Like taking candy from a...corpse. [Cambie!]

[Rhindeer]

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.

[Cambie]

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.

[Rhindeer]

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.

[Cambie]

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.

[Rhindeer]

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]

[Cambie]

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.

[Rhindeer]

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."

[Cambie]

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?"

[Rhindeer]

"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?!"

[Cambie]

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."

[Rhindeer]

"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!"

[Cambie]

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."

[Rhindeer]

"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."

[Cambie]

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.

[Rhindeer]

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."

[Cambie]

"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?!"

[Rhindeer]

"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?"

[Cambie]

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."

[Rhindeer]

"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."

[Cambie]

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.