Spirits of the Earth

The wind whipped fiercely over the shifting dunes, which shone white in the moonlight. Standing at the foot of one large dune, Briar waited patiently, huddled in thick white robes that covered her head to toe and left only her eyes revealed--which was a pain in the arse, because she could barely see anyway with all the squinting she was doing as the sand pelted her. Tapping her foot as she waited, she pulled a folded up piece of parchment from within her robes, turned so her back was to the wind, and checked the paper, then glanced skyward, even though she had already done that at least ten times since getting here.

Yup. This had to be the place. The twin satyrs constellation was directly above her, shining brightly, the moon was full, and the wind was strong. According to all she'd researched (AKA, eavesdropped from other explorers), and according to this map (which she'd stolen from one such explorer), this was the right spot. From here on, it was all a waiting game and she knew it.

But she couldn't help but feel uneasy and impatient, and paranoid that she'd been followed, even though she felt she'd been careful. Gods be damned weather! Couldn't it speed it up a little?!

Pocketing the paper, she turned back to the dune and shifted her feet to keep her boots from getting buried in the sand. The dune was rapidly shrinking, at least half the size it had been since she'd arrived, and--ah! Wait! Was that...?

There, dark against the face of the dune, she spotted something solid and black, at first just a speck, and then growing as the sand was whipped away. Heart leaping, Briar toook a quick glance around her to make sure she was alone before she jogged as best as she could through the sand to it, and by the time she was there it was no longer a black speck but the face of a wall--or rather, a structure, built from basalt long ago. It was still almost completely covered, but as more sand was sifted away, Briar sucked in a breath at what she saw.

There was a slight indentation in the wall that she soon realized was a sealed door. Well, that was convenient! Now it was just a matter of getting in and out, and doing it quickly.

But first...getting in.

Briar didn't bother to test the give of the door. Experience told her it wouldn't be that easy, because these old dead people really protected their junk. Instead, she slipped the glove off one hand and felt along the door, eyes closed, focusing inward. Glimpses and feelings came to her, faint and feeble; it had been a long time since anyone had been here, but she latched onto them as best as she could, ignoring the roar of wind in her ears and concentrating on what she saw. There were glyphs on the door, pictures of animals and other abstract symbols. She let herself get lost in a memory and her hand moved as though on its own, pressing the same symbols an Essyrni trader had pressed years ago and feeling them recede into the stone, feeling his anxiety as the thudding of hooves on packed sand filled her ears, growing nearer, and then the whoosh of something arcing through the air. She pressed the final symbol and heard the sucking sound of the door opening right as something struck her with a hard thud in the back--

Briar's eyes snapped open with a gasp just as the pain exploded through her, but it was gone as quickly as it came and she was left panting for breath. Dear gods. Too far. She'd done it again and gone too far.

Sucking in a deep breath, she pressed her hand to her temple, and then blinked blearily at the door in front of her when she saw it had opened.

Okay. Right. Focus. Reorient yourself. You're on a time limit here, mate.

Tugging her glove back on and pushing the strange memories away, she stepped inside the temple and pushed her hood back, lowered the cloth that covered her mouth.

Well, she was in. Now it was time to get down to business. From what she'd heard, many had failed in extracting the treasure, but she wasn't worried. They didn't have her gift, after all.

For her? This should be like taking sweets from a dead person. Which is pretty much what she was doing, only replace sweets with awesome loot.

As the rough winds stirred up grains of sand, flinging them in every direction, a small caravan of camels slowly trudged their way up a steep dune. They were six in all, each man layered in swathes of fabrics, their faces and heads concealed by their white headscarves. A casual observer might have identified them as Essyrni nomads, judging by the way they looked so comfortable on the gentle beasts and by the dark color of their skin. But one among them seemed entirely out of place. He sat huddled in his saddle, facing forward as though staring intently into the horizon.

The only problem was that his eyes were entirely obscured by a silk cloth of a pure pearl color wrapped around his face.

Jocelyn's blindness had little adverse effect on him, or so he would tell most. Rather, this sort of weather suited him perfectly, as the hazy gray-white outline of the world stretched before him in his vision, entirely unclouded by the stinging sands or the darkness of night. To him, the world appeared as a pencil sketch on a canvas, roughly drawn but detailed enough for him to perceive the world at least somewhat competently. It was through this view that he now led the other five riders.

They'd first been introduced to him back in the Jeweled City, friends of the local military garrison commander to which he'd been attached as a foreign liaison. The lot of them spoke barely a lick of the Common tongue save for Adib, the oldest among the group and de facto leader. But they were seasoned travelers of the deep desert and certainly were capable of escorting a blind Serenian lad out to search for long-lost magical artifacts. Of course the map that the man possessed was conveniently stolen several days before their planned expedition, but he remembered enough of it.

And this far out into the desert now, it was just a matter of finding some sign of an ancient civilization buried beneath the dunes. Here was when they entrusted the task to their young foreign friend, though none of them understood how he could accomplish it. They simply took his word for him and followed him in silence.

Jocelyn turned his head as he sensed... something in the distance, just beyond the crest of the dune. There was an unmistakeable essence of ancient magic over yonder, the faintest of arcane energies swirling in a complex pattern that he was just able to detect. A small smile crossed his features as he headed in that direction. The closer he got to its source, the stronger he perceived the threads of magic interweaving with one another.

And then the line of camels reached the top of the hill. Below them lay the freshly exposed jet black wall of the unearthed temple, untouched and unseen by human eyes for a thousand years or more. The blind Serenian didn't see it like his companions did (and indeed they all let out a collective gasp and began murmuring to each other), but he "saw" it nonetheless.

"And there it is, boys. Let's go find us some relics."

The journey down the side of the dune took much less effort than going up it, and Jocelyn felt his heart race faster and faster the nearer they got to the black wall. The temple's residual magical energy had a distinctly unique feel to it, the threads of magic in its sealed doors forming patterns that he could understand but could not properly described. And the sensation of it grew stronger and stronger the nearer they got.

But when he reached it, his mouth dropped open. The door was open! Someone had beaten them to the punch, perhaps many nights ago. The temple could be empty by now. He hurriedly swung himself off the camel's back and approached the gaping door. Its yawning blackness stretched before him, but through his magical Cloth the way was as clear as day. A corridor leading down and then abruptly turning left, presumably to whatever underground chamber awaited him.

The elder nomad also hopped off his camel and cautiously approached the temple door. These places were sacred to his people, and he dared not go further. He did kneel in the sand by the entrance though, his hand running along the ground as he thought. Then, looking up at Jocelyn, he uttered with a heavy accent, "Footprints. Fresh."

So whoever had opened the door had arrived just before he did...

With a slow exhale, Jocelyn pulled the headscarf off his hair and down around his neck. Turning to regard his waiting companions one more time, he plunged into the temple.

The tomb was quieter inside, but Briar hadn't yet got deep enough inside to block the sounds of the roaring wind--and, as a result, she didn't hear the people approaching from outside.

Blissfully unaware, she pulled a stone from her pocket and whispered the trigger word. Within seconds the stone lit up, glowing with a brilliant white-blue light that lit the chamber up well. While not a mage herself, the stone was enchanted so that anyone who knew the trigger could use it--as she had learned shortly before stealing it from a mage. It had been a whim at the time, but it had proven itself amazingly useful!

Walking slowly, mindful that this was an ancient crypt of some sort and was probably trapped (because dead rich people really, really loved their shit), she headed deeper into the chamber, mindful of where she stepped. Alright. So far, so good! Nothing too spooky. In fact, for a crypt, it was amazingly clean--no cobwebs or anything! Then again, it had been buried, so go figure. What could survive down here?

Thinking this might be even easier than she'd anticipated, she turned a corner--and then sucked in a breath when she found her first corpse.

Or rather, a skeleton, slumped against the wall with a spear through its head.

Ouch.

Holding the stone out in front of her, Briar peeked into the tunnel and checked the walls. The poor idiot had probably triggered a trap or something that--

That was when she heard something behind her. Something that wasn't the wind.

Spinning around, her free hand went to the knife at her belt and drew it with a metallic hiss. She swept the stone back and forth in front of her, trying to illuminate the space behind her, and squinted to try to see better.

Maybe she was just hearing things?

Maybe being in a stinky dead person tomb thing was making her more jumpy than she thought! Hey, what could she say? She wasn't a fan of dead people. She just liked their crap.

Hmm...

Scowling, she whispered another trigger word, dimming the stone to a faint glow, and slipped into the room with the speared skeleton. She pressed her back to the wall, held her dagger close, and waited.

Jocelyn cautiously crept forward down the long bare corridor, making sure each soft footstep found firm footing and disturbed nothing in this tomb. He'd traversed enough of these things to know that they often were designed to keep out intruders, precisely what he was currently doing. Instead he let his senses guide him, listening for any faint sounds heard above the roaring wind to his back, "looking" for anything out of the ordinary from behind his enchanted Cloth.

The five nomads remained outside for a moment, unsure of whether to follow the foreigner into the tomb. The younger ones all refused to step over that threshold, but after much trepidation the elder nomad and another followed Jocelyn in.

Jocelyn immediately stopped them with a raised hand and an urgent "SHHH!"

As soon as the magical stone lit up, he sensed its swirling power from around the corner of the corridor. The emanations from it, while unique, were familiar enough to the Serenian to recognize that its power created a soft artificial light from whatever source held its arcane power. Which could only mean one thing...

Someone was up ahead, lighting the way.

His footsteps came even slower now as he inched his way to the end of the corridor, where it abruptly turned left. He stood at the corner for a few moments, listening intently for sounds of breathing, of movement, of anything. Despite his spectacular hearing it was still hard to discern anything over the winds still feverishly blowing at the temple's entrance, and anything over the rapid beating of his heart. The magical signature was there though, unmistakeably alive.

He took two quick breaths and then quickly rounded the corner with a brash, "I know you're in here! Come out!"

What he hadn't expected was to come face to face with an impaled skeleton. He gasped and widened his blind eyes, nearly stumbling back a few steps. The scene was such a surprise to him that he almost didn't notice the figure standing mere paces from him, holding a magical stone in one hand and a dagger in the other.

Briar wasted no time.

As soon as the man rounded the corner with a bold shout, Briar dropped the stone and sprang forward, dagger in hand, and grabbed him by the front of his scarf. Using the element of surprise to her advantage (though, strangely, it seemed it wasn't her that had first spooked him; he didn't appear to have even seen her) she yanked him forward, kicked out his legs to unbalance him, and then spun him around and shoved him, front first, into the wall. With another hard kick to the back of his knees, she forced him to kneel.

Pinning him there with her body, she pressed the point of the dagger to the base of his head and tangled her other hand in his hair. One aggressive move, and she'd be separating his skull from his spine.

"Careful, little fly. This spider may be smaller, but she's got enough venom for the both of us. So don't struggle or fuss, or she might prick you!" she said into his ear, keeping her voice low in case he had friends.

"Now, you're gonna wanna explain, quietly, what the hell you're doing here, snooping in on my hunt. Really, that's pretty creepy! Damned stalker. Buuuut since you're here, you're gonna tell me all about everything you know about this place! Since, you know, I'm being nice and haven't pricked you and all, magnanimous as I am. Really, this is a great deal. I mean, you practically owe me! And then you're gonna tell me how many people are with you, and you're gonna call them off. You're gonna tell them the tomb's already been ransacked, there's nothing here, everyone can go home--"

Click.

Freezing, Briar looked to the sound. And there, to her horror, she saw that the stone she'd dropped had rolled several feet away--and was now laying in a depression in the floor.

And then, even more horrifying? A grinding sound echoed from the direction of the entrance.

The door was closing.

[OOC: If anything I did was too much, just let me know and I'll edit! 8D]

Caught completely unawares, it took only quick work before Jocelyn found himself kneeling against the hard stone floor of the tomb, his blindfolded face smashed firmly up against a wall. The pain searing up his leg from where she'd kicked him barely registered in his mind, all but drowned out by a sense of panic when he felt the sharp point of a dagger pressing into the base of his neck. Instinctively he wanted to flail out and shake his assailant off of him, and it took every ounce of his self-control not to move an inch.

"W-wait," he blurted out in an agitated voice, slowly raising his open hands in the air to show his innocence. "Let's not be hasty now, we didn't follow anyone here. This is a misunderstanding, we, uh... just stumbled across this place and-"

It was then that he sensed something else, another magical presence that was markedly different from the one he'd felt before. Indeed, the source of that light-bringing enchantment was clearly the little stone, now rolling away from the two of them. No, this one had a more human quality to it, as though...

His eyes widened again. Nearly forgetting that she had a handful of his hair and a blade up to him, he slowly craned his neck to regard her. She was the second source! And the dormant threads of magical energies weaving within her silhouette was definitely not something he recognized.

"Wait, who are you?" he said, half in awe, his fear forgotten in a wave of intense curiosity. He tried to get a better look, but the point digging into his skin quickly reminded him of his predicament and he raised his hands in innocence again.

From down the corridor, the elder nomad's words drifted around the corner and toward them. "Ser?" asked the tentative voice. "All good?"

Jocelyn was ready to call out for them to head back outside, when he too heard the faint click. Apparently his companions heard the sound too because they started shouting in their native tongue. The volume of their voices grew dimmer and dimmer as they fled for the rapidly closing exit, until a loud SLAM! cut off all sounds from the outside. Not the wind, not his companions, nothing.

Still kneeling against the wall, a panicked feeling bubbled from the pit of Jocelyn's stomach again. It was just him and his assailant now, in a dark dusty chamber illuminated only by the faint light of a magical stone lying on the ground.

For several long seconds, Briar didn't move. She just stood there, pinning the man to the wall, hand in his hair, dagger at his neck, staring vacantly at the glowing stone. She didn't breathe, didn't blink, didn't make a sound. For one long moment, her blood ran cold because while she wasn't particularly claustrophobic and could do tight spaces, not having an escape route was another thing entirely, and yet...the situation was so ridiculous, she couldn't find it in her to be afraid.

Unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable.

She laughed, the sound an abrupt bark.

"Wooow. So. That just happened!" she said, and with another laugh she released his hair. His reaction had convinced her he was no threat to her--or, at the very least, nothing she couldn't handle, and there wasn't much she couldn't handle, being a great thief and all! Either way, harmless or lethal, they were stuck together now, and two people had a better chance getting out of this tomb than one.

Keeping her dagger trained on him, she kicked the back of his shoe.

"Alright, you. Get up, now! Up, up! Looks like there's been a hilariously ironic change of plans here so you and me? We're in this now. Together. And you're gonna do what I say, got it? No funny business! I say jump, you better already be in midair. As to who you're taking orders from here...?"

With a cheeky smile, she bowed like a gentleman in a noble's court, bent knee and everything. "The name's Briar. Just Briar, because long names are terrible and lack that certain punch! Or prick. I can make a lot of great thorny puns like that, see. Now, who are you? Because while some of that stuff I said no longer applies, there's still some stuff that does. Like what you know and what you're doing here because c'mon. That stuff about not following me is total camel shit."

Thankfully, while Jocelyn was conventionally blind, at least the Cloth tied around his head allowed him to perceive the world as grey and black lines, without need for any light. That still didn't change the fact that what he saw was an antechamber leading further into a tomb, whose entrance had just shut behind them. This wasn't the first time he'd found trouble on an expedition, but his experiences certainly didn't make this time any easier.

When the girl released his hair and kicked the back of his boot, he finally slowly turned around to face her, sliding down the wall into a seated position. She still had that dagger in her hand and seemed like she wouldn't hesitate to use it. Again, he raised his hands in the air.

"Right, right... you give the orders, I follow them. I can do that. I swear to you -Briar, was it?- that we weren't following you. You see, we had a map to lead us here but it was stolen several nights ago. We set out anyway, but I guess you got here first."

Realizing he was blabbering in a panicked voice, he quickly shook his head with a sheepish grin and added, "My name is Jocelyn. I'm attached to the Cultural Office in Essyrn, and they hired me to do some survey work for them and-"

That dormant swirl of magic still lingered in her blurry silhouette, the intricate patterns weaving and locking in such a unique way, so subtle and yet so boldly complex. It was almost as if her body was comprised of a million strands of silk impossibly winding into one another. Some of the patterns he recognized, like the ones that signified a power that activated through touch. The others though...

It was clear then that the expression of fear had largely disappeared, replaced by one of intrigue. He leaned forward a little, staring up at the girl through his blindfold.

"I'm sorry, this is a little off-topic, but I have to ask. Your magic. What does it do?"

"Oh, heh. That map. Well ain't that just a coinkidink." Briar grinned, about to whip the map out, do the whole dramatic reveal complete with, "Ah-HA!" when he got another question in first.

Her...magic?

"Eh?" A flicker of discomfort crossed her face and was smoothed out just as fast. Turning, she scooped up her lightstone. "You mean this?" she asked, waggling it in front of his face. "I figured that was pretty damned obvious, I mean, as you can see--waitaminute."

What.

For the first time, she got a good look at his face, and her eyes widened when she saw that his were shrouded in cloth. What the--? The guy was blind?!

"Whoa! How the fuck--? Oh my gods." Briar slapped a hand to her forehead. "Don't fucking tell me. I got spooked by a bloody blind guy? And practically beat him up? And got locked in here because of this? Are you serious right now?!"

The look on Jocelyn's face (or as much was visible behind his seeing veil) turned from one of fear and awe to one of indignation. Slowly he climbed back to his feet before she had a chance to poke him with her dagger again.

"Listen, girl, I bet you wouldn't last ten minutes with this blindness," he retorted hotly as he 'stared' down at her. "I can do anything you can. And I probably wouldn't have got us stuck in here either. Amateur..."

Without pausing to see whether she would brandish the dagger again, Jocelyn turned away and began peering around. The faint and blurry black-white lines of his sight didn't give him much to work with. The corridor leading back up to the surface was clearly blocked off, leaving nothing but the corridor leading deeper into the complex. And from here, he didn't sense anything else magic.

Except for the girl and her little glowy orb, of course.

"And no, I'm not talking about your damn rock lantern," he said. "I asked about you. Your magic. I can feel it."

"Excuse me?" Briar snapped, puffing herself up to her full height of an impressive...yeah, okay, she barely reached his shoulder when he stood.

"Listen here, boy, I so bet you would've! You would've messed up and gotten locked in here all alone and not be able to do a thing about it because...because you're blind! And got taken down by the girl you're being all patronizing at! So ha! Amateur yourself, I've been doing this for ages. I know exactly what I'm doing here."

With a toss of her short hair, she glanced around the area. Right. She knew exactly what she was doing. In theory. Couldn't say she'd ever been locked in a desert tomb before, but...details! And she wasn't about to let him know that.

"Anyway, my magic is none of your business, you nosy thing. Girl's gotta keep a little intrigue about herself, you know. Now stop feeling me up with your senses or whatever and focus!" she said, snapping her fingers in front of his face. "Focus right here, because we've got some work to do here, you and me. Mostly me, but I suppose I can drag you along, so long as you don't do anything stupid like set off any traps!"

When she snapped her fingers in front of his face, Jocelyn turned his head her direction. Who knew what he was looking at though? That blindfold was wrapped tightly around his head, obscuring his blind eyes. For all she knew, he could've been peering straight through her.

And, in fact, he was. Jocelyn was caught off guard for just a second when the sense of her unique magic piqued his curiosity intensely. But he quickly shook away the thought with a slight frown and gestured for her to look over her shoulder. Behind her was a long dark tunnel leading deeper into the temple complex.

Well, dark for her, perhaps.  What he saw was a world of blurry grey and black lines against an off-white canvas, as though everything was just one large pencil sketch. He didn't need light; the magical scarf showed him enough.

"This corridor stretches forty, maybe fifty feet down and then looks like it turns left. Nothing looks out of the ordinary. The walls all seem bare and flat. You never know though, so watch your step. And try not to mess up again."

With a slow exhale he stepped right around her and began tiptoeing down the stone corridor. This tomb could've been ten thousand years old, for all he knew. It was remarkably well preserved, but time hadn't prevented a fine layer of sand from accumulating along the stone floor. His footsteps crunched softly in them as he inched forward, 'peering' around for signs of trouble.

Fifteen feet down, he stopped and glanced over his shoulder. "You coming? I mean, I guess you could stay there too. Wouldn't make a difference to me."

"Eh?" How the blazes did he know that? He couldn't possibly! He had to be pulling that information out of his ass, because he was obviously blind, and even if he wasn't, he was wearing a blindfold. And even if he wasn't blindfolded, the tunnel was far too dark to see shit! There was just no way.

Maybe that information was on the map?

Briar started to pull the map out from where it was tucked into her belt, but that was when Jocelyn called out to her, and she realized he had already headed down the tunnel.

With an annoyed grumble, she tucked the map back away and jogged after him, her tiny lightstone creating a bubble of light around her.

"Idiot man! You can't just go running off like that!" she said, grabbing him by the arm. "Now listen here, 'cause I guess I gotta spell this out in plain terms since you weren't listening before, but...I lead, alright? Because excuse me if I don't want some blind guy playing leader. Goddamn."

With a roll of her eyes, she let go and pushed past him. Fifty feet down and then it turned left, huh? Briar took a deep breath and started down the tunnel slowly, holding the stone out before her to light the way. It wasn't long before she saw that the tunnel did, indeed, turn to the left. Weird. As she walked, she pulled the map free and gave it a shake to unfurl it then came to a stop, holding the light over it.

"How did you even know all that?" she said, turning the map this way and that. "The map doesn't say anything about the interior layout of this place."

Without looking back at her, Jocelyn simply tapped a finger to his temple, where the blindfold was neatly wrapped around his eyes. "I have my ways," he replied as he slowly crept forward. When he reached the bend, he cautiously peeked his head around the corner before breathing a sigh of relief. It was just another corridor, going down a few paces and then cutting right again. He had the odd feeling that the temple (or at least this part of it) was just one giant winding corridor.

"C'mon," he waved for Briar to follow before slipping around the corner past her.

Right, then left, then right again. The walls remained as bare and unassuming as ever, with no minute cracks or lines that suggested any trap doors or crazy falling axes, or anything of that sort. After the fourth turn, it started becoming tedious.

"So how did you find this place anyway, Briar? We must be the first two people to have set foot in here in a thousand years. I'll bet the artifacts in here haven't been touched in even longer. In fact, I-"

And as he spoke, it just so happened that he let his guard down just a bit. For as soon as he rounded the next corner, the corridor abruptly ended in an open door that plunged straight down a long flight of stairs. Before them stretched a massive chamber, perhaps a hundred feet stretching in every direction, left and right, up and down. It could've held an army of people.

His jaw dropped.

When Jocelyn asked how she found this place, Briar only grinned wryly. "Oh, y'know. I have my ways," she mimicked him with wink--a wink she realized after the fact that he couldn't see. Damn. It was easy to forget a guy was blind when he wasn't stumbling all over the place like a blind man.

"Ways that include stuff like being an awesome thief and whatnot! Which, by the way, remember that map you said you had? The one that was stolen last night? That map?" She shook her map so the parchment rustled. "Yeah, that map. This is the one. I have it. So ha...aah...?"

Briar was shaken right out of her gloating when her stone cast light on the staircase before them. A staircase that seemed to descend down into pitch black. There were no other pathways, though, so that had to be the one they needed to take; she just didn't like not knowing where it went, because for all she knew, it could lead into a pit of spiders.

Noticing Jocelyn had fallen silent, she pursed her lips in thought. Her lightstone wasn't powerful enough to illuminate things that far ahead of her, and she wasn't about to risk losing it by throwing it down the stairs. Only way to find out what lie ahead would be to keep walking.

With a small hmph, Briar grabbed Jocelyn's arm and gave him a push toward the stairs. "Alright, mister smarty-britches. You first."

"Whoa -- careful!" he hissed irritably at her when the girl grabbed him by the arm. The stairwell had at least half a hundred steps, with no guardrails and a certain plunge straight down on either side. And gods knew if it was booby trapped.

Slowly and cautiously he descended the steps, one after the other, as his blind eyes peered around the cavernous chamber with awe. Of course he could see all of it through his magical veil, but the farther aspects of it just blurred together in a coagulation of grey and black lines. He couldn't tell much about it, aside from a small altar placed directly in the middle of the room, upon a raised platform. Thick grooves were dug into the stone floor and led off into holes in the wall. Perhaps at one point they held water.

There were also a dozen doors, all leading from this main chamber into who knew where. Perhaps one of the rooms might even hold the magical artifacts he sought. The very thought of it brought his heart to a light flutter. It was all very exciting stuff.

And then, he realized what she'd said. With widened eyes, Jocelyn spun around haphazardly on the steps to face her.

"Wait, YOU stole our map? And you thought you'd just waltz in here without knowing a single thing about this place or the people who built it? For fuck's sakes! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!"

"Wah!" Briar yelped when Jocelyn spun around to face him, so suddenly she nearly fell backwards onto the stairs. Which could have been disatrous; she could have easily knocked him over in the fall, and gods, but he was a blind man! He shouldn't be moving like that on some haphazard steps!

...Of course, she had been the one to make him take the lead here. You know. Human shield and all. Sounded like a great idea at the time.

"Are you nuts?! Don't do that!" she yelled back, heart hammering in her chest. Clearing her throat and collecting herself, she pressed a gloved hand to the wall to get her bearings. "Anyway, what was I thinking? What do you think I was thinking? I was thinking, wow! That sure sounds like a nice grave to rob! You said it, artifacts! Artifacts that haven't been touched in a thousand years! Those gotta be worth a pretty coin or two, yeah?"

She shrugged and tossed her hair. "I was thinking it sure sounds easier than some jobs I've taken! Dead men tell no tales, right?"

Jocelyn nearly choked upon hearing that.

"You were just going to sell them? These things are priceless! They're all that's left of a civilization that disappeared hundreds of years ago, and how they used magic lets us see just how they lived their lives. These things belong in a museum!"

In utter disbelief, he had to turn away from her and continue down the steps, all the while shaking his head. It was one thing to have his map stolen by a rival explorer or archaeologist. It was an entirely different thing to have lost his map to a grave robber. Just the thought of it sickened him.

His pace hurried slightly, and now he was taking these steps down two at a time, with much more grace and agility than one could've expected from a blind man. When he reached the bottom, he stopped and stared up at the small raised dais, upon which sat that untouched altar. In awe, he slowly circled it, focusing intently on trying to espy any sort of magical residue left over. So far, he felt nothing.

"Look at this," he said, his voice echoing throughout the giant room. "If I had to guess, I'd wager this was where they performed their most sacred rituals. Notice how it centers the room, and how if you're down here you can only approach it from certain spots. I bet a king stood here once upon a time."

"Pffffft. Why do you care how a bunch of old dead people farted and shit a hundred years ago?" Briar asked with a roll of her eyes. "Oooh, wow! Hundreds of years ago they lived in these big ol' opulent tombs! With booby traps and stuff! So obviously they were paranoid. Ooooh! Tch, yeah. That sure helps me a lot, knowing that. Oh! Actually maybe it really does! Because now I know they were paranoid, so I should be careful when I rob their shit!"

Following him down to the chamber before, she chattered on. "Buuuut, you know, if you feel so passionately about these things being in a museum and all, Blindie, I'll tell ya what. I'll sell any artifacts we find to you! Then you can put them in whatever fancy museum you want. Ooh!"

Briar noticed the altar when her light shone upon it, and as Jocelyn approached it in awe, she did, too. As he spoke, analyzing the altar in his strange way, Briar walked a circuit around it, analyzing it in hers. She was hardly paying attention to a word he said, catch a sentence here and there, but she abruptly gasped and rushed to his side.

"Yeah, I'd say a king was here, all right! Look at the size of these fuckin' gemstones!"

She pointed emphatically to the gems--peridot and garnet, even some topaz!--that were embedded around the edge of the altar. Drawing her dagger from her belt, Briar grinned and wedged the tip of her dagger between the stone and some topaz, hit the handle with the palm of her hand, and popped the gem clean off of the altar. "Ain't doing him no good now."

Jocelyn began to inch closer to the platform, until he was close enough to reach out to touch the upraised altar. With a grunt, he hefted himself up onto the dais and knelt beside the stone altar. It was big enough for a person to (un)comfortably lie on its stone surface. It was hard to tell whether the ancient people performed rituals of magic and life here, or if they sacrificed the weak here. That was always the problem with these ancient tombs; so much of it was guesswork.

He ran a hand gently over the stone surface of it, the pads of his fingers detecting the soft subtle patterns carved into the rock. A slow exhale came out of his mouth as he traced the patterns, in his mind picturing what they looked like. That was the problem with his veil, it had trouble discerning minute patterns such as these.

"It could be a sacrificial altar, but I'm not sure. Why would they etch these pictograms into the stone, if they'd just get filled in by blood. Anyway, I-"

His voice died on his lips as, suddenly, he sensed a faint emanation of magic, its threads ancient and irreparably tangled in an unrecognizable form. Whirling in his spot, he just caught a glimpse of Briar prying loose a large gem from its spot in the altar.

"WAIT, NO!" he cried, but it was too late. The magical energies grew stronger and stronger.

And, to her, the darkness was suddenly vanquished by a blinding light emanating from the hole she'd just created in the stone slab.

Briar realized her mistake too late.

Blinding light flashed, replacing the darkness, and Briar let out a shriek of surprise. Something struck her hard in the chest and knocked her backwards, clear off her feet, and she landed on her bottom with a grunt, the breath driven from her lungs as an icy feeling settled within her. For a moment she stayed where she was, disoriented, her vision white with huge sunspots blanking out her sight. It was during that moment that she felt a swell of panic, thinking that she had been blinded--until she realized she could see around the edges of the flashing spots in her vision.

Cursing loudly, she rubbed at her eyes. "Wow. Way to go, blindie," she growled, and sorely rolled onto her hands and knees. "Coulda given me that warning like a lot sooner. Like before I went and pried the goddamn gem off. Flashing explodey lights woulda been a fantastic thing to know about in advance! Just sayin'! Fuckin' useless know-it-all, argh! I need you to pay attention to what I'm doing next time! That's more important than your dumb dead people pictures that you can't even see."

On her knees, she felt around on the ground and hissed when she found her knife--because the sharp tip jabbed her finger through the glove. Sheathing the knife at her belt, she continued her blind search. The gem had to be close by!

"The hell was that, anyway?" she asked as she crawled about. Her chest still felt strange, like a chill had seeped into her. But it had to be her imagination. Some leftover superstitious inclinations, probably. She grabbed onto his boot and scowled. "Ugh. Don't just stand there looking dumb! Help me find that gem!"

While the flash of light didn't affect Jocelyn the way it affected Briar, he was still taken aback by the eruption of magical energies that emanated from hole in the altar. What looked like a blinding beam of light to her, appeared as a jumble of arcane threads shooting off into the distance. It hit a wall and began expanding like a spiderweb, its threads overlapping over one another and shooting around the enormous cavern like climbing ivy. Eventually, the whole room seemed to be doused in a magical energy.

"How is this MY fault?" he said, though his voice was less scathing than it was in awe, as his jaw dropped at the magical aura pervading the room. Slowly, he looked around at the intricate patterns as they seemed to form an invisible tapestry over every inch of every wall. And especially up the stairs to the entrance in which they'd walked, the magic was especially strong.

And then, as he suddenly felt a chill wash over him, he realized what magic they'd unwittingly unleashed.

They were memories. Remnants of the long-extinct civilization that built this temple. And now, ghostly figures began to form in the doorway high above them. A procession began marching down the steps, replaying their ritual as if they were regular normal people.

Without hesitating, Jocelyn quickly jumped down from the platform and grabbed Briar's wrist. "Forget the gem," he hissed, frantically tugging. "Let's hide!"

"It just IS!" Briar said as she crawled about, trying to find the jewel. It had to be here somewhere! It couldn't have rolled that far, for goddess's sake!

And she was so busy scrambling around on her hands and knees, nose toward the ground, that she didn't notice what was happening around her.

Didn't realize it until Jocelyn grabbed her wrist, the contact making her hair stand on end--not because her ability worked that way, but because she was afraid it might, and he was touching the skin that her glove didn't cover. A jolt of panic went through her; she wasn't used to being touched, and the combination of not being used to it, and being afraid of what might happen, made her freak.

"LET GO!" She swung around without thinking, about ready to belt him one in the face with her other hand--and then froze, her fist only a few inches from his nose.

Because that was when she saw the ghostly, ethereal procession.

Her face paled and she tugged her wrist free, then grabbed his wrist with her gloved hand. "Oh shit, what are--never mind! I don't want a history lesson! Where do we go?!"

There were several huge pillars around the room, though, to support the massive ceiling, so she pulled at Jocelyn's arm abruptly as she bolted toward one of them, heading away from the procession. She pulled him behind it with her, breathing heavily. "What the shit's happening? Talk!"

Jocelyn didn't hesitate for one moment when Briar tugged him behind a pillar. His own heart was pounding in his chest, and his breath came out in rapid bursts. The ancient magical energies pervaded the entire room around him and he sensed every tiny thread of it. It was like being trapped in a giant cube of pure light.

Of course, she must've seen things a bit differently than he, for the room was still dark save for the eerie glow of the ghostly procession as they marched their way down the stairs, a high priest followed by a dozen acolytes.

"You must've stirred them awake when you dislodged that gem," he hissed through clenched teeth, shaking his head. The truth was, he didn't know what she'd done either. But he could sense the magic in the air, and sense that those souls were somehow reliving their lives. On impulse, he stuck his head out from behind the pillar to watch in awe.

Briar rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. "Yeah, thanks, smartie-britches, I got that much. And?"

Curious, she poked her head out to see what he was seeing, heart in her throat. The one who must be a priest had reached the altar, and the acolyte began to take up their positions around him. For a moment, Briar thought that was the last of them, but then down the stairs came two men who must have been soldiers--and between them they were hauling what appeared to be a young man, who was struggling fiercely in their grip, his mouth forming the shape of words she couldn't hear.

The soldiers hauled him onto the altar and held him down. And then Briar watched, transfixed, as the priest drew a knife, just as ethereal as the rest of the procession.

"Wow..." Briar breathed. "These people didn't fuck around. Human sacrifice? Really? That's just twisted."

"They did a lot of that back in the day," Jocelyn whispered to her before shushing her with a wave of his hand. He was still mesmerized by the scene unfolding before them. The ghostly procession played out their eerie scene as though nothing was amiss.

The young man, still struggling in the grips of the two soldiers, mouthed something with a twisted grin on his face, though there was nothing audible to be heard. Whatever was said though, clearly irked the high priest for he immediately withdrew a dagger and motioned for the man to be splayed out on the stone table. The man struggled all the while, but he was no match for the strength of his captors, and soon his bare chest was exposed for all to see. Mouthing several more inaudible words, the high priest raised his dagger and plunged it directly into the man's chest.

Jocelyn felt a sickening feeling roll around in his stomach and had to look away briefly, lest he lose his lunch. Meanwhile, the ghostly replay of the sacrifice continued: the priest sawed away at the man's twitching body and then withdrew the human heart from that stilled chest. He held it high for all his ghostly compatriots to see.

With a shiver, Jocelyn turned away fully now, and froze.

A line of ghostly soldiers stood right behind them, staring straight ahead. They weren't more than ten feet away from the two.

"Oh...gods," Briar murmured, paling at the grisly murder. She may have killed a man or two in her time, for various reasons, but like that? Fuck that! That was slow, painful, and needlessly gory! And she had never killed someone who hadn't given her a fight. She swallowed hard, feeling a little ill--hypocritical, perhaps, but whatever!

She shuddered, and when she spoke, she kept her voice low. "Ugh. Well, I dunno about you, blindie, but I've had enough of this shit. Let's go--eh?"

She noticed he was staring at something, and she turned to look, too, and froze. Soldiers?! What? Where had they come from?

She stiffened for a moment in surprise, the hair rising on her arms and the back of her neck, and then let out a slow breath and adjusted her gloves. Jeez, this place was giving her the willies! Placing a hand on Jocelyn's shoulder and inching closer to him, she tried to pump up her own bravado even as her heart raced from that little surprise.

"Heh. Lookit them all. Being all dead and dumb," she said, and shrugged. "You scared, blindie? Don't be. They're just ghosts, right? They're not even looking at us. Probably can't even see us. They're just...spirits replaying old scenes, right? It's not like they can do anything to us. Who's ever heard of a ghost actually hurting someone, I mean, come on. Let's just get outta this damned place."

She started to take a step, but then paused. Something caught her eye, something glinting in the ghostly light.

Her gem! It had rolled several feet away from the altar, closer to them. Briar eyed Jocelyn, and then eyed the gem, and shook her head. "Gimme one sec," she said, and bolted out toward it.

Jocelyn was completely frozen in place as he stared at the ghostly soldiers, silent and unmoving. Well, he didn't see them in the conventional sense, but sensed the tendrils of magic that made up their frames. Regardless, his heart was still pounding in his chest as he waited for the inevitable slaughter.

After a moment, though, his logical reasoning overcame the fear-induced irrationality of his thoughts and he realized - these were just memories. The soldiers weren't really there, and the two of them weren't really in a sacrificial chamber watching a live killing. He released soft exhale of relief, momentarily seized again when Briar put her hand on his shoulder and spoke in a clearly-forced show of bravery and nonchalance.

"No," he said softly as he turned to regard her, "there's no harm here for us. But still, at least now we know - or sort of know - what these people did here all those years ago. That's some valuable knowledge! To me, at least... I don't think you're much interested in any of that."

And of course, as she leaped out from behind the pillar and dashed toward the raised dais, where the ghostly sacrifice was in full swing, he immediately caught sight of her prize. THAT was why she was here, after all. Money.

Before she reached it though, he called out behind her quickly, "Wait! Don't pick it up yet! You already awakened something once by messing around with the objects in here. Let's just... wait for a moment, eh?"

Briar laughed and rolled her eyes, tossing Jocelyn a dry look from over her shoulder. "Yeah, I awakened a bunch of old, dead guys doing their old, dead, creepy stuff. C'mon, man. Where's your balls? Lookit 'em! What are they gonna do, be spooky at us? Oooo! So scary!"

Turning to the ghosts, she waved her arms. "Hi, dead guys! You don't even see me, do ya? That's 'cause you're not real! You're dead! Stupid dead murderous blokes. See? Gods, Blindie, you're such a pansy, I swear."

With a shake of her head, she plucked the gem from the ground, turned around, and started to head back over to Jocelyn.

She was completely unaware that the moment she'd scooped it up, all those ghostly faces had swung around to face her--and now Jocelyn.

Jocelyn scowled beneath his veil at that accusation, and he stood up fully before stepping out from behind the pillar.

"Are you calling me a coward? Because there's a difference between that, and thinking things through. Which clearly you don't. What else can you expect from a thief? No direction, no plan, no common sense. I'm surprised one of these traps hasn't crushed you by now, you must be the luckiest idiot in the realm."

With a gesture of his hand, he muttered, "Take the stupid gem, maybe you'll try to eat it and choke on it..."

Of course, the moment she touched it, the magic that had pervaded the room suddenly drifted toward the gem and engulfed it in a wave of arcane energy. He felt the magic engulf her as well, and then slowly him. And then every ghostly face turned their way. The High Priest, heart still clutched in his upraised hand, stared down at Briar.

"OH SHIT," was all Jocelyn could say before he darted forward and grabbed Briar roughly by the wrist. "I TOLD YOU NOT TO TOUCH IT!" he shouted desperately as he tugged at her, practically dragging her along as he bolted for the nearest dark exit. Behind them, the ghosts all began to move toward them.

"And I thought I told you not to touch me!" Briar growled, trying to pull back against him as she was dragged along. "Gods! What the hell's wrong with--oh."

It was at that moment that she glanced over her shoulder and saw exactly what had gotten Jocelyn all in a knot, and what she saw made her own heart stop. Those ghosts were no longer trapped in their ritual; they were coming for them now, and to her horror, she saw the priest toss aside the very ghost-heart he'd pulled from the sacrifice's chest.

"Oh. Never mind. I'll give you this one, blindie! Run!"

She ran with him then, through the exit, and as she did she tucked the gem away into a pouch at her belt. After all the hassle to get into this damned tomb, and then get trapped and chased by ghosts, there was no way she was getting out empty handed! As they ran, she let out a harsh laugh.

"Hey, man, maybe you oughta go back there and chat with them, eh?" she said. "Might be able to learn all sorts of things about dead guys! That's what you came here for, right?"

"Yeah, I came here to explore carefully, not to get murdered by a bunch of ghosts!" he panted as they ran through the path that led deeper into the temple complex. For her it must've been pitch black, but he could see the path just fine. Problem was, every turn looked the same as the last. Nothing but sand, dirt, rocks -- and old bones.

And upon glancing over his shoulder, his rapidly beating heart sank. The ghosts were nowhere in sight, but he could sense them. And they were on the move, following the two humans down their corridors of old.

He also felt an energy emanating from somewhere else.

"BY the Gods, get rid of that damn gem!" he cried even as they stumbled their way away. "It's what woke them up! It's probably why they're following us! GET RID OF IT!"

"Fuck that, man!" Briar said, and put her free hand over the pouch as though afraid Jocelyn would try to snatch it away.

"This thing's leaving with me! I didn't go through all this trouble and almost get murdered by ghosts to leave empty handed, and those dead bastards can just deal with it! I mean come on, seriously? It's one fucking gem! That altar was filled with gems! And they're dead! What the hell they even need gems for?! I'm alive, I need it!"

Well, her ego needed it, at least.

"They'll have to pry it from my cold, dead fingers. Which, by the way, ain't gonna happen because ahaha, ghosts can't kill people!" Which, of course, was exactly why she was running blindly with him, and letting him lead.

And it was in that moment that the ground began to shake, pebbles raining down on them from the ceiling. Briar raised her free hand to shield her eyes. "The fuck's that?"

Jocelyn slowed down a step as the corridor began to rumble, but only because he stumbled over his own feet. A shower of dust and rock descended upon him, leaving him in a coughing fit as he slowed to a halt.

"Like hell I know!" he shouted back at her, grabbing her wrist and giving it a shake. "I'm telling you, get rid of the gem before you get us both killed!"

The rumble tremored through the ground again and a loud creaking came from behind them. As Jocelyn turned, he sensed the same ghostly magical aura as before, but this time... this time it was condensed into something larger, more solid.

And just as that realization dawned on him, a giant stone golem stepped around the corner of the hallway behind them, each ponderous footstep shaking the ground. The thing turned to regard them with its eerily glowing blue eyes.

And then it began approaching.

"Nooooope, not staying for this one!" he exclaimed before dashing off, dragging the girl in tow.

At this point, it wasn't so much about keeping the gem as it was about being just plain stubborn. Briar wasn't about to let Jocelyn boss her around! And it wasn't even so much about not wanting to be told what to do as it was about not wanting to admit he was right.

Shaking her head free of the dirt and debris that had fallen on her, she glared at him. "You may as well save your breath and shut up about that 'cause I'm not gonna--"

The ground rumbled ominously, and the anger drained from Briar's face, replaced with wide-eyed, genuine terror and wonder as a motherfucking stone giant monster came ambling out. And then started right toward them.

"Well, fuck me sideways," she muttered, staring, and it was lucky Jocelyn dragged her along, because for a costly second there she froze up. She ran with him, conscious of the gem-filled pouch bouncing against her hip, but grit her teeth. Nope. Not getting rid of it. Jocelyn could suck it!

The golem was gaining on them, though, and gaining fast. Briar chanced a look over her shoulder and saw its glowing eyes growing bigger as it fast approached, and her heart leaped. It wouldn't be long before it overtook them and, more than likely, crushed them.

Like hell it would!

Which was why Briar suddenly rammed her shoulder into Jocelyn to knock him into the wall, then kicked his legs out from under him while he was off balance. "Sorry, Blindie! Nothing personal!" she said, and raced past him.

Jocelyn panted heavily as they ran, until suddenly the wind was driven right out of his lungs as Briar's ambush knocked him to the ground. And then she was gone down the hall, too far for him to catch up.

The golem was steps away from him.

With a frantic shout of "SHIT!" he scrambled backwards along the sand-covered floor as fast as he could away from the lumbering stone monster, feeling the vibration of each ponderous footstep as they sent showers of dust down from the roof. Somewhere in his mad scramble he managed to make it back to his knees, just in time for his eyes to spot a small hole in the base of the wall.

Without thinking he dove headfirst into the hole -- and found himself sliding down a stone chute. His cry of alarm echoed up as it faded into the distance.

The stone monster stopped for a moment, staring its 'head' perplexedly down at where the blind man just disappeared. Then it continued on its way, after Briar.

Briar felt a momentary pang of guilt as she left the man in the dust, but it faded about as fast as it came. He was getting in her way, after all, and if it was a choice between her and him, she came first! Besides, maybe he wouldn't get crushed to a pulp, and then they'd both escape! Win-win! Either way, his sacrifice bought her some time.

...Except, as it turned out, it didn't buy much time.

She heard Jocelyn cry out in alarm, the sound fading off oddly, and then after a perplexed pause, the monster was after her again.

Sweat beading on her face, Briar poured on the speed to try to keep the distance she'd gained, but the creature had a longer stride, and it wasn't long before it advanced on her--

And it wasn't long before she saw that her route was a dead end.

She skidded to a stop and spun on her heel, ready to bolt forward and hope for an alternate path, but it was too late; the creature already blocked her path, and Briar's breath caught in her throat as she stared up at it, shadowy and menacing in the light of her stone and its own glowing eyes. It lifted its fist with a bone-shaking roar, and with a yelp, Briar threw herself to the ground to avoid getting pummeled by a rocky fist. She turned her fall into a practiced tumble and felt wind rush past her as its fist missed her by inches, and when she popped back up, it was with her back against the wall. Well, shit. This plan had gone terribly wrong. Where was her human sacrifice when she needed him?!

"Hey, buddy," she said with a nervous grin as the creature raised its huge fist again. She pressed back against the wall and stared down between its legs, considering her options. Do the crazy thing and try to bolt between them? Stay here and get smashed? Fantastic options, both of them! She was bracing herself to run when the monster took a lumbering step forward, and the block it stepped onto sank into the ground.

Clearly, it could only be activated by something as heavy as it.

The wall opened up behind Briar and, with a yell, she fell backwards and went tumbling head over heels until she landed upside down on her back and went sliding down a chute that made a sharp turn at the end.

Which sent her crashing straight into a familiar, squishy body at the end.

"Ow!" she yelped, winding up half on top of him. She pushed herself up and stared down at him, then grinned broadly and ruffled his hair. "Aww, hey look! Blindie, you're alive! Fabulous! See, I knew it'd all work out. Everything's going perfectly according to plan."

The chute deposited Jocelyn on a pile of packed sand, the force of which easily knocked the wind out of his lungs. He lay there for a long while staring up into the ceiling, stunned and fighting to catch his breath and collect his wits. The entire world was spinning around him.

Finally, he found the strength to roll over onto his belly and try to climb back to his feet. He had managed to get onto one knee when the force of a screaming girl bowled him over again.

It took a moment for him to realize just what had knocked him over, and that smug nonchalant voice brought an angry scowl to his face. "You... YOU LEFT ME THERE TO DIE!" As if he expected her to do anything else.

With a forceful shove and an irate, "Get the hell off of me!" he pushed her off his chest and proceeded to roll over again.

This time, he came face to face with a skull half buried in the sand. The outline of its cracked edges shone clearly in his magical veil, unhindered by the pitch black room that would've obscured it for anyone else. With a yelp he scurried backwards right into Briar.

Shoved aside, Briar rolled off of Jocelyn and scowled right back at him.

"Wow, jeez, what are you so upset about?" she said, sitting back on her heels. "It's not like--erk!"

She jumped at his yelp and latched onto him reflexively when he bumped her, heart leaping into her throat, but could see nothing but vague shapes and shadows. Certainly nothing so minute as a half-buried skull! She squeezed his arm tightly where she clutched him and fumbled with her free hand for her light stone. "Whatcha see, Blindie? Uh. Sense? Whatever it is you do! Ah, damn it all, illus!"

The light stone flickered to life in her palm, and Briar thrust it out into the dark void around them. A circle of light surrounded them--just enough to make out the bones, scattered, broken, and half-buried in the sand.

Lots of dead stuff, but no living.

It was the living she cared about.

Unless they were ghosts.

With a light laugh, Briar relaxed and let go of Jocelyn.

"Aww, Blindie, that what got you all scared? It's just a dead person!"

"Just a dead person? Yeah, that could be us!" he exclaimed frantically as he tried to calm himself. He could still feel his heart pounding in his chest. He'd seen corpses and skeletons before, but this one had come out of nowhere.

As his heart rate decreased though, his mind had enough sense to look around. Though Briar's little light orb illuminated much of the chamber, its light didn't reach the far walls. He, however, could see all of it clearly. And from where he sat with his back pressed up against her, all he saw were walls. No openings.

"We... might be stuck here."

"Stuck? Whatcha mean stuck?" Briar said, head swiveling sharply in Jocelyn's direction. He couldn't be saying what she thought he was saying...

He couldn't possibly be implying they were trapped, could he? Briar's stomach gave a queasy little twist. Nope! Nope, nope, nope! This was so not on.

With a roll of her eyes and a scoff, she climbed to her feet and dusted herself off. "Don't be so dramatic. We're fiiine, gods! Just listen to you, freaking out over skeletons, going on about being left behind, whining about ghosts, wah, wah, wah. You're such a downer. No one's going to die here. At least, I'm not. If you wanna curl up and cry, though, be my guest, but I won't wait around."

And with her shoulders rolled back with all the bravado she could muster, Briar pressed a gloved hand to the wall and started to walk a circuit of the room, carrying her lightstone with her. And the results, as Jocelyn had already confirmed, were distressing. Solid walls. Solid walls everywhere! She felt along them, feeling for depressions, hidden panels, anything! Even grooves for climbing. Nothing.

"Oh shit...shiiiiiiit...really? Nothing? Oh come on, stupid old dead guys! Throw me a fucking bone here--ow!"

She found herself face down in the sand then, having tripped over something...that turned out to be a femur. Briar kicked at it, and didn't notice the odd way it stuck, like it was attached to something deep in the sand. "Oh. Ha ha. Super."

Jocelyn quietly followed Briar as she made her rounds, inspecting every nook and cranny of their little prison. A hollow feeling occupied his gut most of the way, and though he tried to occupy himself with the magical patterns emanating from her little lightstone (which still fascinated him), for once he was less curious and more panicking.

When Briar finally tripped over that bone protruding from the sand, he could not help but let out a little wince before sitting down in the sand beside her. Turning his head upwards, he observed the little hole through which he'd fallen. Was it the same hole she had fallen through? Or did she enter through some secret passage? Did a way out even exist?

He groaned and kicked up some of the sand in irritation. That protruding femur brought a repressed irritation bubbling from inside his chest. With a scowl, he said, "Great... now what do we do? Maybe we should ask this skeleton for a way out. OH WAIT. HE GOT STUCK HERE TOO."

"Oh, quit your bitching!" Briar shot back, kicking sand at him.

"And stop acting like this is somehow my fault! Like, maybe you should've asked one of your murderous ghost buddies where the exit is! Or that rock monster thing! I gave you the chance! You should've made friends! Golden opportunity I gave you back there, wasted!" With a dramatic sigh, Briar flopped over onto her back, then sat up and scowled again at the femur.

Stupid thing, didn't even give her the satisfaction of knocking over when she kicked it! The nerve of it all.

Except it lacked nerves. Heh.

"Anyway, you're such a smartie pants, use your goddamn brain or something. I swear it's like I have to do everything around here! Lead the way, make all the decisions, save your goddamned life!" She gave the femur another frustrated kick, but still it didn't budge. Briar's brow furrowed, irritation building, and she kicked it again. Then again. "What the fuck?"

Jocelyn scowled through his magical veil and turned away, seething. In the back of his mind, he decided that if an exit presented itself to him, he would leave her here. See how she dealt with it, stuck in this underground tomb for the rest of her short life.

When she kicked the bone again and again, to no avail, he finally turned back to face her. "It's stuck. Why don't you dig it out? Then maybe you can put all that energy to use, and I won't have to hear you talking again."

He stopped.

What was it stuck on?

"Fine! I think I will!" Briar snapped back, glaring at Jocelyn. "See, there it is again! It's Briar doing everything yet again. At least I'll be doing something! Unlike you, who is doing nothing but kvetching!"

Grumbling, mood frayed from all this bad luck, Briar dug her gloved hands into the sand and started to dig. As much as she was railing on Jocelyn, he was just an easy target--a scapegoat for her frustration, because she didn't like feeling trapped or helpless. She had no one to blame but herself--but she wasn't about to blame herself.

So, Jocelyn took the heat instead!

"Useless, useless, useless man," she mumbled. "So stupid--wait."

...Why the hell was she digging, when there was a very obvious shortcut she could take?

Pausing, and feeling kind of stupid, Briar sat back on her knees and peeled off one of her gloves. She hated doing this; the bones were old, so no doubt this was going to be an unpleasant experience. But if this thing was weirdly stuck like this, maybe it was important? She pocketed the glove and then, with a deep breath to prepare herself, placed her bare hand on the bone--

And then her body seized, her breath catching in her throat as images flooded her mind, rapid-fire, and emotions that weren't her own filled her, snapshots of many lives, and deaths. It was unexpectedly intense, and too much for her to handle all at once, shocking her like a jolt of electricity--only all emotional, all memory.

Letting out a sigh, her eyes rolled back and she slumped over.

Jocelyn watched her get to work with a scowl, before turning away. It was one thing to be trapped in an ancient death pit. It was an entirely different thing to be trapped with the most annoying person in existence.

A hundred thoughts raced through his mind, all of them nasty retorts and insults to her. It took a lot for him to resort to that kind of thing, but she'd pissed him off so badly that now would've been the perfect time to lay it on.

He turned back to face her, a snarky remark at the ready -- and then his jaw dropped.

The swirls of magic coming from her were absolutely beautiful as she grabbed the bone. It was like a flash of intricately patterned light to him. He could've seen it, even without the magical scarf around his face. There were familiar patterns in the arcana, but also something unique. He couldn't tell right off the bat what her magic did, and that absolutely excited him.

Unfortunately, it faded just as quickly as it'd illuminated his blind vision. When she slumped to the sand, Jocelyn let out a soft "Gods!" before stumbling forward, cradling her prone form in his lap.

A few seconds later, Briar's eyes fluttered open, and the first thing she saw when she looked up was Jocelyn. It took a few seconds of staring before his image cleared through the haze of disorientation, but finally her eyes narrowed with recognition.

"Uh...?"

Her strength came back a few seconds later, and her senses, and with a sudden jolt and vivid blush, she shoved at him and scrambled away. "What the fuck are you doing?! Didn't I say don't touch me? Cripes, you don't listen for shit, do you? And while I'm passed out! Like that's not creepy or anything!"

For a moment, he almost had a look of concern on his face. But then she scrambled away in disgust, leaving him dumbfounded. Was she serious.

"You... you..."

Then he bristled.

"You fainted! What am I supposed to do, just leave you be? What if something had happened?"

He groaned and pressed a hand to his head. She'd probably have some sort of excuse or retort anyway, so why did he bother? "Y'know what? My mistake. Next time you faint, I'll let you sleep with these skeletons, princess."

...Wait.

What?

Briar actually froze and blinked several times, slowly registering his words through the disoriented haze that came from, well...a mental assault and subsequent fainting. Her natural inclination was suspicion, and assuming the worst of people, but what he shouted back at her made her do a double-take.

"Wait just a minute," she said, rubbing the side of her head in an effort to clear it. "You're not...you're not saying you were worried about me, are you, blindie?"

"Yeah, I was. But not anymore I'm not!" he retorted, before climbing to his feet and stomping away. Maybe occupying himself with trying to find an escape would help him calm down. He wanted to kick a skull that lay nearby, but decided against it. He didn't need anymore bad luck.

"Yeah, but you were," Briar said, sitting back on her hands and beaming a smug grin at him as he stomped away. "And I don't blame you! Considering how amazing I am, and the fact that I figured out how to get us out of this room."

Jocelyn had just placed his hands on the wall, looking for some sort of secret trap door button, when that news came. He whirled back around, the look of disgust gone from his face.

"You found the way out? Well let's get the hell out of here!"

"Sure!" Briar said, her smile widening.

"After you tell me how amazing I am, and apologize for being rude."

Jocelyn's jaw dropped.

"Are you serious? We're not playing games here, let's just go."

Briar crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her chin like an empress. "Nope. Not until you say it."

"You have got to be kidding me..." Jocelyn mumbled under his breath in exasperation. This girl would be the death of him. Of both of them, more like.

"Fine. I'm sorry for being rude to you earlier, and you are the most amazing person I have ever met. Happy?"

He took a step toward her. "Now let's get the hell out of this tomb."

Briar watched Jocelyn, her smile growing at his words until she was all out beaming. It didn't sound sincere, but she didn't care about that, because it wasn't about that at all. She just knew he hated it so it was fun making him do it.

Finally, she let out a pleased sigh. "The most amazing person you've ever met? Me? Oh! You're just too kind, Jossy, too kind! I already knew that, of course, but it's still a very sweet sentiment! You can't see it, but I'm blushing."

Rising to her knees and grabbing up her glove, she slipped it back onto her hand. "Alright, let's get the fuck out of here! C'mere, you, I need you for this."

She pulled out her dagger and held it out to him, handle first. "See that little indentation in the bone? No? Well, duh. You can feel it though, I'm sure! Cut yourself and stick the blood in that, and it'll activate some shit and then we can get out of here."

Jocelyn gave her an incredulous look, though it likely didn't have the intended effect as his eyes were hidden firmly behind his Cloth. He looked down at the knife in his hand, then knelt beside the little protruding bone. There it was, the tiny indentation.

And there it was, a tiny spark of magical energy still trapped in the buried object. How had he not noticed it before? It must've been her. SHe'd made him mad enough to ignore his surroundings.

With a grim look, he placed the dagger in the palm of his hand. Even as he drew it across it with a wince, he asked, "What's it supposed to do?"

Closing his hand into a throbbing fist, a few droplets of blood slipped between his fingers and onto the bone.

"Iunno," Briar said with a shrug as she watched the blood drip into the indentation. "Some shit. Just watch and see! Oh, wait. I guess don't watch or see. Whatever."

"Some shit" was exactly what it did, more or less. The blood fell into the groove, and then followed it all the way down, on a slow, spiral pattern around the bone, heedless of sand or other imperfections in its path. The instant the blood touched the surface, it glowed, faint but still there, and it seemed as though more blood stretched across the path than what had actually been deposited. Soon it wasn't just the blood that was glowing, but strange white symbols etched into the surface not by carving, but by magic, invisible until activated.

And soon those symbols repeated on the far wall, lighting up the dark room.

A great grinding noise came from the wall and the room shuddered, sending sand raining down on them, and the grinding increased until the sound was almost unbearable before the wall shuddered again--and then lifted, slowly, rock scraping against rock. Sand poured into the room immediately, obviously having been pressed against the opposite side for who knows how long.

Grimacing as more sand got into her boots, Briar slugged Jocelyn in the shoulder. "See? I'm a genius, what did I tell you!"

Jocelyn was too busy marveling at the dormant magic sprung to life to hear much of what Briar had said, but her punch knocked him back to reality. He scowled at her, fully prepared to retort angrily, but stopped just short.

After all she had just figured out the escape.

"Good job," he admitted begrudgingly, wiping his bloody hand on his dusty pants. "Now let's get out of here."

"Good job? That's it? I saved your bloody neck and all you can say is 'good job'?"

...Saved his life after leaving him for dead, of course, and only saved his life in the process of saving hers, and made him cut himself when her own blood would have done just fine, but...pshaw! Details, and all that!

With a shake of her head, Briar pushed past him and headed out through the open door. "So damned ungrateful, gods."

"My neck isn't saved yet," he muttered as he scrambled out the new dusty opening and into a long narrow corridor leading back up to Gods knew where. "Let's get out of this place first, then maybe I'll thank you for real."

It must've been pitch dark for her, but luckily he could 'see' perfectly fine. And what he saw didn't look promising, but gave him at least a bit of hope.

"Looks like this leads upwards for a while, and then we turn a corner and see what surprise awaits us next," he said as he pushed forward, not waiting for her. "Maybe more rock monster friends for you."

Briar brought out her lightstone again, murmuring the trigger word that brought it alive. Of course, it didn't do much good when pit against pitch black; it just created a sort of bubble around she and Jocelyn.

At Jocelyn's comment, she cracked a wide grin. "Yeah, I really miss ol' Rocky! But what he really wanted was you. He wanted to give you a great big smooch and I was just being a good friend and trying to help him out, y'know? It was really rude, what you did. Rejecting him like that. You're ice cold, Jossy. Ice cold."

She looked around as they walked, and finally had to stop when the sand in her boots got too annoying. Grabbing Jocelyn's arm, she pulled him to a stop. "Hold still a sec," she said, before using him to balance as she took off a boot to empty out the sand.

Jocelyn was so preoccupied with getting to the end of the tunnel (and ignoring her) that her grabbing his arm jolted him back to reality. He turned with a frown.

"You've never been in a desert before?" he said, gazing down at her overturned boot, the small trickle of sand coming out of it like pixie dust. It wasn't even that much. "Don't bother, you're going to get sand in there again. You'll have sand everywhere."

To demonstrate, he ran a hand through his hair, letting small granules sprinkle out of his head. "See? You're probably filthy by now." And to prove his point, he gave her sleeve a shake too, sending out another dusting.

"Tell me about it! I've got sand in my fucking ass crack, Jossy," Briar grumped as she slipped her boot back on. "And my goddamned ladybits! You realize how uncomfortable that is? Ugh, now stop shaking more of it onto me! You keep your sand to yourself, I got enough!"

She gave her head a vigorous shake, sending out another dusting, and let out a groan as it clouded in the air. "I fucking hate the desert. I've decided that now. It's official."

"You probably should have decided that before tomb robbing," he said with a shrug. There was sand down his trousers as well, but he'd been through this before. At least sand was less uncomfortable than wet mud. "Especially in a DESERT."

The corner yielded another small path and another corner. But finally an opening (a door? a window?) appeared at the far end. "Perfect," he said as he jogged lightly toward it.

And skidded to a halt.

It was a sheer drop down.

"Pffft, whatever, Jossy," Briar said with a roll of her eyes. "At least I got something for my fucking misery." And she pat her pouch as she spoke, grinning like a fox, because she still had her gem.

Her grin faded, however, when Jocelyn came to a sudden stop, and since she couldn't "see" in the dark like Jossy could, at first all she saw was blackness beyond her bubble of light. Nothing too unusual, considering it was pitch dark, but she proceeded with caution nonetheless, because Jocelyn proooobably stopped for a reason.

A reason that became obvious she she stepped up beside him.

Briar's stomach lurched, and she took a quick step back from the edge. "Fuuuuck. For real?" she breathed. "How big a drop you think that is?"

It was like an inky pit of DOOM, and out of sheer, morbid curiosity, Briar located a large rock--a chunk of temple, no doubt--and held it out over the edge before releasing it.

And then she waited.

And waited.

And waited some more...

It was a long time -- a LONG time -- before the noise echoed back up. Whether it was a thunk or a splash was difficult to tell. But Jocelyn (clinging tightly to the edge of the drop and peeking down over), couldn't even tell where the rock had landed down there. The pit dropped that much.

"Well great," he said as he scrambled back from the edge, sitting down with his back to the wall. "It's a dead end. I think there used to be a bridge here, but it probably crumbled long ago. Look, you can see the hole in the wall on the other side."

He pointed out into the darkness, completely forgetting that she probably couldn't see a think in the pitch black. "That's where we need to go, I guess."

He sighed, but then stopped and looked out again. Something in that vast chasm felt different. It was fleeting and brief, but the tingle he felt was unmistakeable. "Wait..." he said, holding up a hand. "There's some magical residue out there, but it's really faint." Maybe something to help people across?

He looked back to Briar. "This is your department. Find out how we escape. Do your thing."

Briar squinted into the darkness, then fixed Jocelyn with a dull look. "No, I can't see a hole in the wall, smartass. I can't see shit," she said, and let out a frustrated sigh. She couldn't see how they were supposed to get over such a chasm!

But as soon as she thought that, and as soon as Jocelyn mentioned this was her department, well, she sure as hell wasn't about to admit any of her doubts! So with a toss of her hair, she brushed more sand from her clothes, dusted off her hands with a clap, and rolled her shoulders back. "But since I'm already doing all the bloody work, why stop now? Fine, fine, let's see what I can do to save your ass again. You're gonna owe me big for all this, Jossy!"

And so she slipped off a glove and thrust it into Jocelyn's hand before he could protest, before she knelt at the edge.

"Point out the magic to me," she told him. "I can't see jack, so I need to know the exact place."

"Yeah yeah, I'll owe you," Jocelyn grumbled slightly, though he wasn't really in a position to complain. If she saved both of them, then it'd be worth it. Taking her hand, he peeked over the edge again, down at the gaping chasm. His heart leaped into his throat for a moment before he swallowed down the fear.

Right below them seemed to be some sort of protrusion, sticking out of the sheer wall perhaps several inches. It might have appeared to be one end of a bridge long since fallen, if not for the way it was ornately carved into the shape of an owl -- and the fact that the precise details of the protrusion remained, untouched by time. The threads of magic lay dormant though, and were so frayed that Jocelyn couldn't immediately decipher a pattern in them. Perhaps if he had several hours...

But they didn't. And that's where she came in.

"Right there, the little carving," Jocelyn said, forgetful of the fact that Briar couldn't see down there anyway. Nonetheless he guided her hand right onto the protrusion.

It was always unpleasant when a person touched her skin, and Briar jolted with a hiss when Jocelyn touched her hand, but she grit her teeth and bore down against the flood of emotion and images and sound, even as her head began to swim and grow light and fuzzy. She swayed a little, dangerously with her so close to the edge, and braced herself with her other hand against the ground.

Seconds in, and her head began to pound.

But then her fingers brushed something, and Jocelyn said that was it, and as soon as the words left his mouth she jerked her hand free and pulled back with a gasp, and as soon as contact broke, her vision cleared and the throbbing pain in her skull abated. But she still felt oily, because she'd seen things, little flashes of scenes of this man's life, flashing too fast for her to catch, and though she'd tried to ignore it, she still hated it.

It was invasive as fuck, for both people involved, and it left her feeling uncomfortably voyeuristic.

She was breathing hard, sweat beading along her blanched skin, and she sat back on her knees for a breather. "Alright. Thanks. I got it now. Just one sec, fuck." She rubbed her head, sucked in another breath, and braced herself. The living were the worst. Old objects could be hard on her, because they were filled with history, and it could hit like a punch. But it still wasn't as bad as dealing with the living.

Once she'd gotten a hold of herself again, she reached down to the owl carving and lightly touched it. And this time, unimpeded by Jocelyn's touch, she got a taste for the magic.

It came over her in a wave, a flicker of vision hitting her, flickering and broken up like static, but she could see enough to glean what was going on--or what wasn't going on.

And when it registered in her mind, she drew back with a gasp, pulling her hand away, and groped for the glove she'd shoved into Jocelyn's hands.

"Fucking clever dead people," she said, wiping sweat from her brow with her other hand. "There is no bridge."

Jocelyn only barely detected the look of disgust and discomfort on Briar's face when their skin touched. What he did notice was the swirl of magic within her when they did, impossibly tangled patterns that he didn't have time to decipher. In the back of his mind he wished he had access to a scribe to write down his observations.

When she snatched the glove out of his hand though, it snapped him back to reality. His own face soured at her words.

"What do you mean no bridge?" he gasped. "Did we take a wrong turn?"

"Oh, we're on the right path, all-fucking-right!" Briar said as she slipped the glove back on, plucking at the tips to adjust it on her fingers. "I misspoke, anyway. There is a bridge. You're damned right there is. But there isn't a bridge, too. You know why? 'Cause it's invisible."

She waved her arm out over the edge of the chasm with an exasperated sound. "It's glamoured so you can't see it, but it's there. You step down about a foot off the edge and bam, there it is. Of course, those ancient cult wackos can't just go and make it easy, oh no. There's gaps in the bridge and it's winding so you gotta know where to step, or else it's a long drop and a sudden stop for you. Splat!"

She looked over at Jocelyn. "You first."

"Dammit, I'm already blind. You want the blind man to take the first step onto the invisible bridge?"

Jocelyn bit his lip again as he stared down into the abyss. Well it wasn't so much of an abyss for him, for he saw what was described to him as a charcoal drawing upon parchment. And that black-white view showed nothing in front of them, just an empty chasm.

Still, there were little tendrils of magic that occasionally flashed across the span, threads that he could sense but he knew were invisible to all else. If he looked long enough, eventually he might be able to memorize their patterns and determine just how it wound about like a trickster serpent across the hundred foot drop down.

Well at least he could sense the magic enough to know where the bridge went these first couple steps. With a grimace he swung himself over the ledge, said a little prayer to whatever gods were listening, and dropped down.

He landed on something invisible and stood there, floating on nothing.

"Huh."

Briar poked her head over the edge to peer down at him, half expecting to catch a glimpse of him tumbling down into the abyss.

She was pleasantly surprised!

"Ah! You're still alive, blindie! Fabulous!" she said with a beaming grin. "Nice. So I was right. That's great to know, 'cause the vision was a little ambiguous at parts. Like, I wasn't really one-hundred percent sure the bridge magic was still actually active, since the vision was from like hundreds of years ago, so this is really hopeful!"

Jocelyn turned to scowl at her, though it was probably lost from behind his veil and with the darkness enveloping him.

"Yeah I'm glad I'm alive too. Don't want to make things too hard for you now," he shot back before turning back to the invisible bridge beneath him.

Now that he had two solid feet on it, the wisps of magical energy shone more brightly to him, illuminating the way forward for at least a little distance. It seemed that the bridge's magic pulsed more intensely when someone stood on it. An odd design but probably a purposeful one, to deal with exactly the kind of people like him -- who had the ability to sense its presence. He wondered idly what sort of enchantments they wove to create such an artifact that had survived after thousands of years without upkeep. Likely latticed together, woven like a fine Essyrni throw rug, and-

He shook his head. First things first.

"You coming down, or what? I mean you could stay up there if you want, not a big deal for me either way."

Ahahahaha...

Shit.

Yeah, she had to follow him now, didn't she?

Briar looked down at the yawning blackness beneath her, then at Jocelyn, standing for all intents and purposes on thin air, and was glad for the darkness that his her blanch. Her stomach lurched, feeling like it was trying to climb its way up into her throat, and she stubbornly swallowed it back down.

"Yeah, yeah, quit your bitchin'. I'm coming. Just wanted to give you time to give the all clear, duh. Gods, so naggy."

But her words petered out at the end, losing some of their usual acid, as she twisted her body to hold onto the edge while she carefully, carefully stuck a foot down toes first, and only stepped down after she felt solid something beneath her foot. With another deep breath, she put down her other foot. And after another, she let go of the edge.

Then she looked down.

She was standing on fucking thin air with a screaming abyss gaping all around her like some giant monster's mouth.

Her chest tightened and stomach twisted and she snapped her eyes back ahead at Jocelyn, willing her legs not to tremble--even though it was far too late.

"Uh. Yeah. Right. Right behind you, blindie, just uh...just wait right there, yeah, we don't all got magic-seein' blind eye juju." And she slid her foot forward an inch. Then let her other follow. Then another excruciating inch, not even daring to breathe.