The job had seemed off to him from the start. The broker was offering too much Zeni for such a simple task. It gave Zerath flashbacks of every Mr. Johnson that had ever back-stabbed him in Shadowrun, and he'd told Dolph as much.
Their fearless leader hadn't listened. They were being paid two-thirds in advance, he'd argued, so it wouldn't make sense for the quest broker to pull the rug out from under them. Some people just had more Zeni than sense. If they didn't take the quest, someone else would.
From the way Dolph's screams echoed down the hallway, Zerath was fairly sure Dolph now wished that someone else had.
On its face, it had been a simple task. Visit an out of the way dungeon and use a key provided by their employer to enter a secret chamber. Once there, they could scoop up whatever loot they could find, so long as they located a particular spell component in the process. Jobs like this were their bread and butter, just never for so much money. And never on such a short time-frame.
Why they'd been asked to make the run that very evening was one of the many questions Zerath planned to ask, preferably at knifepoint, once he found his way out of this hellhole.
If he found his way out.
Zerath didn't even know what went wrong. One second they were rampaging through the secret chamber, snatching up nearly everything that wasn't nailed down and wishing they'd brought a crowbar for the things that were. The next Dolph was sprinting for the exit and four of the stone statues that ringed the chamber had burst free of the walls, their stone weapons now gleaming metal as they attacked.
The statues were so ubiquitous in the tomb that Dolph hadn't cast them a second glance when they'd first entered the chamber. They had impassive stone faces with Oriental features, their weapons, and armor derivative of a similar, though slightly more fantastical heritage. They were lifelike but uncanny, everything about them so perfect in its detail that he'd found himself uncomfortable just looking at them.
There was a name for such statues, but it had proven frustratingly elusive up until the moment Nirvana had shouted it as the stone men advanced on her.
Terracotta Soldiers.
Their cleric hadn't made it out of the room. Dolph was their tank, and without him, they had no way to manage the enemies properly. Zerath had taken a wicked slash across the right side during the retreat to the door, and Nirvana had drawn Aggro from the entire group by healing him. The last he'd seen of her she'd been stumbling away from the encroaching monsters, crying for help before growing silent as swords and spears pierced her.
All sense of cohesion had vanished as they fled. His two allies had bolted ahead of him, trying to catch up to Dolph. Their haste had led them headlong into another group of soldiers, with predictable results. The level of the troops appeared to vary, as low as ten or as high as twenty, but considering that Dolph, at level eight, was their strongest, they didn't stand a chance.
Discretion had been all that kept Zerath alive. He was a magical trickster, a class that mixed a small amount of spellcasting ability with traditional rogue skills. His Vanish spell had allowed him to bypass wave after wave of the guards as they'd roamed the corridors, while his Sneak skill had muffled his steps and hidden him in the shadows while his MP recharged.
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It might not be enough to save him, however. With each passing minute, the number of soldiers marching up and down the corridors continued to increase. Their heavy footsteps had long since replaced the skittering noises of the dungeon's usual low-level inhabitants, and before long he suspected the only thing living in the dungeon would be stone. Eventually, one of the soldiers would have a perception skill high enough or have enough circumstantial modifiers, to finally spot him. Once they did, it wouldn't be much of a fight.
"Where is it?" The words reverberated through Zerath's body, as though he were standing next to the bass speaker at a rock concert. The sound of them came from everywhere and nowhere, not an echo but an omnipresent sound. It was as if the very walls themselves were speaking.
"I don't have it!" That voice was more natural, and one he recognized. Zerath had been taking the shortest, safest route to the surface and from the sound of his nearby voice, Dolph had had a similar idea.
It would have been better to double-back, he knew, but even with his common sense screaming at him, Zerath couldn't fight the feeling of curiosity that filled him. Dolph had taken something before he fled, that much was clear now. It would be nice to leave with the knowledge of what, and why. Especially when he went to have that talk with their employer. Instead of retreating, he advanced, creeping along the wall until he finally slid into the shadowed corner of a small stone room.
The room had six occupants. Dolph was on his knees, each arm pinned up at shoulder level by the strong hands of a stone soldier. Two more soldiers had the sharp edges of their polearms pressed along the exposed flesh of the player's neck, prepared to execute him at a moment's notice.
The last stone soldier was different than the others. For one thing, the bearded statue had color to his clothing. Stone meant to resemble vibrant purple, and red silks were painted as such wherever the golden armor revealed them. His skin remained the same gray stone, but his hair was black as night, the topknot atop his head held in place by a golden leaf pin that shimmered in the room's dim torchlight.
"I know you do not have it." It replied though its mouth didn't move to form the words. They came from the walls, from his soldiers, from the very ground that they stood on. The booming authority of the soldier's voice filled him, and Zerath knew in that instant he would tell the construct anything it asked of him. "You gave it to someone. Who?"
“I don't know!” Dolph cried. “It was a man. My employer said to take the relic and to give it to him. That was all!”
Zerath shook his head. It hadn't been hard to two and two together to figure out that Dolph had been the source of his misery, but it stung hearing the man say it. Dolph had always been more than his fair share of greedy, but this was so far beyond that. Considering how fast he'd run, Dolph must have known something was going to happen, even if he didn't know specifically what. He was aware of the risk and he did it anyways, without telling them.
If the constructs didn't kill him, Zerath was going to.
“And this man has left the Tomb?”
“Yes! At least, I think! I can help you find him though. I can tell you about his employer. I can tell you everything, just let me-” Dolph's pleading was interrupted by the butt of a polearm struck across his jaw. The one in charge hadn't given an order, but all four had worked in an uncanny unison to allow for the blow, then returned to their original positions just as quickly.
"Yes, you will tell us everything. Before you die." The leader said bleakly, ignoring Dolph's pleading screams and instead turning its unblinking eyes to the ceiling. It stood in silence, as if collecting its thoughts before it spoke, though Zerath was certain it was no longer talking to anyone in the room. "Thief. What you have taken will be your death. And the death of your people. I allow you one hour to return it, or you and all your kind will face oblivion."