Tomb Prospector Olek stood before me, a faint smile on his lips as he bowed, then gestured for me to lead on. Wearily, I complied: half falling half climbing down the ladder; my limbs heavy and yet at the same time brittle as the weathered rungs beneath me. Immediately, a ghoul lunged toward me, its pale skin gleaming as if shrouded in oil, its bared teeth reflecting the torchlight like sabers of glass. Clumsily, I ducked beneath its slashing talons, and stepped inside its reach, my blade crunching diagonally through its solar plexus, and stilling the foul heart beyond.

As Olek joined me in the disk shaped chamber, I stumbled onward, straining against invisible chains that bound my feet to the earth all the more forcefully with each stride. I passed beneath a low, moss laden ceiling, and staggered into a much larger clearing: a dark cavern whose walls were shrouded in shadow and whose dark canopy was held aloft by broad, ancient pillars.

Sibilant, a cry steeped in primordial fury alerted me moments before the monster was upon me; its segmented armor glinting like plates of steel, its razor edged tail slashing forth, edge weeping vile, emerald green tears. Its face was little more than a tapering barb, its chest contorted by fang filled jaws that widened, trembling in eager anticipation. I ducked beneath the slashing tail, and was met by a gout of flame from its slavering mandibles. My vision was devoured in a blinding light, and my numb, heavy body was bathed in horrible pain. No cry was wrung from me, for the blast robbed me of breath and voice, stealing my strength and leaving me limp upon the charred, steaming flagstones.

Then, it was turning from me, its slate grey jaws open wide in a shriek of agony as Olek's blade punched through a chink in its armour, spraying a geyser of foul ichor that stained the stones and clung to the sleek lines of his sword. Rising unsteadily, I raised the stake-driver and thrust it against the monster's unguarded flank as it turned to menace my ally. A hiss, and a sickening crunch rang out as the barbed stake punched through chitin and crushed the organs beneath. The beast staggered, its many legs twitching uselessly, then collapsed, its elongated neck crumpling limp to the stone. White flame flared from within, and the slain beast dissolved.

Roll to your left, Ashen One! I dared not question her, and no sooner had I complied, than a cannonball was slamming into the space I had abandoned, spraying me with shards of shattered earth. Through a curtain of seething, jaundiced afterimage, I noticed a lever, and with gloved hands seized it, using my weight rather than my waning strength to pull it back, ancient gears squealing in porcine fury. Before me, a cylindrical cage slammed against the earth, and without prompting, I leaped into it, recognizing the lift for what it was.