After a day of traveling through the desert towards the place on the map Gwendolyn gave them, they come to the edge of the mountains. Drakthar finds a place to tie off his horse, leaving it hidden there with the cart, deciding the mountain terrain will be too difficult for it to traverse.

“How are we supposed to navigate this place anyways? Don’t a bunch of people die from getting lost here?” Alcaeus complains. Xander looks at the ground and eventually notices a natural path beginning to develop, probably because more and more people have been in the mountains heading to the exact same ruins they are looking for.

“We should go this way,” Xander suggests, heading down the trail he noticed.

“Okay, and why should we believe you kid?” Alcaeus asks, not understanding how Xander is so sure it is the correct way to go.

“I could try and explain it to you, but that would take too much time,” Xander scoffs, seeing such an explanation as below his level of intelligence.

“Hey! Are you trying to say I’m stupid or something?” Alcaeus shouts in outrage, tired of constantly being insulted.

Before he can start a fight, Kayde interrupts him, “None of us have a better idea. I don’t think sitting around and doing nothing is a better idea so I say let’s give it a shot,” and starts plodding down the same path Xander seems to be walking along. Drakthar and Jorge follow shortly behind Kayde, ignoring the indignant look Alcaeus has been wearing of late.

“I can tell you already, he doesn’t know where the hell he’s going!” Alcaeus yells at the others’ backs.

He mutters, “Oh fuck it,” under his breath and jogs to catch up to them.

After two hours of following Xander, the group comes across the jagged wall the mountain has become, with no apparent way up. Set into the face of the mountain, a set of stairs heads down, swallowing any daylight attempting to penetrate its depths.

“That looks like an entrance to some ruins to me,” Kayde points out.

“Dammit, I guess the kid was right,” Alcaeus mumbles begrudgingly.

“I am sorry, I didn’t quite hear you,” Xander gloats, having heard exactly what Alcaeus said.

“I said I’m going to fuck Gwendolyn right in front of you!” Alcaeus lashes out at him, not letting him get the last word.

In an attempt to placate them, Kayde shifts to stand in between Alcaeus and Xander, “Seriously, calm down guys, we need to work with each other if we are going down into these ruins. A whole village full of people couldn’t handle this place”.

Alcaeus juts out his jaw and stares at Xander, “Fine, but he needs to stop making me look stupid”. Xander shrugs instead of responding.

“Okay, so you two are going to work together now?” Kayde asks in a condescending tone.

“Yeah,” they both begrudgingly reply in unison.

With their egos relatively intact, they finally descend the stairs into the ruins. Kayde stands at the head of the group, illuminating their way with a torch. After a long descent with nothing but the sound of their boots against the stone stairs, they come to a wooden door with a golden handle in the very center of the door.

“You guys think this could be a trap?” Alcaeus asks, hungrily eyeing the golden handle.

“Yes, remember the entire village was wiped out? We should definitely be careful,” Kayde points out, remembering what the girl in the brothel told him.

Alcaeus pulls out his whip and catches the handle of the door. He opens it from a distance and nothing happens.

“Looks like we had nothing to worry about,” Kayde sighs in relief.

The sound of a metal flask hitting the ground reverberates through the cavern, and Jorge grunts, “Maybe it won’t be as bad as we thought lads,” as he wipes his beard clean of rum.

As they walk through the door, they hear a rattling sound behind them. They quickly turn, only to see Alcaeus attempting to pry the handle off of the door.

“What are you doing?” Drakthar asks, annoyed at being slowed down.

“The handle is gold man, I have to have it,” Alcaeus explains, most of his attention still focused on getting the golden handle off of the door.

They wait around impatiently for a couple of minutes until Alcaeus finally gets the handle off. As he pulls it away from the door, Alcaeus feels liquid flowing onto his hands. It starts to sting as he realizes it is acid. He quickly drops the golden handle and wildly attempts to shake it off of his now burning hands.

“Oh, fuck! What the hell! Who just puts acid in a door?” Alcaeus shouts in pain, incredulous that anyone would go to such lengths for a measly door handle.

“Someone who knows greedy thieves like you would want the handle,” Xander points out, picking up the door handle from the acid and examining it.

“Yup, it is fake. The outside just looks gold”. He tosses it back down in the acid, causing some of it to splash onto Alcaeus’s shoes.

“Kayde, can I see the medkit?” Alcaeus requests as they continue on.

“Sure,” Kayde agrees, getting it out of his bag of holding and hands a couple of bandages to Alcaeus. As Alcaeus wraps his hands, they continue through the stone hallway the door has led them to. At the end is a room with a single wooden door leading forward. Initially, they believe it to be empty but soon notice a large steel chest sitting in the dirt around the corner.

Alcaeus runs up to the chest right as he finishes bandaging both of his hands. Xander watches him and sighs in exasperation, “Are you kidding me? That is obviously going to be a trap too. Why are you the way you are?”.

“I won’t know until I try,” Alcaeus cheerily replies, ignoring the warnings as he eagerly inspects the chest.

The others back away to the other side of the room and watch from a safe distance as Alcaeus flips back the latch on the front of the chest. He opens the lid only to find another chest inside.

“I’d quit while I was ahead. I mean a chest within a chest? Come on man let’s get out of here,” Kayde shouts across the room, futilely trying to convince Alcaeus to let it go. He doesn’t listen and undoes the latch on this chest as well. As everyone holds their breath in anticipation a mechanical click breaks the silence. The chest suddenly explodes with a deafening roar, throwing Alcaeus across the room.

Everyone watches as Alcaeus collides violently against the wall and drops to the floor like one of Jorge’s empty bottles.

“Hey Kayde, get the medkit,” he groans, slowly starting to stand up. Kayde, unwilling to waste resources on someone who doesn’t listen, instead, opens the door at the end of the room and continues on with the others.

Alcaeus eventually picks himself up and limps after them as fast as he can.

“Kayde, what the hell?” He asks once he is back with the others.

“You’re walking, you seem fine enough to me,” Kayde replies, noting that Alcaeus is keeping up.

In the next room, they find artwork of Gwyn on the walls. It depicts various rituals, ones Alcaeus seems to be very interested in.

“You checking those for traps?” Drakthar asks, noticing Alcaeus lasciviously staring at them.

“What? Oh yeah, absolutely,” he absentmindedly replies as he looks over them and notices nothing but pleasing images.

“It’s not like the sewers, the pictures are normal,” he lets the others know.

Suddenly they hear yelling through the door up ahead.

“Wait here guys, I’m going to check it out,” Kayde slowly opens the door and enters the room. In the center, he sees a man, his black hair partially blocking his eyes that peer down at whatever is at the bottom of the large pit he is sitting at the edge of. At the other end of the room are two doors, one black, one wooden.

Kayde goes directly up to the man, “Hey, how’s it going?” The man flinches in surprise, he almost falls down into the pit, not noticing Kayde enter.

“Don’t sneak up on me like that, I could have fallen in,” the man recollects himself.

“Oh, sorry dude. I thought you would have heard the door when I came in,” Kayde apologizes.

Kayde sits down right next to the man right at the edge of the pit. The man shifts away a bit, not comfortable sitting in this dangerous spot with a stranger.

“So ... who are you? And what’s up with this pit we are sitting around?” Kayde asks casually.

“There’s something at the bottom. I’m trying to figure out how to get it,” the man explains, dodging Kayde’s first question.

“So... who are you anyway?” Kayde asks again.

The man makes eye contact with him, “Just a treasure hunter, nothing more”.

“Okay, if that’s it then it should be safe then,” Kayde gets up from the edge of the pit and opens the door he came through.

“Come on guys it’s only a treasure hunter,” he tells the others still waiting in the room before.

“Hold on, there were all these people with you?” The man sees the other four enter.

“Yeah, but you can trust them, they’re cool,” Kayde smiles at him.

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“So this guy says there is treasure at the bottom of that pit,” Kayde points towards the center of the room.

“Do you know if it is in a chest or spread out?” Xander asks, wanting to know if he can obtain it easily with his abilities.

“That’s a weird question… from what I saw it was in bits and pieces,” the man recalls.

“Then I cannot help you,” Xander informs him, thinking about possibly switching a chest full of treasure with something near them.

“I feel like we are starting to connect here. I like you, it’s impossible for people not to like me, so from one treasure hunter to another do you know of any type of traps down here that we should keep an eye out for?” Kayde starts to smooth talk him.

“The types of traps down here are kind of random... but from what I’ve seen, stay away from black doors, and statues holding spears,” the man obliges, finding Kayde quite amusing.

They see the two doors in the room and choose the wooden one, heeding the man’s warning.

Before Xander opens it he turns to ask, “What about this door? Is it trapped?”

“No, that one is fine,” he responds, still sitting at the edge of the pit. Xander turns the handle of the door and pulls it open. He notices a blade coming straight for his head.

Time rewinds right before Xander walks up to the wooden door.

“Hey, is this door trapped?” He asks again, trying to catch the scoundrel in a lie.

“No, that one is fine,” the man insists again. This time Xander notices the smirk plastered across his face.

“If it is not trapped, you should have no problem coming over here and opening it,” Xander takes a step back from the door.

“I’m good here, thanks. You’re the ones that want to go through there. I’m content right here,” the man refuses.

“Liar,” Xander declares, grabbing the handle and stepping to the side, effortlessly avoiding the blade when it falls this time. He holds up his middle finger at the man as he walks into the next room.

“Bye friend,” Kayde waves enthusiastically as he follows the others.

Massive statues of Gwyn holding spears with rubies for eyes line the walls of the hallway full of marble pillars. Alcaeus walks directly up to one of the eyes and starts to pry it off.

“You have a death wish lad,” Jorge remarks disapprovingly as he walks by him with the others, knowing he is going to be impaled by a spear.

“I’m not completely stupid, this thing is just going to throw a spear when I get it off,” he confidently replies as he continues to scrape at it.

Alcaeus finally gets it off and ducks. Unfortunately, rather than the statue, he was climbing, the statue across from him throws its spear. Alcaeus feels a slight breeze as it flies right above him, narrowly missing his mark. Shakey from the near-death experience, he settles for one ruby.

“You know, you really have a problem lad,” Jorge tells Alcaeus in concern for his well-being.

“I’ll be fine Jorge, I’ve done this before. I’m alive now so you don’t have to worry,” Alcaeus waves him off. Everyone halts as they hear commotion through the next door that sits beneath an extravagant archway. Kayde opens it so he can just barely peer into the room. He sees two men, one with his oddly shaped sword drawn, and the other creating fireballs just like Jorge, engaged with a couple of priests from the Cult of Chaos.

“The Cult of Chaos is down here,” he whispers to the others, still watching the events inside.

“What? I thought they were based out of Melusarej. Why would they be here?” Xander starts to question out loud.

Kayde continues to watch and notices that Sharn is one of the people fighting the Cult of Chaos.

“It’s Sharn. He’s fighting against them,” he reports back. Drakthar’s eyes light up. He pushes past Kayde and makes his way into the room. The others, having lost the element of surprise, enter after him.

They all get a better look at what is going on. Sharn and a priest of Gwyn are fighting three distortions and a priest from the Cult of Chaos. The distortions converge on the priest of Gwyn, just as the group closes in on the action. The distortions cause him to collapse to his knees and scream until the Cult of Chaos priest, switches with a distortion and slits his throat.

The priest suddenly notices the new additions charging into the room, watching as Drakthar fells the remaining distortions in one swing, quickly realizing he is doomed. He frantically pulls out a dagger and begins to chant. Before anyone can react, the priest inserts the dagger into his heart, summoning a distortion the size of the one they fought outside the desert capital. The five of them, now with the addition of Sharn, spring into action, having no trouble repeating their previous feat.

Drakthar and Sharn fight it head-on as Kayde, Xander, and Jorge attack it from afar. The distortion focuses on Sharn, burning a part of his skin when making contact. The pain stops before long as the distortion disappears from the barrage of attacks it suffers.

After the battle ends, Xander looks over at Sharn to gauge his reaction towards them being there. They did not part on friendly terms, so he needs to make sure Sharn isn’t a threat.

“Why are you here, is it because of the treasure?” Drakthar asks Sharn, searching for the reason he is here. Sharn shakes his head.

“He is here to hunt the Cult of Chaos,” Xander voices, confident that is the truth. Sharn nods.

“Hold on, it still doesn’t add up. How did you know they would be here?” Kayde asks. Sharn appears to be lost in thought. After a while, he starts to shake his head.

“Oh right, you can’t talk, even if you wanted to you couldn’t tell us,” Kayde realizes.

Xander pulls out a pen and parchment, “But he can tell us by writing”. Sharn points at the pen and paper and shakes his head.

“What? Why not?” Kayde asks, a little depressed at the thought of not being trusted.

Sharn points at the pen and paper and then at his eyes and shakes his head again.

“Sorry, I guess I don’t know what he is trying to say,” Kayde says aloud as they try to decipher what Sharn is trying to tell them.

“He can’t read lads. He’s trying to tell ya he can’t read or write,” Jorge figures it out, believing it to be obvious. Sharn nods confirming Jorge’s statement as true.

“I guess you can’t tell us then. Do you think there could be more of them here?” Kayde asks, wanting to know if they need to be more careful. Sharn shrugs, himself unsure of whether there are more members of the Cult of Chaos within the ruins.

“You want to look around with us? We could be helpful if you run into more enemies so you don’t have to fight them all yourself,” Xander suggests, wanting someone strong like Sharn to help them out as well. Sharn nods.

Sharn walks towards the wooden door on the far wall, hip checking Alcaeus on his way there.

“Hey, don’t bump into me like that, there was plenty of room,” Alcaeus points out angrily. Sharn ignores the man he considers a disgusting worm and opens a wooden door with a golden handle.

“You going to take the bait on this one too?” Kayde asks, seeing Alcaeus eye the handle.

“No, the kid figured out that the last one was fake, so it’s not worth it,” Alcaeus responds dejectedly, truly wishing the gold was real.

Through the door is a short brick hallway that quickly comes to a fork. They decide to head to the left for no particular reason. After slightly kicking up some of the loose dirt on the ground as they walk, they encounter a black door with a black handle.

“That guy at the pit said to watch out for these,” Alcaeus recalls.

“If we believe he told us the truth,” Xander points out that he lied about the axe above the door previously.

“I’ll pull it open with my whip from a distance just to be safe,” Alcaeus suggests, readying his whip.

The others stand back as Alcaeus catches the handle with his whip and pulls the door open. He regrets it immediately, startled as ten men are now looking right at him, five in armor and the other five in purple robes.

He slams the door closed as fast as he can and yells to the others, “RUN!”

“Why are we running? You see something scary in there?” Kayde asks as they take off. They hear the door burst open from behind them and Kayde looks back to see the ten men chasing after them.

“Ah, I see,” he flatly comments after noticing.

They go straight through the fork instead of going back the way they came. They put a good amount of distance between the much slower armored men chasing them. They see a door with a handle at the bottom. Drakthar quickly pulls the door up and Kayde crouches down to look into the darkness. He sees a pair of eyes looking back at him.

“Hey, you hungry?” He asks, throwing a piece of bread from his bag just outside of the door. He sees a rat scurry out and start nibbling on the bread.

“It’s just a rat, let’s go,” Alcaeus hurries them forward from the back. They enter the room and shut the door just as they hear the men behind them get close again. Inside the room, Kayde notices a bunch of rats blocking the door. He throws the entire loaf of bread into the far corner and they all chase after it. Now that the door is no longer blocked, Drakthar opens it and they exit the room slamming the door shut behind them.

They continue to run down the next hallway, not noticing it has more dust and cobwebs than the previous areas. Screams of horror and pain stop them in their tracks, the sounds coming from behind them.

“Are those rats causing them to scream like that?” Xander asks, figuring that is the only way they could be screaming.

“Probably, good thing I fed them, I bet they were really hungry,” Kayde gives a thumbs up.

They slow down their pace and realize that they are no longer being followed.

“I guess those rats got all of em,” Jorge figures, seeing as no one is behind them.

“They must have been a bunch of pussies if a bunch of rats got them. Still, good for us I guess,” Alcaeus starts to laugh.

At the end of the marble hallway is another room with a single iron chest. Alcaeus walks directly up to it.

“Dude, are you kidding?” Kayde can’t believe he is still trying.

“You know me, I’ve gotta try,” Alcaeus pulls out his whip. He wraps his whip around a handle on the lip and pulls it open from a distance. The chest flips over and a single gem falls from it onto the ground. Alcaeus walks over and picks the gem up.

“Really?” Xander looks baffled it wasn’t trapped.

“How did no one pick it up by now?” Kayde is confused about how a normal chest could still be in a place that has been visited by treasure hunters already.

“The rats gotta em. We must be the first ones to make it past the rats,” Jorge reckons, finally starting to notice the litany of cobwebs all around them that were all but missing before this area.

“Damn Jorge, I think you are right. They’re everywhere” Kayde agrees, swiping at some cobwebs, remembering the dying screams of the ones chasing them.

At the end of the hall stands a door with a sapphire handle.

“Please do not rip the handle off the door this time,” Xander tells Alcaeus ahead of time.

“Why not?” Alcaeus asks, not actually caring what Xander thinks.

“Because we need to be careful, we are here for a reason, remember?” Xander thought it was obvious.

“Oh yeah, you think we are here to grab that thing for Gwendolyn. Maybe that is why you are here, but I’m here because I was promised there would be treasure,” Alcaeus insists vehemently.

While the two of them are arguing, Kayde opens the door and peers in, his eyes drawn to a gigantic statue of Gwyn looking right back at him. He flinches before recognizing it was only a statue. Just then the statue moves a little as if it were sentient. Kayde shuts the door.

“What’s in there?” Drakthar asks, wanting to know what he saw.

“There are moving statues. One looked directly at me. I think they know we’re here,” Kayde informs the others.

“Back when I was a priest of Gwyn, I remember hearing about statues that were imbued with magic. They said ya could give em simple orders that could be followed,” Jorge recalls, assuming the statues inside are like the ones he’s heard of.

Kayde looks back into the room and sees what the statue’s orders must be, to guard what is sitting in the center of the room. There is a pedestal surrounded with four chests made of solid gold, silver, sapphire, and ruby. On top of the pedestal rests a golden bow.

Kayde closes the door again before letting the others know about what is inside, “In the center are four chests. One is gold, another is silver, and the last two are ruby and sapphire. But, in the center is this really intricate golden bow. That is probably what Gwendolyn is after”.

“How in the hell are we going to do this if there are a bunch of giant moving statues guarding the loot?” Alcaeus asks, wanting all the chests, but unwilling to risk fighting a statue monster.

“Don’t worry about that, I have an idea. I may have been holding out on you guys a little when I told you about my abilities. On top of switching things, I can also teleport myself wherever I want within my own field of view once every few hours. So, given that, here is what I suggest. I teleport in there between the pedestal and a chest, grab onto the bow and whichever chest we choose and switch myself with a bell I’ll leave outside with you guys. Then we run,” Xander decides to reveal before explaining the plan.

“So which chest do we want lads?” Jorge asks, already on board with this plan.

“The sapphire one, like the handle,” Drakthar suggests, thinking it must signal that the sapphire chest is the most important.

“Yeah I like that, so I will go in and get the bow and the sapphire chest,” Xander agrees, reminding everyone of the plan.

“I have a better idea. I was also holding out on you guys. Xander, execute your plan when I give the signal,” Kayde abruptly tells Xander. They all look confused as Kayde disappears in front of their very eyes.