Dulrak marched first into the passageway, following Mery’s dancing lights. Mery said, “Let me go first. Traps!”

“Nuh,” he answered over his shoulder, his head only a few inches from the ceiling. “What twisted mind would booby trap the workers’ passage out?”

“The same one who’d put a tomb inside a maze,” Lund said softly.

Alice laughed. “You’re both right, I think.” She started to follow behind the dwarf, but Isa caught her hand. “Babe. No. Just…. No. Let Mery go next. Why risk it?” She laced her fingers with Alice’s. “I know how easy it is to get overconfident. I do. That interesting scar on my side? Remind me to tell you about that little misadventure sometime.”

Mery pushed past them and gave Isa a quick glance. “I’ll just be moving along myself. If there are traps that damned dwarf will trigger them.”

“Go ahead, you two.” Lund waved his hands toward the passage. “I’ll cover the back.”

Isa was glad to discover that after about 15 feet, the escape passage from the trap opened up. It was still narrow, but she could stand up straight. As she straightened up, the lights went out. The darkness was swift and complete. Her hand found Alice’s in the darkness, and they clung to each other. The hair on the back of Isa’s neck tingled, and she was suddenly very aware that she was standing under tons of rock and that if they died here, no one would ever find their bodies. They’d be skeletons who-- and maybe the skeletons they’d fought had been hapless adventurers. Maybe--

Her spiraling thoughts were interrupted by a small light. Dulrak, at the head of the group held a small flame in his hand. He held it above his head, and the weak light spilled out and barely reached Isa’s spot.

Isa remembered her shillelagh spell then and activated it. Her staff’s glow added slightly to the illumination. In the pale light Alice looked pale, almost ghostly.

“Here,” Lund’s voice came from somewhere around Isa’s knees. She turned and saw that he had put his bag on the ground. She bent and held her staff to his face. “Torch,” was all he said. His face was unreadable in the deep gloom, and Isa wondered if he was trying to master the same panic that wanted to envelope her.

A moment later Lund’s torch flared, and he pushed past them to the front. Isa saw that they stood at the bottom of a stone staircase. After the first few steps, the light faded and the steps seemed to be covered in an unnatural inky blackness.

“It’s magic, this darkness,” said Mery. “Snuffed my lights as clean as you please. That’s magic, it is.”

Dulrak gestured for Lund to lower his torch, and he crouched to examine the stone of the bottom step. “These seem to be of a piece with the rest of the tomb. Same sort of chisel used here as there.” He flung his hand over his shoulder as if to indicate the trapped area.

“What does that mean?” Isa asked.

Alice knelt beside the dwarf. “Maybe that this staircase could be trapped like other parts of the tomb.”

Mery snorted. “I can tell you that darkness isn’t natural.”

“Likely it’s a spell,” added Dulrak.

Lund stepped forward and stuck his torch into the black area. Immediately they were plunged into almost darkness; Isa’s staff shed the only light. Lund pulled the torch out slowly, and light grew as more and more of the torch was revealed. “Definitely magic,” he said with a satisfied tone.

“That’s a nasty trap in and of itself.” Isa couldn’t help but poke her staff into the dark space. As with the torch, the light faded once it made contact with the dark. “You clamber up the stairs, not even thinking and, what? plunge to to your death because the steps lead over an edge? Or walk into the waiting arms of a giant spider? Or enter the burial chamber of the mummy king, himself?”

“Probably the first one,” Mery said. “When it comes to deadly traps, love, simple is best.”

Isa felt her face get hot. Mery was condescending to her when all Isa was doing was trying to help.

“With any luck,” Dulrak stood and dusted off his hands, “we’ll be able to see for ourselves.”

“Daylight,” said Alice.

Dulrak nodded. “Smart lass.”

“And you’re worried,” Alice went on, “that this darkness spell is too high a level for your counter-spell. Odds are good we’re fine, right? This is some sort of triggered ward spell or something. Maybe when we sprung the trap? So it’s been sitting dormant for years, maybe hundreds of years. It might dissipate before I finish this sentence….. OK, no, but you know what I mean.”

“You don’t think this was cast by someone on the other side of that cloud?” asked Isa.

Alice frowned. “Nah. They would have attacked by now.”

“But the darkness,” Isa said, “it would impede them, too. I just don’t think you can--”

Dulrak had been muttering over a piece of cloth, and suddenly a bright yellow light burst from it. “That’s better,” he said. He jammed the cloth over the end of a javelin and held it in front of him like a lantern on a pole. To Isa’s amazement, the darkness on the stairs disappeared as if it were normal, everyday darkness and not a black hole of night.

With a grin Alice said, “Daylight. That is a useful spell. I can learn that, I think. With a little time and effort.” To Dulrak she said, “Is that evocation? It is, isn’t it? I can totally learn that!”

Isa gripped her staff. “Let’s just survive this day, right?”

With Dulrak and his makeshift lantern in front, they took the stairs upward. Once at the top, Dulrak hesitated, and a moment later Isa understood. They had another choice to make. They could go left or right. Dulrak’s lantern shone out about 60 feet and to the left seemed to be a hallway much like the one they’d been in before the trap. To the right - it was hard to say what it was - a room of some sort. Dulrak’s light was swallowed by the seemingly large space.

“Which way?” said Lund.

“Which way, indeed.” Dulrak dropped his head to his chest and closed his eyes as if in prayer. A moment later: “That way,” he pointed left, “is the way we were heading. This, I don’t know. A chamber, perhaps, behind the first area we saw, with the burial nooks.”

“Agreed,” said Mery. “That feels right. So let’s go left. I mean - we were heading to the X on the map, so let’s continue that way.”

“But wait,” said Alice. “Think about what the quest said.”

“What did it say?” asked Lund. “I didn’t really read it.”

Alice smiled at him. “It said ‘Enter the tomb.’ Done. ‘Prevail against shadows.’ If shadows equals bugs and spiders, we’re good there. ‘Bring light where once was darkness.’ Double done - look at Dulrak’s daylight spell! And last ‘Destroy the heart of the tomb.’ That chamber,” Alice pointed to the right, “that’s the heart of the tomb - the center, anyway. Let’s take care of this and be done.”

The group was silent until Mery blurted out, “Why the hell did you memorize the quest? What’s that about?”

Isa laughed. “She can’t help it; whatever she reads, it’s memorized. I hear you, babe. But what if you’re being too literal? The other quest - the bandits’ quest log said something different.”

“Bet you 5 gold she can recite that one too,” Mery whispered to Lund.

“Actually I can’t,” said Alice. “I didn’t read their notebooks. Isa read aloud.”

Dulrak had been standing quietly, his magic light illuminating them all, his eyes black pools. “Unnatural creatures dwell here. I know it; Isa knows it, though she might not understand the squirming in her guts for what it is. I don’t particularly care what words in a notebook say. It’s written here.” He touched his chest with one finger. “Selvank shows His chosen the path to take, and in this case that means scouring this tomb of all abominations.”

Lund looked at his feet. Mery said, “I’ve always been for exploring the whole place. Never know what lies in the dust waiting to be found.”

Isa looked at Alice. “The captain’s quest, it did say something about giving ‘true death,’” she made quotation marks with her fingers, “to the king who lies buried here, this Menesia guy.”

“What’s it say then?” Mery said. “The quest, read it again for us.”

Isa pulled the bandit’s notebook from her bag and read aloud. “Enter the tomb of Menesia, king of Kelima, deliver true death to him.” She paused and then said, “It goes on to say that they should get the crown - the king’s crown, I guess - and an urn and take it to this guy Stonegrime.”