Tessier waved the torch in front of her. She stuck her hand out back towards the group. "Stop!" she said.

She took a few handfuls of pebbles from the ground and loaded them into her shoe. She then threw it ahead of them. With a faint click, a burst of flame came shooting out from the side of the wall. Tessier dusted herself off and kept going down the hall, Montag pushing her from behind.

Derik lowered his shield. "That's certainly something. Remind me why you would want to be at the front?" he asked.

"A good soldier is prepared for death, and I don't want our new friend running off on us. She doesn't seem especially trustworthy," Montag responded.

They continued down the winding hall further into the structure, dodging a few more traps pointed out by Tessier. They eventually came upon a large room. They split up to illuminate the room and found it curiously devoid of anything other than two doorways that lead further into the vault. There were only a few scattered coins on the floor. Tessier was kind enough to alert the group the section had already been raided.

They approached the two doors. "So which way are we going to take?" Lina asked.

"I went down the right side last I was here," Tessier replied.

"In the words of Sun Tzu," Derik said. "Better the devil you know than you don't and all that."

"I agree," Gonzalez said. "At least we won't fall for the same thing that killed Tessier's previous group. Or is that wishful thinking?"

Electing to go down the right path, they came across a few skeletons leaning against the walls. Scratch marks scored the nearby surfaces.

"Those poor lads," Iris said. "Doesn't look like they went peacefully."

Montag stared ahead. "I concur," he said as he elbowed Tessier forward. "You know what the trap is, correct? Get on with it."

Tessier lept through and stepped on a plate, releasing a mechanism that dropped two stone walls, trapping them in. Iris and Derik were outside the chamber, escaping the descending walls.

Montag slammed his fist against the wall.

"Damn you, harlot! You'll pay for this transgression!" he said.

The chamber began to slowly fill with sand as Montag continued to pound at the wall...

"Woh," Iris jumped back from the descending wall. "I hope they are alright in there."

Derik listened in to hear a faint pounding and muffled speech. "They alive, if only I had subtitles to hear what they are saying."

As they waited in the room pondering what to do, they heard footsteps approaching from the left doorway. A humanoid made of tinted yellow stone had come to investigate the noise. It held a sword in both hands and a gaggle of snakes protruding from its appendages.

"I don't think that is friendly," said Derik.

"Brilliant deduction," Iris said as it slashed at them.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Derik blocked a blow and counterattacked, slashing at one of the outlying snakes. The swordsmanship picked up from Palatine drills paid off as his strike rang true. The sword directly hit the neck of one snake but only ended up dulling the end of his blade.

"I gave it the college try," Derik thought. The snakes attached to the figure lashed out in tandem with the sword swipes from the statue. Forced on the defensive, Derik fled down the left corridor. It seemed like a better option than fighting the impervious piece of sentient artwork. Derik raced down the path, leaning against a wall to look back for the statue. It had stopped following him, but Derik lost his footing as the wall rotated behind him.

"Oh, shit"

He was swept off his feet and began to tumble down the slope, landing in a shallow pool. He took a few moments to collect himself and view his surroundings. The area was a massive cave that, while connected to the structure on the surface, seemed completely natural; jagged pillars of rock supported the curved ceiling, and spikes jutted out every which way. Derik heard the noise of water nearby and made his way towards it. There was a waterfall at the far end of the cave that formed a large pool. Derik looked inside to see a glint of gems in the shallow sections. He picked one up; it was a white jewel, almost entirely transparent. He dug around the pool, using the texture of the gems to locate them; he offloaded all the gemstones he could into his pack.

"Hopefully, these are worth something," Derik thought. "Now I've gotta find a way out of here."

Derik scrambled up a passageway carved out of the cave wall. The small tunnel carved through the rock eventually led to an open room. As Derik stepped through the jagged hole in the wall, he crouched behind a nearby pillar. There was conversation up ahead, so Derik jumped between different pieces of furniture to find out what was happening. He peeked out behind to see two people, one seriously injured.

"What are you doing here. Get back into the fight!" the uninjured man said.

"I'm injured, sir." the other choked out.

The man looked him up and down. "Tis' but a scratch!"

"What? My arms off." The other turned to give him a view of the stub where his arm used to be.

"Ah, fair enough. Let's get you out of here." the other man helped him as they escaped through a hole in the wall.

As the soldiers left, Derik crept further into the room. He didn't especially want to move towards the action, but he would rather take his chances escaping through the tomb than trying to sneak through the breach watched by these unknown men. Their dark robes didn't exactly give off an air of warmth. If there was a fight going on ahead, maybe he could sneak by.

Derik darted from his spot and crept behind a brass throne. A gleaming chest that lay beside the throne drew his eye. He elected to open the container, which contained a miniature dull green cage. He pocketed the trinket and moved forward to find the source of the conflict, a colossal statue with the head of a serpent swept groups of men away with a bladed staff. Beyond the battle was an exit door, Derik's target.

Derik lurked around the outskirts of the battle and attempted to reach the door. He was about halfway to the door as the statue finished dealing with the invaders. As it returned to its post by the throne, Derik timed his movements; he muffled his steps with the stomps of the statue. The statue leaned down to notice the chest was open. Derik was making his way across the last stretch of ground to the door when he heard a booming voice from across the room.

The statue spoke, "You there! Are you another one of these raiders that have come to steal from this sacred tomb?"

Derik turned around hesitantly, "No, no. I'm not with them. I'm just here, you know. I'm part of the maintenance crew. Traps can't rearm themselves, right?"

"That artifact does not belong to you," it replied.

"No, I think it's mine,"

"So, you are the one ordained by prophecy to defeat the forces of the underworld? You must face my trial to prove your nature!"

"No, it's mine now because I'm taking it. Not because I have a magic deed or something."

"So," it readied its weapon, "you are one of the thieves. You have stolen the artifact!"

"No, I'm in the process of stealing it right now." Derik began slowly backing up."I haven't stolen it, yet."

"It's not yours then."

"It will be in about a minute or so."

"So you are not the owner."

"No, I am the owner."

The statue grimaced and looked towards the ground. "Enough of this farce. Will you fight me or run away like a coward?"

"Sorry, but I'm four parallel universes ahead of you," Derik remarked as he ran through the door leading out of the room.

He made his way up the stairs as he heard loud stomping follow behind him.

"That was close," he thought. "I wonder how the others are doing."