Bartelemi's Prize
The trap was sprung the instant Bartelemi took the mace from the corpse's skeletal hand. He heard distant thunder, and the shaft of dusty light entering a hole in the roof faded. Bartelemi scraped the tomb lid shut and ran, the dead king's weapon heavy as a sack of grain. He had dawning admiration for anyone who could wield this monstrosity in battle. They said it was forged by an ancient Dwarven smith and given as a gift back when relations were closer. Bartelemi could believe that. He had seen only a few of the Dwarven folk in his life, but they all had seemed stout enough to have forged this daunting weapon. Outside, the lone tomb sat under a brooding sky like the last tree after a forest fire. The empty moor stretched endlessly in all directions with no cover from the sky's wrath. Bartelemi took a deep breath and began to trot, the first drops already falling, thunder landing deep in his chest. It would take two hourglasses, maybe more, to reach the nearest vill