some time to disarm." With that, she pulled a set of tools from the darkness and knelt to work, trusting her companion to keep an eye out for trouble.

[Izvilvin]

The mace popped back into existence as quickly as it'd vanished. Izvilvin, for all of his time spent with Alydia, recoiled as it appeared - try as he might, he was still only so comfortable with the strange magic. It crushed the skull of the fallen guardian with a sick splash, and he exhaled a sigh of relief.

The warrior was more than comfortable with Alydia taking the lead in such explorations. With so much experience going through underground, abandoned complexes such as this, Alydia was the most capable guide Izvilvin could ask for. Not only that, but he trusted her implicitly. There were a handful of people entirely, let alone fellow drow, who had been on the warrior's side for their entire correspondence. It was with this in mind that he watched her as she led, a strangely contended smile on his face.

She spoke long of the history of this place, deducing its necessities and hypothesizing based on them. Simpler than her in many ways, Izvilvin was impressed by her grasp - while he found each morsel of knowledge interesting and worth knowing, he could not hold them. He could not, despite his best intentions and interest, take the same information and apply it to another situation that would occur later. It did not bother him that she had this capability and he did not, or that he would never possess the knowledge she did.

His dear friend was tremendously well-rounded, and it pleased him to no end.

She led and he followed, the pair moving in swift but utterly silent strides. A close call with being buried alive did not erase Izvilvin's opinion of his companion, but he did notice a change in her step afterward. There was a change in his, too, for he could not shake all of the sand from his thin, cloth shoes.

They stopped after some time, Alydia holding up a delicate but definitive hand. Izvilvin paused and listened - he heard shuffling and tapping. Sixteen or more somethings, if not more, moving up ahead and around the corner. He crouched low to see what Alydia observed, and saw a large depression in the floor. A plate, hidden deviously and unintentionally by the dust of the ancient ruin - wide enough to span the width of the corridor, and too long either of them to hope to leap across.

He stayed next to her and focused his eyes on the darkness ahead, his keen eyes reaching through the blackness. From around the corner came two creatures, beasts not unlike those he'd seen on the surface of the desert throughout the years - scorpions, their eight legs tapping menacingly against the stone. "I've seen these before," he whispered in their native tongue. "I would bet you have as well. They are fierce and will react little to whatever pain we might inflict."

Mercifully, there were fewer defendants than he'd anticipated, the two scorpions' many legs having deceived him. But behind the pair, he began to make out the outline of another. Something his height, not low to the ground like the scampering monsters. It was humanoid, with four waving limbs in the air, each holding a threatening curved blade. He didn't know what to call it, but it followed behind the scorpions, with bright eyes peering out from behind a stone mask that was locked in a devious grimace. Izvilvin tugged on the ribbon on his bicep, eyes scrutinizing the floor ahead.

He shook his head. He'd unlikely clear the plate trap with even the best of leaps; an absolute perfect jump would take him across in a roll, but there was no way he could take his weapons for the ride and hope to succeed. He could not leave Icicle and Mjolnir behind and hope to contend with the multi-armed guardian.

"How long?" he asked in a rushed whisper, for there was no way to stand between the creatures and Alydia, and no way for him to meet their approach. If an enemy were to step on the plate, whatever trap was in place might catch the two of them as well.

[Alydia Ettermire]

“As quickly as I can manage; this trap has lain ready since our great-grandparents’ days, I can’t just undo it in an instant.” Alydia had found a small panel which opened readily enough, but figuring out its workings and undoing it wasn’t the easiest of challenges. For one thing, there were hundreds of types of pressure traps. Only a handful of them were utilized in Fallien, but if she confused a drop-trap with a crush-trap or an arrow-trap, they were in trouble. She hadn’t seen any arrow holes, so there was at least one kind ruled out.

Fortunately, there had to be a solution; if the nation’s priests needed access to their fallen god-king after his passing, they would want to properly execute the ritual that would let them reach him safely. Unfortunately, that would have involved the use of colors. Without light, the only colors Alydia could see were gradiations of heat. That did her little to no good here.

The mechanisms seemed simple enough, but of course they did. She was an educated Alerian, after all. There were knobs and levers, a trip, and if she…

Izvilvin tensed beside her, hands on his weapons, ready to fly like a loosed arrow once the trap was disabled. The skittering was ever closer, nearly too close, and now she could hear other footsteps beneath it.

If I just… That gear connects to that trip, which will make… Okay, a drop. If I can jam it… What did she have that was both thin and strong enough to wreck the machine? A mirror.

Steel mirrors were both cheap and easily replaced, sturdy and not too thick. It was enough. Alydia’s tools vanished, replaced by a thin, flat object that fit into the palm of her hand. She jammed it between a critical pair of gears as hard as she could, then looked up at Izvilvin. He was off before she even had a chance to speak.

The trap tried to trip at the warrior’s first step, but only managed to drop him a couple of inches before the gears bit into the mirror and stuck fast.

The entire corridor groaned and started grinding; the thief’s solution had been anticipated, but it wasn’t the right one, and now ancient grit started pouring from the ceiling in little spurts as stones started slowly shifting.

“SHIT! Keep them busy! I’ll figure this out!” Aly stood straight, eyes darting for the next panel, the next trigger. She needed to stop the room before they both died.

[Izvilvin]

Izvilvin's calloused hands tensed around the hilts of his blades.

Alydia jammed the gears of the trap and looked up to him, a silent sign, and he burst forth onto the plate. It dropped just a bit, but he was able to adjust with a bent leg and continue forth without losing speed.

He tore the swords from their sheaths, Mjolnir crackling and bringing light to the tunnel, painting the warrior as a target. He was within range of the first scorpion, whose barbed tail shot forth like a whip. Izvilvin bent low to increase his speed and pass by the attack, and was able to glance at the creature's stinger - it glistened with the telltale ooze of poison.

He did not have an angle for a counterattack, and so took an additional two steps to the right to face off with the other scorpion. The multi-armed humanoid which followed them was still a few meters away, moving in slow, confident strides.

These creatures each had large, dual-pronged claws that Izvilvin knew were as tough as leather armor. The warrior slashed with Icicle, hard against one of the monster's appendages, doing little visible damage but leaving an icy trail across its tough skin. The expected response came, for these were creatures of instinct who were, for the most part, predictable. The scorpion's stinger shot forward, but Izvilvin was already sidestepping and bringing Mjolnir to bear in an upward slash. An instant after the deadly barb was dodged, the warrior's blade ripped through the tail and lopped off the troublesome end of it. The sword of lightning flashed and roared as it burned away the beast's blood, as if swallowing it hungrily.

He spun just in time to engage the first scorpion, which had ignored Alydia and fixated on Izvilvin and his bright, dancing weapon. It reached out for him with its claws, but he batted them aside with both swords, poking and prodding at the heavy appendages while stepping back to keep both monsters in his sights. Shallow, superficial wounds were made, but did not slow the scorpion.

Beyond them, though, the drow could see that his time was almost up. With four ancient scimitars hovering dangerously in its hands, the guardian approached. He could not continue occupying the two scorpions if he wanted to tackle this foe, as well. The damage he'd done to the beasts would not kill them, he knew, and he was becoming more and more concerned with the rumble of the corridor.

"Alydia!" he yelled, "there's no time!"

Izvilvin wanted to argue against his own words. He imagined Alydia facing off against the scorpions, or trying to disarm the trap and protect him while they closed in to attack. The thought frustrated him, then angered him, then made his blood boil, and he could not allow it to happen.

Both scorpions were upon him now. Icicle and Mjolnir fended off their attacks capably, Izvilvin in an easy rhythm against the slower opponents, but he needed to make a quick flurry and then move to the bigger threat. He was at the edge just beyond the plate, and thought of Alydia behind him.

Suddenly, he slashed Icicle across the claws of the scorpion to his left, then pivoted and charged the wounded beast to his right. It lashed out toward him, but the dark elf was too fast, leaping above its reach and high into the air. He landed on top of the creature with all of his power behind Mjolnir, driving it between two of the scorpion's eyes.

It writhed and fought against him, its tail slapping repeatedly into the back of his delyn breastplate, though its dangerous stinger no longer posed a concern.

Knowing he had no time, Izvilvin focused his will into the blade and squeezed tightly. Mjolnir glowed brighter then, illuminating the entire hallway for but a moment, before it shot a bolt of lightning through the body of the creature it was embedded in. Lightning coursed through it, seizing the beast's muscles and cooking it from the inside out - Izvilvin grimaced and held tight, knowing that the shock would not damage him.

As the scorpion began to sizzle and smoke wafted up from inside of it, the warrior pulled his blade free and rolled off.

Two scimitars drove down to meet him, one from the left and one from the right.

[Alydia Ettermire]

Alydia stood frozen in the shaking corridor, doing her best to ignore the intense fight Izvilvin had thrown himself into. She also had a battle to fight, much different than his, but they were just as dead if she failed as if he did. She couldn't help him, or she would. He couldn't help her, or he would. Independent of each other, they were interdependent on each other.

Zalieyan Royalty, eight hundredish years ago, tomb traps. Long corridor, drop trap, gear mechanisms. ... Gears? They didn't have proper gears. Gears weren't common except in... oh shit.

Alydia's stomach dropped. This wasn't an ordinary tomb, though it had probably been built on an ordinary schematic. The language she hadn't made out from the throne room hadn't been telling of ambassadors from the Land of Crystal Kings in any traditional sense, and if she'd just been a little bit quicker to remember things, she'd have recognized the word for female ruler. A princess. A wedding party. It was the circumstances of this god-king's birth.

She didn't know enough about the Aoldarii to know how their traps would work, especially given the lack of time. Really, her best bet would be to let the hallway collapse and try to warp herself and Izvilvin out through the shadows. But I can only go so far at a time, and if I mis-judge...

Izvilvin's desperate cry shook her back to action; she didn't have all day to think. Stones were already crumbling from the walls and ceiling, loud cracks split spiderwebs into the formerly smooth floor. The thief's eyes darted around the corridor, identifying key structural points - one by Izvilvin, one at the far end of the hall, one back behind her. Opening and working all three would take more time than they had, especially if she had to work in the colorless dark.

Her companion inadvertently solved her problem with a flash, so bright and sudden as to almost be blinding, illuminated the ancient paintings on the walls. The story was formulaic, but it was one of a handful of familiar tales. More importantly, it gave instructions on just how to solve the room. She only saw the images for an instant, but that instant told her exactly what to do.

An object came to Alydia's hand, called forth by the darkness, and she launched it just as the shadow retracted from it. Cold like metal, shaped like a bird, it sang its way to the surviving scorpion, chirping and ramming one of the thing's many tiny eyes. The giant arachnid turned, chasing and lashing at the thing that teased it. Uuthli responded to a psychic link with her, so she directed it toward the plate behind her. In the First Darkness, the Great Stone shattered, leaving a foundation for the World.

Meanwhile, she disappeared to land at the far panel, which she ripped from its place in the wall.

"Izvilvin, I need you to move that thing at least ten feet in the next few breaths!" Otherwise this is going to be really, really difficult.

A trio of levers greeted her, identical in the darkness, but that didn't matter. She grabbed the outside pair, yanked them down, then shoved them up, then pushed the middle lever in. Down the way, a loud THUNK and a deafening CRACK told of a scorpion stinging a plate and having the wall collapse in on it. That was actually perfect; the wall was designed to fall in such a way that it would reinforce the rest of the hall for just a little while. Arthropod dealt with, the metal robin flew to harry the four-armed sword dancer.

Aly grabbed the two outside levers again, straining to rotate them clockwise in a full circle. When the Sun first rose, he banished Eternal Dark into the World, but he saw the Moon across the way and started chasing her. Thus we have day and night.

The shaking abated a little, but hadn't stopped. It was the middle puzzle that would take the most time to solve, so whether or not Izvilvin had moved the dancer enough, she had to try solving it. In and out of deep darkness she flickered, opening the final panel, where she found decidedly non Fallienese technology. Another crackle from Izvilvin's lightning sword gave her enough light to see the symbols on the ancient stone keys. They were in a variety of shapes - a circle with a dot, a stork, an owl, a sword, and so forth - but they all played a role. A light formed in the darkness. Long they fought, viciously, and with each cut came forth wind, water, and life. Finally, the Eternal Darkness was vanquished, and the sun rose.

For a second, the shaking stopped and all was still.

Then the ceiling cracked ominously.

[Izvilvin]

Both of the warrior's deadly blades rose to defend against the attack, the clang of metal on metal ricocheting along the rumbling tunnel.

It was a reflex, and not a positive one for the situation Izvilvin was in, for the creature had two limbs in addition to these. With his arms reaching up to meet the upper pair, two slashes came in below, horizontally, a coordinated strike violent enough to sever his upper body from the lower half.

Izvilvin dove back, just out of range, the tips of those ancient scimitars cleaving through the fabric of the shirt dangling over his breastplate. Gracefully, he landed on his toes and drove back in, crouching below an overhead slash and bringing Mjolnir behind it to stab at the guardian's armpit - the second left arm slapped the weapon harmlessly aside and away.

He moved with the momentum of the deflection, spinning right and forcing his opponent to follow his movement. Both right arms slashed at him, as expected with Izvilvin's back becoming exposed, but the nimble elf was too quick, diving forward in a roll as the swords swung just overhead. He was up in a flash, Icicle prodding with stabs from his left that were easily kept at bay.

But now he had completed their movement, so that he was facing back toward Alydia's location; albeit with a sizable multi-limbed beast and an unsettling amount of crumbling ceiling blocking much of the view.

It turned out not to matter, as when he first glanced in the direction of his dear friend, she was no longer there. He didn't have time to panic, he knew, throwing his blades in a furious dance to fend off the many attacks which steadily came forward - and mercifully, he heard Alydia's voice beyond him. Of course, he realized, for it did not always occur to him what she was capable of, particularly when he was so occupied.

She presented a difficult puzzle. The dancer was only his height and did not appear to be much heavier, but Izvilvin couldn't hope to tackle it off to the side, not with so many deadly hands whirling about - to throw his weight into it to try and move the creature was opening himself up far too much.

His arms dashed about at alarming speed, seeming to blur back and forth in desperate waves, but each of the warrior's movements was a calculated and precise parry - Icicle deftly deflecting a swipe just too far to the left, Mjolnir dipping under an approaching blade to direct it just too far to the right, Icicle back across to slap another strike down and away, stealing its momentum, all of this in the span of seconds.

He knew that he did not have much time. Alydia would be near soon, and to have her within range of this foe was not something Izvilvin wanted to allow. However there was no possibility for counterattack, as the heavy iron blades came from every possible angle, just quickly enough to lock the drow in his defensive position. To pull away meant luring it back toward her, and pushing forward was not an option.

The thought broke his concentration, and Izvilvin paid for it. Icicle had knocked a strike high in the air and then driven down to swipe the lower arm's blow aside, but lost track of the initial blade - it drove down in a slash, ripping a gash in his left shoulder just beyond the reach of his delyn breastplate. He didn't drop Icicle, didn't react, for he could not: on the right, Mjolnir slapped up and down in defensive parries that could not afford to slow.

Can I make it angry? he wondered, for it was a suitable tactic against living creatures. Izvilvin didn't know if this guardian was alive or not, and didn't know how to frustrate it, if it was.

A strange metallic being helped, then, clocking into the side of the dancer's stone mask thrice in rapid succession, taking it by surprise. Alydia's mysterious ally.

Izvilvin didn't take the opportunity for granted.

Mjolnir roared and cast the darkness away, slashing down into the creature's bottom-left bicep, cutting through the bone - not clean through, but more than midway and far enough to invalidate the limb. At the same time, his iron will ignoring the damage to his left shoulder, Izvilvin brought Icicle across the masked head, tearing the facade from the dancer's face and casting it aside. The stone sculpture landed on the floor behind the warrior drow, its eyes still fiery with magical light, but with a deep and iced-over gash across it.

And in the place of the mask was a blank slate, an empty canvas of skin now that the costume had been removed.

Izvilvin was still moving, pivoting back with his hips and throwing his right leg forward, every ounce of strength behind the kick. His foot slammed into the chest of the dancer, taking it off of its feet and throwing it back a few steps - hopefully far enough to keep Alydia safe.

And if the relentless monster was not capable of anger, in the end, what it displayed now was close enough. It bent low with three arms pointing their swords forward, and Izvilvin charged ahead.

[Alydia Ettermire]

If you trust someone, trust them. That had been Karliik’s first rule, one he’d enforced from almost Alydia’s first memory. If you trust someone, don’t check over your shoulder to make sure they’re doing their job; trust that they are until proven otherwise. During the entire time Alydia was solving the middle puzzle, she hadn’t looked back, hadn’t broken concentration, no matter how furious or close the six swords sang against each other.

She trusted Izvilvin to do his part. She didn’t know if he was looking to make sure she was solving the puzzles or not, but he wasn’t breaking for it and running, so at least he trusted her that much. Either way, she hadn’t solved this one quite in time; the ceiling had been nearly ready to cave anyway, under the immense pressure of the desert above and some faulty structural engineering. With every second, the ceiling crack widened and lengthened, more sand and plaster crumbled to the floor. It hadn’t meant that she’d failed, but…

She’d failed.

When she finally looked at the magnificent fighter and his valiant fight against the dancer, he was turning the fight to his inevitable victory. But the scent of blood filled the air, the ceiling was almost gone, and the longer Izvilvin fought, brilliant as he was at his chosen craft, the narrower their chances of survival became.

The two clashed again, sending sparks flying as the golem or undead launched a blistering attack and the dark elf wove a tight defense. When they separated a few seconds later, Alydia made her move. Uuthli returned to her hand and vanished, and a barrier of darkness appeared between Izvilvin and his opponent. Three sharp strikes shook it, but didn’t shatter it, and the thief jumped for her friend, wrapping her arms around him from behind and pulling him with her into shadow. She wanted to cover as much of him as she could, so she was very nearly riding on his back.

The darkness stretched on seemingly forever in the between space where Alydia traveled. There was no light for the two elves to see by, no heat to give texture to their world. It felt like heat, like their blood would boil and their skin would blister where they were. It also felt like cold, prickling the flesh and chilling the marrow. It was airless and claustrophobic, like they were being squeezed together through a space that would only readily fit a small child.

Worst of all, there were things moving in the darkness. Shapeless, void-born touches of malice grasped for them, only to recoil from Alydia and from the ribbon on Izvilvin’s arm, but they still reached for his face, his legs, anywhere that Alydia wasn’t covering and protecting him.

They landed neatly at the end of the hall, just in time to see the center give on the guardian. They hadn’t even been in the darkness for a second. Another narrow hall spread in front of them, hundreds of feet long. It opened into a chamber, and despite Izvilvin’s tense muscles beneath her, Alydia took them into the dark once more.

When they emerged again, an instant later, they were in a small room that would have glittered with gold if they had any sort of light. It was here Alydia hoped to find a manuscript on how to cleanse the Crystal or defeat the god-king’s curse. If not…

But her first priority had to be her friend, whose face was tight and cold. A gentle hand found his arm. “I know that’s a rough jump the first few times. Are you all right?” Bandages, disinfectant, and a kit for stitches found their way into Aly’s hands. “Let me take a moment to tend your wounds.”

[Izvilvin]

His shoulder throbbed, stung as if on fire. Izvilvin barreled onward, possessed, the pressing need to occupy the sword dancer swallowing away any pain.

Those three blades, the remaining arsenal of the unrelenting creature, swerved from right to left, up to down, with fury and precision that showed exactly how little it's near-severed limb disturbed it. Icicle had left more than a dozen chunks of frost on the weapons, a tribute to Izvilvin's defense, but now that arm was slowing. He used his left to parry the monster's attacks from the right, but his smooth transitions across between the icy blade and Mjolnir halted. The responsibility of defending against the dancer's right side, still intact, fell on his injured arm.

In a situation like this, Izvilvin craved to have Icicle leave a blinding trail of mist in its wake, to defend himself and create a moment to regroup - but what use would it have against a creature with no face, no eyes?

So he fought furiously. With Mjolnir he blocked and diverted, the hot sword of lightning darting across to his left to defend when needed. When a deflection left the creature's side particularly open, he stabbed forth to burn a wound into its side while Icicle continued its harried defense. Undeterred by the attack, the dancer moved to continue its assault.

Blackness divided them then, a stranger dark within the unlit tunnel. Izvilvin brought his blades in front of him, defensive, held around his head and neck - three sharp raps came, but he was untouched.

Alydia took him from behind and pushed him forward, and then Izvilvin knew darkness.

He'd never experienced the dark before, not like this. The Alerian elf's eyes were especially keen even among his people, turning traditional darkness into shades of grey that helped him discern objects, depth, certain shades. Now he was in a world where vision did not exist, where he was more blind than when his eyes were closed - at least then, there could be a sense of illumination.

There were too many feelings at one time, too many horrible sensations, no sense of bearing or existence. He had no weight, no center of gravity, and his flesh tingled with sensations both worldly and not. The majority of his body was grabbed at, but he didn't experience the touch. Rather, it felt like digits were passing through him, into his body, prodding for something that was not Izvilvin but the essence of.

He wanted to drop down when they reappeared, his eyes wide, his mind only vaguely aware of Alydia clinging to him like a cloak. Her desire and determination to protect him utterly lost on Izvilvin, they were once again sucked into the void.

When they came back to the world once more, the warrior dropped to his knees, his hands releasing their grip on Icicle and Mjolnir. He felt as if his body should be across the room, like he was out of sync with himself, and it was everything he could do to avoid vomiting. As someone who was uncomfortable with the occasional fireball evocation, Izvilvin had gone to a place that revolted him, that he never wished to experience again.

He became aware of a gentle pressure on his arm, and looked down to see Alydia's hand rested on him. It took a moment, but he came back, became present once more.

"This is the world you experience each time you use the shadows?" he asked, and he looked to her with more than a little concern. "You experience what I just felt, every time? If at all possible, I must respect you more for it."

Absentmindedly, Izvilvin reached to his left shoulder with his right hand and tore at his shirt, ripping the sleeve off from the point where the dancer's blade had cut into him. He rolled the remaining fabric up against the strap of his breastplate, giving Alydia room to work.

"Respect and fear, perhaps," he continued, and smiled.

[Alydia Ettermire]

Alydia removed her gloves, sterilized her hands, and started cleaning Izvilvin's wound. It was well known that he was invulnerable to disease and poison, which was good, because the ancient swords likely would have given him a nasty case of tetanus if not. Even so, it had to hurt, and the antiseptic and subsequent stitches would not immediately alleviate that pain. For him to bear it with hardly a grunt of pain was impressive to the delicate rogue; her friend was very strong, indeed.

"The Path of Shadow is a..." Alydia blew a breath from the side of her mouth, trying to think of a way to explain what she experienced. "It's an ability that passes parent to child. My research didn't turn much up on how my bloodline acquired this ability, but apparently we've had it since before the Great Split. Even though we don't have sight there, the Reachers have color sense. Some ancestor of mine found that they hate the color of fresh blood. That's why I wear this very unstealthy coat and hat, and why I tied the ribbon to your arm."

She looked up from the seeping gash to give Izvilvin a thin smile. "I've been going back and forth since I was a baby, first carried by the man who sired me, but on my own since I was a small girl. I'm as accustomed to that vicious darkness as a person can be, but it still scares me, because one thoughtless jump, or one jump without the red too many, too long, too unlucky... And you never come out. Trust me, it's not a risk I took lightly with you. The Dark is no place for the living, and those who can walk it tend to die young. I'm impressed with you, though. Most people spend a few minutes throwing up after their first jump."

Her nimble hands soon had his wound neatly sealed, and she clipped the thread and wiped away the blood. With a last, reassuring pat on Izvilvin's shoulder, Alydia stood, slowly scanning the entire chamber. It wasn't large, maybe five paces by six, and the entire thing was crammed with neatly arranged treasure that stretched wall to wall, floor to ceiling. Statuettes made of various precious metals and stones stood guard over bejewelled plates and chalices. Tomes and tablets flanked jewelry that dripped with precious stones. Reassuringly, no towering, armed statues guarded this treasure chamber, but it wasn't really the important one.

"The bounty due a king as he finally ascends to godhood. But the farmers at the bottom of his kingdom's economy wouldn't have been able to afford the least of these treasures, even if they saved every bit of money they earned in their lives. Sad, don't you think?"

Braziers stood in each corner of the room, filled with oil centuries before in preparation for the day they'd be lit once again. With any luck, it would still be flammable. A small lighter came to Alydia's hand, forgotten in the moments she could have used the light due to both urgency and disuse. A flick of the switch, a step up, a careful turn of the wrist, flickering light flooded the small chamber, glimmering off the priceless treasures.

"We're looking for a very specific text. I believe it will be on one of the tablets." She frowned a little, drawing her eyebrows together beneath her hat brim. How could she tell Izvilvin what she was looking for in a way that he would understand and be able to help her? "If the first symbol looks like a small school of fish swimming together, and the second one looks like an upside down bowl, it might be the instructions on how to purify the crystal and destroy the king's power."

Her eyes traveled over the texts. How many of these could she take back to Irrakam to give to Zaki? So much lost knowledge, found... Down to her soul, she itched to read them all, if only to know what they said, if only to see a world that was gone long before her own birth.

[Izvilvin]

Izvilvin shut his eyes and winced as Alydia began her work - his shoulder was already burning, but the agent she used seemed to multiply it. He put himself into a calm space, relaxed his mind and his body as much as possible.

Alydia began to speak. Izvilvin focused on her voice, on her presence, finding comfort there while she explained the terrible place they'd traveled through.

The two had grown to trust one another, to be sure. Their bond was forged and tempered through adventure, but it hadn't started smoothly. Izvilvin's distrust and misguided ideals had caused his now-friend to become a killer's target, and they'd banded together to make things right: they hunted Shynt Aubrey, the murderer, until he was finally done away with. Shortly after, Alydia helped Izvilvin eradicate the vicious Step from his life for good. He could never repay her for that, he knew, no matter how many times he accompanied her and did his best to help with her goals. The freedom from paranoia was impossible to put a price on. He'd never communicated these feelings to her, didn't quite know how, but he wanted to believe that she understood the depth of his appreciation.

Now that she'd explained this blackened world that she traveled through, the plane she'd traversed during their assault on the Step headquarters, he was humbled. Izvilvin had spent a good, long part of his life feeling sorry for himself and feeling oppressed, but Alydia's experience differed. He wanted to understand her feelings when crossing the black as a child, wanted to empathize, but found that his ability to do so was limited.

Yet here she was, tending to him. Patiently mending his wound, patiently explaining her experience with the fathomless gloom. Saying she was impressed with him! Explaining her concern for him! Izvilvin opened his eyes and watched her as she stood up, seeing her a little differently all of a sudden.

He, too, climbed to his feet, his shoulder tied shut. He bent and retrieved his blades, sliding them back into their scabbards as Alydia explained the nature of the chamber. He wanted to address what she'd said, but couldn't find the words to do so. He internalized all of it and realized, sadly, that the moment had passed.

Then the firelight brought depth. Izvilvin's eyes shifted away from darkvision and quickly adjusted, bringing color into his world once more.

The nearest side of the room had a table stacked with parchments. Izvilvin moved to them and began flipping through, tossing those which didn't match Alydia's description into a neat pile by his right foot. Symbols were things he understood, but there was a myriad of them. He sifted through three score in short time before moving over to a nearby pile of tablets. He was more careful with these, laying the checked ones on a small portion of the table not already occupied.

A moment later he found something. A tablet of grey with multiple images; the first a group of lines parallel to one another, the second a semicircle with both ends pointed downward. He looked over them for a moment before calling over, "Alydia, come examine this!"

[Alydia Ettermire]

While Izvilvin tackled the largest collection of literature, Alydia went to the other side of the small treasure chamber to look at more isolated texts. In truth, she wanted to be the one where he was, looking at ancient beaten-reed scrolls and sifting through the large stack of tablets, but she had to admit that he was the better elf for the job. If she had all that raw knowledge under her fingertips, she wouldn't be able to stop herself from reading further than just a couple of symbols. Since her literacy was limited, she'd made for one slow sorter. Her friend barely spoke Trade, didn't read ancient Fallienese, and had just two specific hieratic glyphs to look for; he'd be very efficient. That did nothing to subdue the wistful pang of jealousy that twisted in her gut.

She picked up the text closest to the back left wall, ignoring the golden scarab earrings and lapis lazuli necklace around it.

Sun, Sands, Winds, and all gods thereof, these are the sins I, Son-of-the-Sky, have not committed. The denial of wrongdoing was definitely interesting, but not what she was looking for. Reluctantly, she left the tablet behind.

The next text likewise disqualified itself in the first line. With unguents for his skin, incense for his chamber, honey for his lips... That had to be instructions to the concubines buried with the dead king. Had this kingdom buried them alive with him, slain them to bury with him, or were the little dancing statuettes that graced every table stand-ins for the real thing? She knew that all major Fallinese civilizations from the time period had practiced each method of sending servants to the afterlife with their king at one point or another, but she couldn't remember which precise method they'd been using in this kingdom at this time.

To make bread fit for his most high...

Great is the ship that sails the sky...

A hundred hounds he shall have for the hunt...

On and on they went, lists, prayers, tallies, supplications, and exultations, all on behalf of a long-dead tyrant. Alydia stood motionless for a few moments, fingers tracing the lines on the tablet in front of her - a map of the complex, unless she'd translated something very badly. The king's name had been erased in the grand audience chamber, every mention of it, so that it was absolutely illegible. She'd come across a dozen mentions of it just in this one room. Everything from the worker's chambers back had been pristine, and that wasn't all because of the sands claiming the entire palace. The place should have been ransacked, guardians or not.

A hint of unease sent a shiver down her spine. They must have laid one hell of a curse on this place...

Izvilvin's voice cut through her musings, and she turned to see what he was looking at, handing over the map and explaining it briefly. After a couple of minutes reading over the tablet he had found, she started translating.

"'May it be known to all who seek to steal the Power of the Throne, the sun shines brightly upon the Son-of-the-Sky.' Then there's a very long string of curses, some of which include 'may his guardians rise up to protect his rest' and 'may no good rain fall should his stronghold be attacked.' As far as the crystal... damn. 'The gift of his mother, Who-Shines-As-Glass, shall forever be found to the soul of the king. All who oppose him shall crumble as dust.'"

Alydia let out a frustrated sigh. "There is no purifying that crystal. Only destroying it and weakening him. All this way and the artifact is not only corrupted beyond use, but it's dangerous."

[Izvilvin]

As she stepped forward, Alydia handed over a tablet. Cold to the touch and heavy, Izvilvin began to trace its surface with his eyes and fingers. He didn't have his bearings, considering their abrupt arrival into the chamber, and so he moved toward the door to the room and peered out. He could make out few landmarks, but could see where they had come from and began to paint a mental picture from there. He didn't get far before his dark elf companion spoke.

Alydia's words fell on ears that could hardly comprehend. Like so many of the etchings within this underground tomb, the text spoke in riddles and jargon, bringing him to a place of unease and uncertainty. Izvilvin's dear companion worked the gears in her mind, a familiar look plastered on her face as she digested the words and sought a solution. Izvilvin knew that she would find one, as she always did, and that they would be on their way to purifying the crystal and returning to the fiery surface of the desert.

The final result was startling. Alydia's declaration upset him - not because of the results of her examination, but because of the look of disappointment on her face.

A moment passed. Izvilvin let the reality set in, mentally rummaged through the words of the tablet and seeking a solution Alydia had somehow overlooked. His eyes looked past her shoulder, gazing absentmindedly toward the wall of the room. There was a stack of tablets placed delicately in a row, the ones she'd been looking at - he could see a distinctive lack of dust on them, but noted how delicately they were replaced: with care and respect.

"But," he began, selecting the words carefully. "The guardians rose and were cut down. Several were unable to halt our progress toward the end goal, though their number was greater than ours."

Bolstered, he continued. "No good rain, the collapsing earth which nearly buried us altogether, but did not? Or the rain from the skies, the clouds banished, though the people of Irrakam still prosper among the sand?"

He stood straight and with as much confidence as he could muster, attempting to persuade his ally not to lose hope. "Nor have we crumbled into dust, as declared. These platitudes should not dissuade us or break away our hope, we have already done more than the texts claimed possible!"

"We have defeated curses and driven deeply towards the heart of this compound. Who is to say that the crystal cannot be cleansed?"

He looked back to the map, considering. Pushing Alydia into going deeper into the keep would put her at greater risk, but also brought her closer to her goal. Was he misguided? Was his desire to accomplish their mission stronger than his reasoning? He anguished over the question for but a split-second, determined to press onward.

"If destroying the crystal weakens the dead king," he thought, "does destroying the king strengthen the crystal? He gleans power from it, after all."

[Alydia Ettermire]

Alydia smiled at Izvilvin's attempts to encourage her, but the gesture didn't touch her eyes. He didn't know anything about this culture other than everything that had unfolded before him, things he could see and touch. He knew his own strength, he knew the horrors and hardships he had survived. He had faith in the edges of his blades, the swiftness of his feet, and the skill of his arms. He had faith in her intellect and problem-solving skills. Without any reference to just how much danger faced them as they delved deeper and deeper in the ancient tomb, he could only base his confidence on the things he knew.

Then again, she could only base her uncertainty on the things that she'd read. She knew that many, if not most, of all the ancient curses were exaggerated, both in their own documents and in the re-tellings across centuries. She wasn't entirely certain of her own translations of the script, either; nearly a quarter of the symbols proved indecipherable to her, and for another quarter she'd just had to make as educated a guess as possible to their meanings.

"I don't know the answers to many of your questions, my friend. There's so little information on either culture we're dealing with, their magic, artifacts, and syntax... You could very well be right. Perhaps there's more information on how to treat the crystal, and maybe we'll be able to do so after defeating the king. Or maybe someone else will be able to, if we can only remove it from this place. Either way, we've awakened the tomb. He knows we're here, and he'll be expecting us. If he's not dealt with and escapes, he'll turn his sights to Irrakam, which was part of his kingdom during his lifetime."

The thief looked down at the tablet that dealt with the crystal, then back at the warrior. "There are four people in Fallien whom I care about. Three of them are in Irrakam, and one of them is close enough to touch. There are people in Fallien you care about, though I know not the number. Let the sands swallow the rest, but for those few, there's no turning back."

She tilted her hat back and closed the distance between them with a single step, sliding a gloved hand over his to help support the tablet as she turned it and started pointing out routes. "We're here, in the Lesser Treasure Chamber. If you'll notice, most of the objects here are for the use of women - concubines, priestesses, or both. I'm not seeing a dedicated room for the burial of attendants, which I'm hoping is a good thing. We came along this route from the Audience Chamber, but there's no way we could go back because we regrettably collapsed the ceiling. However..."

Alydia shifted her weight a little bit, returning her free hand to the Lesser Treasure Chamber, tapping absently while she studied the map further. "The king's tomb is in this tiny room over here, which is actually... I'd say fifty feet below us and a hundred feet...hmm... north, of where we're standing now. Considering his ego, we won't find him in there. We'll probably find him here, in the Great Treasure Chamber, which is this room. To get there, we'll need to go through the Hall of Judgment, where we'll pass at least a dozen guardian statues and any undead attendants he may have remaining. The statues are each as tall as we'd be if I stood on your shoulders, they're fast, and they're relentless. If we come up against priestesses, we'll be facing magic users and we're probably dead. Regardless of what's there, I can deal with the statues. Before that, there's the Walk of Supplication, out that door, right there." She pointed to the treasure room's other door, a small exit on the far right wall. "That's... I will try to disable it, because otherwise we'll be trying to crawl before it fills with either caustic or poisonous gas. Alone, I'd just jump it, but I don't think that's the option you'd prefer."

She tilted her head and frowned a little, considering if there was anything she'd missed. "Right. The Great Treasure Chamber is pretty much directly below the Audience Chamber. If we need to get to the crystal while we're facing the king, I'll be able to open up the ceiling and take us through. Whatever happens, we can't let him leave the compound. Which means I really hope the wards his successor put up are holding. Did you see the rubies on the columns? Those aren't original to the building; they're a very complicated, very powerful barrier system. I'm concerned that they don't appear to have magic left in them anymore, and I'm hoping they'll activate on their own or they're just active against the reanimated dead, because I have no idea what the incantations or rituals are to recharge them."

Aly took a deep breath; that had been a long explanation, and she wasn't sure how much was useful to Izvilvin. Whatever he felt he needed to know, he'd remember. "Do you have any questions, or are you ready to move on?"

[Izvilvin]

Izvilvin shook his head throughout Alydia's response, wanting to believe that his hypothesis was right. The king and the crystal were tied so closely together - how could one's destruction weakening the other not go both ways? The logic made perfect sense in his head, but Alydia was right - it was too little to go on, and acting on an assumption could put many people in danger if things didn't go their way. They had to play it as safely as possible within the trapped, guarded, undead-king-inhabited tomb.

A breath later, they were inspecting the map. Alydia started to explain, to paint a picture of what lay ahead of them on the way to their destination. She was considerate, speaking slowly, letting Izvilvin visualize and contextualize their location. He was never one to lay out a detailed plan in his head - even in his days within Step, when missteps led to strong repercussions - but having a general understanding of his surroundings let the drow embrace his instincts a little more. She did much to put him at ease, into a place where he understood where they needed to go, what obstacles lay ahead, and what options there were if they got overwhelmed.

His silence continued after she finished, his eyes thoughtful and his mind going over each point one by one. There was a lot to take in, and a misunderstanding could put either one of them at risk.

Finally, he looked to her and nodded. "We are ready."

"But," he continued. "You are right, I do not want to... jump again. No matter the situation, I do not want to go through that dark place."

He exhaled and their eyes met. Izvilvin hoped that Alydia understood his appreciation for her help, hoped that she didn't think she had done the wrong thing. She'd protected them both and brought them closer to their goal, but despite what he believed was a stoic demeanor, Izvilvin still felt the chill of the place in his bones. He remembered keenly the feel of darkness and dread, and had determined that nothing was worth being penetrated by the void once more.

His decision put them in a difficult situation, he knew - Alydia had described a number of situations that would be trivial without his reluctance. He managed a smile and moved past her, leaving the room and stepping into the hall through the doorway she'd indicated.

They were back in a familiar setting, a similar hall to those they'd passed through before. It wasn't any more dilapidated than those previous, but it contrasted strongly against the muted elegance of the Lesser Treasure Chamber. Izvilvin moved with more confidence now, knowing their route, his feet barely kicking up dust from the long-abandoned stone floor. His shoulder ached but burned less, no doubt a boon from Alydia's skilled cleaning, but he knew that the defensive Icicle would be held in his right hand instead of his left, if the need arose.

Nothing stalled them from reaching the entryway to what was certainly the Walk of Supplication. The tunnel narrowed and the path ahead shrunk; the roof of the tunnel suddenly plummeted down and presented a five-by-five foot pathway toward a goal Izvilvin could not see. The heat of their bodies alone was enough to give him a comfortable impression of their current surroundings, but he could not visualize the exit of the path.

They paused there for a time and searched for a switch, a valve, a trigger, or a hidden mechanism that would disable the trap ahead. Izvilvin's fingers dug into he grooves around the stones making up the floor, finding nothing. His keen eyes pierced the darkness and searched for a sign of significance, finding nothing. It could have been located on the other side of the walk, or perhaps did not exist at all.

Izvilvin thought back to Alydia's explanations, the need to prevent the likely-resurrected king from escaping this place, and slipped his mask over his mouth once more. With a mixture of confidence and negligence, the drow ducked down and into the passageway ahead, his leading foot immediately pressing down on a pressure plate. A telling hiss emanated from the walls ahead, echoing in the limited space.

He peered back just briefly to glance at Alydia once more. He gave her what he felt could be a reassuring nod, and stepped into the tunnel.

[Alydia Ettermire]

"Watch for th-!" Her warning came too late.

Alydia had assumed that Izvilvin was aware of the pressure plate; it had also been a big part of the last serious trap, and the edge of it stood out clearly to her. She just hadn't yet found the panel to disable it when her friend decided they'd searched enough and just stepped out to activate the burningly toxic gas. On instinct, she stepped in after him, reaching for his shoulder, but he was already well beyond her grasp when pain seared up her nose and into her lungs, driving her back.

The thief coughed a couple of times, watching the hissing gas curl and coil in an ever thicker cloud around Izvilvin. Her eyes stung and watered. However strong he was, how long could he hold up against this sort of assault? And if she couldn't see through it, how would she know where it was safe to land? She couldn't risk letting the cloud stay for either of their sakes.

Alydia took as deep a breath as she could, then stepped forward once more, extending her hands. Darkness rippled out from her palms, spreading to engulf and devour the noxious trap. It hunted its target down vents and into reaction chambers, stopping the flow of gas into the corridor, sucking it instead into the nameless black. It should have also touched skeletons remaining from ancient days, but other than the rapidly dissipating cloud and a lone Alerian warrior, the path was pristine. Either it had never been violated (Aly's preferred theory) or any creature that had failed to pass safely had been...dealt with, in one way or another.

She could hear Izvilvin tense briefly when the shadows passed him, but she didn't touch him with them. By the time the fighter had reached the end of the Walk of Supplication, Alydia had stolen every drop of the poison. Either she'd use it in a fight or she'd release it somewhere harmless at a later time, but at least it was contained - for now.

With Izvilvin safely on the other side of the hall, Alydia stepped into the shadows, reappearing at his side. She knelt, face buried in her elbow to muffle a few remaining coughs, tears still running into her sleeve. She couldn't see the room they'd entered yet, but Izvilvin's sharp breath told her there were bodies in the Hall of Judgment, not just statues. Priestess-consorts; likely they still had some powers after death.

Vision blurred, Aly looked up to see what they were facing. Six biers, twelve statues, each a dozen feet tall. Their granite bodies - distinctively human - rippled with muscle, but their heads took the form of dogs, falcons, or crocodiles. Each of them glared forward in silent challenge to any who would dare violate their god-king's domain. So long as she could get her feet back under her before they were noticed, she could handle most of the threats this room offered. All was still so far; they hadn't activated any of the guardians.

After a minute, Alydia stood back up and nodded to Izvilvin, then stepped forward, walking carefully in the exact center of the path. Her hopes were that they could pass quietly enough through to avoid activating any of the statues or priestesses; they'd wreaked so much destruction already that she really wanted to leave something intact.

A deep, resonating, hollow groan shattered that hope like glass as the first statue activated. The sound of nails on stone said that the women had also awakened, answering the king they'd been killed for and responding to the violation of his temple with indignation.

Alydia turned to Izvilvin, coat rustling slightly. "Whatever you do, don't get hit."

Then she was off, still hurting from her brush with the gas, but forced to put it aside. She had statues that sadly wouldn't give her enough time to simply deactivate them.

[Izvilvin]

Izvilvin barreled forward with as much speed as his nimble body could manage, throwing his cloak over his shoulders to help his mask in defending his face. He felt the heat instantly as gas permeated his clothing, mocking his poor defense.

It was poisonous. It was in his lungs, robbing his breath as if gripping his innards and squeezing. His immune system would handle the devastating effects that were intended by the trap, he knew, but this resistance did little to prevent the pain. It was thick and heavy, limiting the amount of oxygen his lungs could take in.

It was caustic. Izvilvin's sharp ears heard tiny instances of his cloak's fabric tearing, the gas passing through the cloth and slowly tearing it apart from within. He could feel his skin reacting, not blistering or burning but registering the pain like millions of tiny pinches. It would get worse with time, he knew, and so he stumbled forth. He wanted to reach out and know where the walls were, but didn't dare lift his hands from his eyes, where they pressed the cloak down desperately.

Alydia's shadows came for the first time since the team's traversal. Izvilvin tensed and stopped, his jaw tightening. He could sense them now, as he could sense several types of magic without being able to pinpoint their exact nature. This was a distinctive feeling, one like a numbing throb in the back of his skull. He told himself that she wouldn't take him in again against his will; this he knew intellectually, but it did nothing to ease his anxiety as the blackness swarmed around him.

In no time at all, it subsided. Izvilvin was safe, the toxic threat stolen away into the dimension Alydia commanded. He lowered the fabric from his eyes and dropped it, for it was no longer attached to anything, and crawled the remainder of the way to stand beyond the Walk of Supplication. He could feel his body working already, easing the remaining discomfort within his lungs and cooling the surface of his skin.

Alydia appeared next to him a moment later, but he did not address her - he was staring ahead, his eyes darting from statue to statue. Chiseled into menacing forms, they stood in silent anticipation. The coffin-like containers rested between them, one for each pair of the animalistic constructs. The room had widened after the poisonous path, presenting a greater chamber.

Stealthy as they were, the drow pair took just a few steps forward together before the stone began to come to life. Izvilvin was about to ask Alydia to hang back, perhaps to jump ahead of the group once he could make his way through them, but she ran forward into danger. It gave him pause, and he had to remember her claim earlier of being able to handle the statues.

More than that, he had to remember that his injured shoulder was the result of his not trusting Alydia's battle sensibilities. She lacked his experience in combat, certainly, but she was aware of her surroundings and able to extradite herself from harmful situations. His hesitance had cost him some flesh, and now they found themselves in danger once more. He had to let go, let Alydia handle herself and trust that if he was needed, she would call.

He exhaled and steeled himself.

The leftmost bier croaked open for the first time in generations, a ghoulish, pale limb slithering out like a maggot from beneath a stone. The lid tilted forward and smashed into the ground, shaking dust and dirt from the ceiling and walls, revealing a decomposing humanoid standing in the vertical grave. Tattered and torn robes hung from what remained of her body, wisps of dried hair clung to the remains of a scalp.

It almost got to take a step forward. Streaking through the black and tumbling end over end, a dagger of diamond took it between the gelatinous remainders of its eyes, embedding itself inches deep into the fragile bone.

[Alydia Ettermire]

Stone grated and ground against stone as magic and mechanisms dormant for ages activated in the statues for the first time. Dust trickled and poured into piles on the smooth floor, and one by one the titanic statues stepped from between their pillars and toward their targets. Only two - one in the middle right and one in the far back left - failed to move. That was bad news; Alydia had hoped for at least the standard one-in-four failure rate these kinds of guardians had. Even so, she rushed to the closest statue, reaching it before it had fully articulated and clambering up its body by whatever handholds she could find in the stone.

Having no instructions on how to deal with an opponent like this, the statue swung its weapon at the rushing red creature that had already reached its shoulders, forcing her to duck down its back and creating a spider web of cracks on its left arm in the process. This dog-headed statue and its brothers were designed for men like Izvilvin, mighty warriors who would want to stand and trade blows and get crushed in their arrogance. The priestesses, with their magical abilities, were more suited for magic-users like her; both typically stood back from the carnage and focused their efforts elsewhere. By sending the nimble thief up against the monolithic guardians and the swordsman against the unarmored undead, the Alerians threw the purpose of the Hall of Judgment on its head. Hopefully that would play out in their favor.

We just have to be fast.

The club grated down the statue's arm, and Alydia launched herself back up, grabbing its head, encasing it in shadow, and pulling it into the dark. Her eyes were already locked onto one of its crocodile-headed companions, who was already swinging for her with a club big enough to pulverize her entire body. Stone powder billowed out from the thief's hand; she was pretty sure that the control mechanisms were in the heads, so she didn't want to risk leaving those intact if she didn't destroy the bodies. As expected, the first statue slowly started to collapse just as the second club closed in, allowing her to flatten on her expertly-shaped perch and let the blow whistle harmlessly above, though it was so close it caught the brim of her hat.

As soon as it passed, the elf scrambled back to her feet, balancing precariously on the toppling behemoth for an instant before leaping onto the crocodile's right arm. Its momentum carried it around where a third statue, with the head of a falcon, swiped at her. Another hop took Alydia to the attacker's wrist just in time for a shower of rubble to explode behind her, and the crocodile's severed arm shook the ground as it joined the growing pile of rubble. Sheer momentum carried the thief to the statue's chiseled torso, and when she grabbed hold, she pulled it into the darkness.

The arm Aly was perched on plummeted, and she whirled in the air, letting the darkness take her back to the head of the crocodile. In the split second she had, she looked at the hall. Izvilvin was still standing, two of the priestesses - one wearing a gigantic lapis-lazuli and gold necklace and matching bracers - stood chanting at the back, four of the statues stood protecting them, a couple of priestesses kept out of range of the statues while trying to attack the intruders, and the remaining three statues trudged inexorably toward her.

Come on girls, give me words I recognize. The language sounded a little similar to modern Fallienese, and if she could only pick up a few words, she thought she could understand. Meanwhile, she stole the crocodile's head, sending it twitching to the ground with her still atop it. "Trespass!" came to Alydia's ears, followed shortly by "Pain!" She jumped and rolled just before the crocodile-headed statue hit the floor, tumbling neatly and popping to her feet in front of one of the remaining lesser priestesses. The desiccated woman lashed out at her face with gnarled claws, forcing Aly to retreat into the tangle of still-moving stone parts, pursued at every step.

Darkness congealed in and then fled from her hand, leaving behind a small mythril knife. Her hand closed around it in an unfamiliar fist, and she lunged forward, slashing clumsily and forcing a little space between herself and the priestess. She swiped again just to ensure the priestess respected the step or two she'd opened between them, meanwhile fumbling for the switch on the knife's pommel. The priestess started a new incantation, one that Alydia thought included the word for entrails, but before she could finish it, a pair of red sheets unfurled, one between the rogue and the corpse, the other about halfway to the oncoming guardians. They twisted and floated on their way to the ground, with the bewildered mummy looking frantically between them. By the time her silken cover had vanished, the Alerian was within reach of the next statue.

The two up there are saying something about wrath and generations. Some sort of curse?

The nearest statue, a bull-headed behemoth, swung its mighty club at its tiny target. This one was faster than the others; perhaps he was better articulated or an ancient engineer had forgotten his joint control, because instead of a strong but slightly slow attack, this blow came screaming in. Without the time to jump over it or the clearance to shadow-jump, Alydia lunged desperately forward into a somersault that carried her past the strike. The floor cracked and groaned beneath the might of the ox's arm, but a dusty and unharmed elf stood between his feet.

Unfortunately for both elf and ox, the jackal behind him had kept his eyes on the tumbling ball of red and attacked regardless of the consequences. His club slammed into the ox's right leg, shattering it at the knee. Showers of stone shards fell around Alydia, sending her scrambling for cover like a mouse caught in a hail storm. Off balance, the ox collapsed thunderously, nearly squashing the fleeing thief, who* nearly ran right into the lion-headed sixth statue's weapon.

Alydia glanced around. The jackal and lion were aiming strikes at her from either direction. The ox was flailing in its hopeless attempts to rise, but its arm still posed a danger if it moved wrong. Meanwhile, the two priestesses were still chanting at the far end of the hall and the four statues flanking them stared straight ahead, waiting for a valid threat to probe too close to their charges.

It has to be a ritual, and it's getting close to its end. Two priestesses? This long? We've got to stop this, or - oh!

A pair of clubs slammed for Alydia, forcing her to seek refuge on the ox's back. Rapid blows followed her as she fled, one after another in endless succession, each only narrowly missing the nimble thief as she ran up and down the ox's body and head. Sadly for the ox, he lacked the thief's small size and agility, and the onslaught crumbled him into a million flying shards of rubble.

I can't keep this up forever. They can. Come on... If I can time this... The jackal's battered club came down right in front of Aly, and she grasped hold of it on the upswing, letting it pull her out of the maelstrom of stone that had her face and legs bleeding from a dozen cuts and left bruises over the rest of her. It wasn't the safest move.

The jackal pulled his arm back then threw it forward, wrenching the thief's arms painfully and flinging her into the air. The lion's club rushed forward to meet her, sure of a deadly strike. Instead it met nothing, and a dark form congealed on the lion's shoulder. It didn't have a chance to register what had happened before its head was consumed and obliterated. It toppled forward, taking a precariously-balanced Alydia close enough to the jackal to leap onto his arm.

Single-mindedly, the last moving statue had still been pursuing her, and its arms swung to dislodge her. It nearly worked; her soft-soled boots found little purchase on the jackal's smooth forearm. She stumbled, throwing her hands out and wobbling dangerously. Recovering enough to drop prone on her chosen appendage, Alydia called upon the shadows once more. Without enough time to concentrate on just one part of the statue, she enveloped the whole thing and pulled it into the black.

There was nothing left to stop her from falling to the ground, and though she didn't even have ten feet to fall, she was poorly prepared and landed amidst the debris with a whump and a grunt.

Alydia's breath came in heaves, her head swam, and she stung and throbbed all over thanks to the many cuts and bruises she'd sustained. But the ritual chanting was growing to a crescendo, and if she didn't stop the high priestesses now, she and her friend were dead. Or worse.

With force of will alone, she crumbled the stone in her holdings to powder and dropped it all on the two casters without a moment to spare. Billows of dust and wisps of acidic poison rippled over the mound, and Alydia whirled around to shout a warning.

"IZVILVIN! GET DOWN!" Heeding her own words, Alydia dropped prone.

A wave of power pulsed out of the mound, cracking pillars and statues instead of obliterating everything. Larger hunks of rubble scraped the ground and smaller ones flew. Many struck the delicate thief, who could only hold on, cover her head, and hope she'd done enough.