Sellâ tried the handle, but it wouldn’t budge. “Damn it, it’s locked.” She turned the knob, feeling the resistance, and shook her head. “I can try to pick the lock, but I don’t recognize the make. It’s a lot older than what I’ve generally seen.” She bent down and started fiddling with the lock.

After a few minutes, Ihra stood up and headed back up the ramp. “I’m going to check the upper room - maybe there was a key up there.” She disappeared up the shaft, swallowed up in the overwhelming darkness, and the two were left alone in the flickering blue light.

Eventually, Sellâ stood up, defeated. “The lock’s too hard for me - I can’t get it open. I guess we’re just going to have to be satisfied with the weapons in the upper room.”

“Nope!” Ihra emerged out of the darkness, a triumphant look on her face. A key was clutched in her hands. “I spotted some empty hooks on the wall when we came down, and as I’d hoped, the key had fallen behind a few boxes.”

Hands shaking with excitement, Sellâ inserted the key. It didn’t work. “Argh.” She kicked the door hard, bouncing back with a cry of pain as she clutched her foot. “Damn it.” With a sigh, she leaned back against the wall, favoring her foot. “Maybe we should head back up into the village and check the captain of the guard’s house; there might be a key there.”

Jasper shook his head as a different idea occurred to him. “Do you think the door is trapped, Sellâ?”

She frowned as she looked up at him, clearly eager for him to accept her suggestion. “I don’t know. Maybe? Why don't we go check the captain's house?”

“Get back, both of you, up the ramp. I’m going to try to shoot the lock off.”

Ihra looked at him, a bemused expression on her face. “With an arrow? I guess I could try, although, I really don’t think it will do anything.”

He shook his head, holding up a hand glowing with blue flame. “Nope, with magic.”

After the two girls had retreated a safe distance up the ramp, he readied the spell. Shooting Star normally automatically selected the nearest targets, but he concentrated, willing the spell to focus on the lock. It resisted him at first, but eventually, he felt something click in his mind. He released the spell.

A series of small explosions cascaded against the door, briefly lighting up the dark shaft like the sun itself. He shielded his eyes against the spell until the darkness returned, only to be chased away in turn by the blue flame of his hands. The door stood firm.

Disappointed, he crept down to examine it. Heat radiated off the iron frame, the door still slightly glowing from the force of the explosion. The lock was still attached, but it was twisted and mangled. Another blow might do it.

“Did it work?” Ihra called down.

“No, but it damaged the lock. Stay up there. I’m going to try again.”

Retreating back up the ramp, he took aim again.

This time the enormous clang of metal ringing against the stone floor told him of his success before he saw it. When the fire cleared, the door lay on the ground, a passage beyond exposed.

A soft hand fell on his arm, giving it a flirty squeeze. “Well, look at you. Proving your worth already.” Sellâ smirked up at him, slipping past. “Let me check the path for traps.”

They advanced slowly down another ramp, much shorter this time. At the bottom, they could see an arch opening into a room. But a few steps away from the entrance, Sellâ held a hand up, signaling for them to stop. “Wait, there’s a trap here, and it seems to be in working condition. I guess the water didn’t breach past that last door.”

She examined the area carefully, finally shaking her head. She pointed to a panel in the wall beside the arch. “I think you can turn the trap off there, but I don't see any way to trigger it from here.” She turned to Jasper. “I can’t be a hundred percent certain, but I think it’s a fire trap. Given your, you know,” she pointed at his red skin, “I assume you have fire immunity?”

He nodded slowly, the pieces falling into place. “So, you just need me to walk through the flames.”

She nodded. “I think so.”

He held a hand out over the trap, and the passage in front of him erupted in a torrent of flames. The girls shrank back from the oppressive heat, and he hastily withdraw his hand, furiously patting down his sleeve which had caught fire. After a moment, he looked at his scorched sleeve with some regret. His arm, however, was entirely unharmed. Alright, I can do this.

“Look away,” he called back as he stripped off his clothes, piling them out of reach of the trap. Jasper could swear he heard some giggling behind him, and blushed, self-consciously trying to hide himself. Then, he stepped into the flames.

The wall of flames swirled around him, as if hell had risen to earth - and, boy, did it feel good. He paused, his form entirely consumed by the flames that engulfed him, but did not burn. A deep warmth spread through him, a sense of well-being, as he soaked the flames in. He closed his eyes, relishing the sensation, and the flames gushed into him, joining the fire that burned within. Within moments, the trap was consumed, without him ever touching the panel. The tunnel was plunged back into darkness, although the heat still lingered. He walked back to his clothes, fumbling in the dark to put them on before he relit his hands. “Alright, I’m pretty sure the trap’s been cleared.”

Sellâ cautiously poked her sword over the line, waving it furiously back and forth. “I really wish you would have just pushed the button off,” she complained.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Jasper shrugged, and without hesitating strode across the scorched pavement. No fire rose up to meet him, but he pushed the panel anyways. It clicked ineffectually. “There, you happy?”

The two girls joined him, dancing across the still-smoldering pavement as it scorched the bottom of their shoes. “Hot, hot, hot!” Ihra leaped across the rest of the pavement, unable to bear the residual heat. She landed unsteadily beside him, and he was forced to catch her when she almost fell backward onto the hot stone. “Thanks.” The two shared a look as Sellâ slowly advanced, placing down small sheets of paper that somehow resisted the harsh heat.

“Those seem awfully handy,” Jasper observed. “Were you expecting a fire trap?”

She shook her head carelessly, her hair bouncing as she completed the last jump. “Never hurts to be prepared.”

The three peered into the room. The room was pentagonal in shape, apparently excavated out of the rock itself. Chests and casks lined the walls, their aged and rotting wood lids closed tightly, hiding their treasure from sight. Three statues, ensconced in the three vertices on the far side of the room, watched over the abandoned hall.

But Sellâ ignored the rest of the room as she focused on the object at its center. A great lyre sat on a pedestal. Gold, gems, and faded flowers were strewn all around it and a bowl filled with a long-dried dark red substance was set before it. The instrument was black, ornamented with gold embedded into the wooden frame. On one side of the base, a head peered out, adorned with a massive pair of horns between which sat the moon. “One of the lyres of Damqa,” Sellâ muttered beneath her breath excitedly.

She stepped forward cautiously, pausing as she nervously looked around the room.

“Are you expecting something to happen?”

She took another slow step forward. “I didn’t find any references to one, but it used to be pretty common for nobles to set up some sort of treasure guardian.”

As she stepped forward again, a loud crack echoed through the room. The three froze, scanning the abandoned hall.

Jasper saw nothing, aside from the three statues, that is. He looked at them closer. The statues were of three maidens. Although carved of stone, the sculptor must have been extraordinarily skilled. Their gauzy dresses floated around them, as if blown by the cold winds of the frozen lake, and their arms were stretched out in front of them. The statues would have been beautiful, if not for the frozen expressions of fear on their face. Aw, damn it.

Before he could speak, Sellâ stepped forward again.

The sound of shattering stone filled the room as the fronts of the statues crumbled, something leaping forward. The spell had left his fingers a moment later, the ten orbs of Shooting Star on a collision course with the blurred motion racing toward him. The explosion came almost immediately, the creatures closing in on them fast, and he leap back, casting Fiery Shackles.

Screams ripped through the room as the creatures were suddenly rooted in place and, for a second, he was able to get a good look at them. Strips of flesh hung off their faces and limbs, exposing the bone below, their fingernails were long and dirty, and their teeth were far too sharp, but there was still something there that was recognizable. They were the maidens.

He had no time to examine them further. An arrow zoomed past him, plunging into the head of the nearest maiden, where it simply passed through, harmlessly. Without warning, the three maidens shifted forward, leaving his fiery shackles behind.

One of the maidens appeared directly in front of him, her talons sweeping down towards his neck. She was far too close to him, but he let loose another Shooting Star anyways, trusting in his fire immunity to keep him safe. The force of the explosion rocketed him backward, slamming into the wall, but he immediately lashed out with the Scourge of Despair. The flaming whip sliced through the creature in front of him, and it fell - broken but clearly not dead to the ground - as his own specters manifested.

“Can you cast Fiery Shackles again?” Ihra yelled.

Trusting her he cast the spell, briefly pinning the three maidens down, as Ihra slammed something into the chest of the creature nearest to her. A gurgling scream echoed through the room, and when the maidens shifted a moment later, only two of them moved.

Daring a quick glance toward Ihra, Jasper saw the rotted corpse on the ground at her feet, a gleaming silver dagger buried in its heart. The misericorde, he realized.

A shout of alarm from Sellâ drew his attention, and he whirled to see the third maiden inches from his face, her razor-sharp teeth curled back in a snarl. He managed to get up a hand up, her teeth sinking into his arm instead of his throat. With a roar of frustration, he shook the creature violently, the maiden refusing to let go of his arm as he bashed it in the head, doing no damage. A moment later, Ihra was by his side, the misericorde plunged into the creature’s heart as it fell dead.

All that was left then was to finish the one he had bisected - though alive, it was of little threat to them in its current state. When the three maidens lay dead, Jasper examined his arm. It was a bit roughed up, bloody tooth marks clearly visible, but thanks to his toughened skin the damage was minimal.

“Such a shame,” Ihra said.

“Huh?”

“The maidens. What was done to them was barbaric. At least they can finally rest now.”

He dismissed his arm, looking back at the crumbled statues. “What was done to them?”

Sellâ chimed in. “The noble must have had them entombed in stone, enchanted so they’d be unable to die by anything but magic.” She bent down beside one of the corpses, gingerly pulling at some of the strips of flesh to reveal the bones more clearly. “See these - the bones in their legs and arms are engraved with runes. It must have been done while they were still alive, then a geomancer covered their bodies in a thin layer of stone, turning them into tomb guardians.” She shuddered, suddenly hugging her arms to her chest. “What a ghastly fate.”

Jasper looked around the abandoned hall, disquieted. He suddenly wished to get out of the room, out of the sunken chambers, and back into the sunlight as soon as possible.

Standing up, Sellâ walked back over to the lyre in the center of the room. Somehow, despite the fight which had scattered the offerings laid before it, the lyre was untouched. She bowed before it, before reaching a trembling hand out to touch it.

“So what’s the plan?”

Sellâ started as Jasper spoke, broken out of her reverence for the lyre.

“Plan?”

He gestured at the room filled with treasure. “There’s just three of us here, four if you count Bā’er. How we are going to cart all this stuff away?”

“There’s more here than I expected.” She shrugged casually. “I guess we’ll just have to make a lot of trips.” Her eyes shifted away, back to the lyre. “Gather what you want, but let’s take this first. A relic of Damqa will be of great value to the Moon-kissed.”

The three filled their pouches up with treasure, before heading back up the room. “No, no, you go first. This lyre’s a bit unwieldy.” She waved them forward, and they acquiesced. The trip up the ramp was much faster, no longer concerned about traps.

Ihra and Jasper stepped into the upper room, Sellâ just behind them.

“What the hell?!” Sellâ cursed, and they turned around.

A slow grin crept across his face. “Trouble?”

She tried to move her feet, but they would not lift off the ground, and she almost face-planted.

“Here, let me help.” He grabbed the lyre out of her hand, setting it down out of reach.

“Why can’t I move? Did I miss a trap?” Sellâ struggled, trying to pull her feet out of her shoes, thinking that that was what was stuck, but they would not budge.

“As a matter of fact, you did.” Jasper pushed more essence into his hands, the fire on them blazing brighter as the shadows fled from the room, revealing the hard resolve in his eyes.