"This is so much bullshit," Maeva complained. The dwarf had more reason to be annoyed than the others. Even with the tide receded, the water that lapped at the jutting cliff came up to Louis and Theo's waists. "I'll be treading water here in a moment. Dwarves don't swim; we have better sense than to muck around in gross salty water." A wave silenced her briefly, and she spluttered.
Theo ignored her, reaching down to feel the rock face beneath the water's surface. "This is it," he called over his shoulder before drawing in a deep breath and ducking down.
"Um, what?" Maeva asked, raising her voice to be heard over the crashing surf.
"Looks like it sank into the ocean over the years. Only the top of the entryway is still here. There's a gap under the rock face: that's the entrance. Go on, then," Louis urged. Maeva gave him a dark look before dipping beneath the water. Louis adjusted Adara's bound hands around his shoulders and followed her.
It was a short swim, ducking under the cliff face and through the only part of a submerged door still visible above the ocean floor. Maeva, Louis, and Adara gasped as they surfaced in a half-flooded entryway. Theo glanced at them over his shoulder, already shaking his map out of a waterproof canister and casting about for a dry surface to spread it on.
"You alright?" Louis asked as he untangled the mage from his neck. Adara nodded and awkwardly brushed her sodden hair from her face.
"I thought low tide meant we wouldn't have to swim," Maeva complained as she fished out the little painted box that had started all of this mess and handed it to Theo.
"Low tide means we can get in," Theo corrected. "This whole antechamber will be underwater as it comes back in, and we'd likely drown before we could get the door open." He spread a less-damp bit of cloth over a stone and laid the map flat, carefully setting the box atop it. "I need the mage."
"Try her name. I don't go around calling you 'the git,' do I?" Maeva snapped.
"It's fine, Maeva," Adara said as she crossed the room to peer down at the map and the spidery lines of enchanted ink that began rearranging themselves across it. Theo watched her warily as dark eyes studied a map that he couldn't even see.
"It only shows one room at a time," she noted. "I see the main door, and the five in front of us."
"The fake ones lead to traps, I'm guessing," Maeva mused sourly.
Theo nodded. "The Avvar were never great innovators, but they poured all of their wits into safeguarding this place. The traps will be crude but no less deadly for it."
Adara jerked her chin towards the second door from the left. "The lines converge there. That's the way. I can't sense any magic, but that doesn't mean much."
Maeva was already cautiously prodding the door. "Needs a key. Fantastic." Theo gently nudged her aside and held up something key-shaped carved from stone. "We're prepared. This venture has been over a year in the making," he said as the rough-hewn key slid into the lock. The ancient locking mechanism did not click so much as groan, and Theo threw his shoulder into it until the heavy stone door opened enough to let them through. "Torches on the wall in here," he called back after slipping through. "The mage can light them."
Adara picked up the map and box and followed Theo through the door, Louis trailing behind dutifully. Maeva looked sick as she peered into the pitch-black corridor beyond. "I need to find a new line of work," she muttered to herself.
The series of chambers that tunneled deeper into the seaside cliff was extensive. The little party passed through one room after another, pausing at the start of each one while Adara read the map and directed them away from traps and false pathways. There were rooms where a misstep would cause the floor to crumble away, sending an unwary traveler down a long drop to a spike-filled pit below. There were corridors where a depressed trigger would send rusted, ancient blades plummeting from the ceiling, and once Maeva narrowly stopped Louis from accidentally filling the room with a noxious gas.
It felt as though they had been in the crypt for weeks. They had gone through several torches, though Maker knew how much time had really passed. They had only stopped to rest once, but even Maeva hadn't complained. The crypt was as eerily quiet as one might expect, and no one wanted to linger for longer than necessary.
"This is the final room," Adara said, her soft voice jarringly loud as it reverberated against the stone walls.
"It has to be here, then," Louis said. Theo nodded tightly. The sarcophagus at the far end of the room hadn't been disturbed for hundreds of years, and the treasure piled neatly around it was gray from the thick dust covering it.
Maeva sneezed as she started shifting things aside and kicking up clouds of dust, looking over the items and deciding whether they were worth enough to haul out. Theo and Louis, meanwhile, shoved at the heavy lid of the sarcophagus until it fell aside in a thunderous clamor.
Theo stared down at the corpse within. "Maker, that's creepy," Louis muttered. The body had been buried wearing a traditional Avvar headdress made of a wolf's head, and both of them had been astonishingly well-preserved in the cool, dry air of the tomb. Theo was more interested in the sword that lay on the corpse's chest beneath folded hands.
"Is that your fancy magic sword?" Maeva asked.
"It's not magic," Theo said as he carefully pried away the dead fingers. "Simply important to the right people." It was a very simple weapon, roughly carved and crudely decorated. The blade itself was darker than any metal Theo had ever seen, and he held it up close to inspect it. Getting it had been almost too simple, and Theo struggled to overcome his paranoia.
He wasn't particularly surprised, then, when bony fingers reached up to wrap themselves around his arm. He was more shocked by Louis's yell behind him and the sound of the ancient walls crumbling as shambling corpses forced their way out of them.
"I should have known," he said grimly.