The Throne Room

Using echolocation, Arthur knew he was close to the room at the centre of the maze. Even though he had no idea what awaited him, based on the clues he received from his voice, at least it did not seem like it was a trap.

Arthur turned one last corner in the maze and a large space opened up before him. Unfortunately, the young man had no way of telling what the place was for because most of the space was still shrouded in darkness. The darkness was too heavy for the weak moonlight that Arthur carried to penetrate.

Arthur stood at the entrance and issued a shout. As the loud voice petered away, Arthur put up his ears. There was nothing else that he heard other than the echoes of his own voice.

The young man nodded with satisfaction. 'At least there doesn't sound like there are any enemies in the room… that or they are very good at holding an ambush.'

Arthur stuck to the wall and moved into the room. The plan was to explore the periphery of the room first. Arthur had the belief that the most important stuff, and thus the most dangerous stuff, if there was one, would be placed at the centre of the room. Therefore, it would be the cautious thing to do to scope out the periphery first before moving to the centre.

Arthur shone the light on the walls and the young man believed he was looking at some sort of mural. Some sort of painting was carved into the walls and Arthur tried his best to make out the entirety of the picture from that small piece that he could see. The light from the lamp was only strong enough to lighten the part that was directly before him.

Arthur went around the room, studying the mural as he went. As the picture formed in his mind, Arthur believed the mural was describing the life of some famed conqueror. There were stories of wars and conquests.

Walking around the room, Arthur had his finger on his chin. Why would the mural tell such a story… Unless the space was actually a burial tomb for said conqueror?!

Caught in his thought, Arthur failed to notice the spot where his feet were landing. He accidentally tripped on a small object that was protruding out from the ground. Thankfully, the young man found his balance before he fell flat on the ground.

After he steadied himself, Arthur turned around and squatted down to inspect the object that had tripped him.

It was the wooden edge of something that was buried deep into the ground. Arthur used his hands to brush some of the soil away. As the item slowly revealed itself, the sharp edge and the material used to construct the thing reminded Arthur of the coffins that he had seen along the way.

Arthur's guard went up immediately. He half-expected the ground under his feet to start moving as the undead tried to crawl its way up to the surface. Thankfully nothing like that happened.

Arthur pondered what to do with this discovery. In the end, the young man decided to let sleeping dog lie. There was no reason to go around provoking potential enemy. If the enemy wanted to rest, then let them be.

Furthermore, if Arthur wanted to deal with the thing inside, he would have to first dig up the coffin from the ground. On top of that, the coffin might not even be a coffin, that was after all just Arthur's speculation. If this ended up as nothing more than an empty wooden box, Arthur would have wasted all of his energy for nothing.

Therefore, after weighing all the factors that were relevant to the situation, Arthur decided to move away from the object… but not before kicking some dirt around it, trying to bury it deeper into the ground.

Arthur eventually made his way back to the entrance, marking his journey round the room. Other than the mural and the supposed buried coffin, there was nothing else of note that Arthur discovered.

There were some urns and crates that Arthur came across but either they were empty or the original content had long ago crumbled into dust.

Arthur stood at the entrance and gauged his situation. His tour around the periphery of the room had shed some light on the mystery of the crypt. Based on the rotting zombie and mummy wrap that he had come across, as well as the mural and the seal, the young man had enough evidence to believe that this was the tomb for a conqueror or at least an army general.

If he was to follow that train of thought, Arthur could not stop himself from feeling guarded. He had already stumbled across two enemies that came back from the land of death in the mummy wrap and rotting zombie so who was there to say the same would not happen to this conqueror?

Regardless, Arthur was not one to back away from a challenge. He was cautious but not a coward. If the conqueror did return from the death, then Arthur would face him head on. No one said this was a battle that he would definitely lose.

With that in mind, Arthur made his way down to the centre of the room. Arthur's footsteps echoed across the hall as his feet fell on the cobbled ground.

Arthur noticed, as he got closer to the centre, there was more architecture. The outer edges of the room were mostly dirt floor but as he moved to the centre, there were more floor tiles.

Eventually, Arthur caught a shape in the dark. It looked like a raised podium with a throne on top of it.

Arthur could not be certain but it looked like there was a person sitting on the throne. However, said person was deathly still.

Arthur nudged his feet forward to take a closer look. The light from the lamp fell on a desiccated figure. Its eyes were closed.