Taking a sip of her drink Erika watched as Reidar slowly and carefully moved the gear, click by click, until after what seemed like hours but was probably less than a minute before the door cracked open, the huge slab of stone opening outwards into the hall with a grinding roaring metallic sound. Erika stood to the side, hands clamped over her ears and cursing the noise under her breathe. Anything on this whole level knew where they were now, so distracted was she that Erika failed to notice the surge of people, every damn delver in their scout group had started moving at the same time to move, starting slowly at first but picking up speed, towards the treasure chamber door.

“ENOUGH!” Laudon managed to halt them with a single word, the avaricious horde coming to a halt still a full spear-throw away from the door, the greed seemed to fade from their eyes and the delvers quickly formed battle lines again now watching both the doors of the hall and the treasure chamber with equal intensity.

Laudon glared at the group for a few more moments before she gestured at Erika. “After you Lady Vitki.”

“AFTER we check for traps.” Kara said pulling Erika back by one shoulder, Laudon looked chastened instantly but Erika was just puzzled. “Traps? In a secret treasure compartment… that I half melted… and that’s been closed since before Ragnarök?”

“Jotun love their traps and tricks lady vitki I should have remembered that.” Laudon hung his head for a moment before shaking himself and gesturing to Reidar again. “Got any skill with trap checking or only mechanisms?”

Reidar shrugged with an aggrieved look. “Only experienced with mechanical stuff, I could give it a look with a mirror on a stick though?”

“No, don’t, if a trap goes off the loot might be damaged… anyone good with traps?”

The crowd shook its collective heads, they had been gathered for a scouting mission after all not a tomb delver or treasure run. Light amour and weapons coupled with good scouts, the vitki was overkill to be honest let alone a proper trapsmith.

“Damn… Maybe Reidar should do it.”

Erika nodded and looked thoughtful, overtly thoughtful; she didn’t want the group thinking she was some short-sighted child after all. “I might be able to throw a thrall in? Get him to grab the loot and run whilst shielding it with his body, it doesn’t matter if they die.”

“That… might work… you can make them defend the loot?” Kara asked peering into the darkness.

“With their lives… well my lives…” Erika muttered

“You’re lives?” Kara looked worried so Erika shook her head and tried to explain. “Its vitki… slang I guess? Basically my thralls are mine body and soul, that’s what Helsdottir herself said, they are mine in a way deeper than a human thrall would belong to his master, so they don’t spend their lives, they spend my lives, they are mine… at least that’s how I understand it, there’s a pretty complex philosophy behind it all, my mother understands all of that and I guess I copied her wording growing up, but I kept putting off reading them… guess I should when we get back right?”

“Probably.” Kara said with a grin.

A few minutes later after everybody else failed to come up with a better plan the party had hidden itself around the corner to the hall in case of poison gas, one of Erika’s thralls stood right in front of the door as a shield and the other was in the doorframe of the secret room, Erika had explained their orders and she thought it should work, the front one would grab and run, the back one would move to the side to let it through then block the way again, any sort of explosion should be absorbed by the thrall and not channelled down the room as the second thrall escaped back to them with the loot.

“Go!”

The moment hung in the air, the scent of cold stone and age joined by the stink of adrenaline and fear, echoes of distant dripping combined with the clattering of shields being raised, Erika tucked herself into Karas side as best she could, bracing herself against her lovers shield just in case, this was it the…