"Silence dogs!" Khaseem Bai spat, raising his fist. Were he to swing it down the order would be met to execute them both on the spot. "If you do not wish to wander the desert without eyes or tongues then you will speak when I permit it! Do not be so foolish as to think you are so valuable as not to maim." He grimaced a moment further like a tiger that watches a receding bear. His devil-may-care manner returned once silence reigned once again. "You will both lead at spear point. Have I any inkling that you will betray me, if we cannot kill you we will seal you within the tomb, understand?"

Abelard and Anya did not immediately answer, though he took that as an acquiesce to his command and he grinned as a snarling lion. "Good. Now priest, lead the way into the tomb with the northern bitch close to your heels."

The thieves watched expectantly as the two regarded one another, and they turned to the ancient Acheron structure. Abelard approached it warily, eyeing the opening. He looked at Khaseem Bai, holding his hands together as if to beg forgiveness. "My staff?" He bade. "To better serve your desire of entering. I will give it back once I open the hole." 

The bandit lord measured him and nodded. One of the Stygian Giants tossed Abelard his staff, which he caught promptly and placed on the ground. There was an audible 'thud' when it touched the sand, as if the staff weighed far, far more than it conceivably could. Anya could perceive a tingle of power emanating from the rod, and through the top jewel the sunlight poured through and struck the Acheron opening through the center. As the light penetrated into the strange slit, the stone began to move with a deliberate slowness that shoved great rends of sand in the earth around it. 

"He has done it." One of the bandits muttered. 

"No, I have not." Abelard answered boldly, and all eyes turned to him with sudden incredulity. He smiled calmly, with a certain satisfaction to him. "I opened it, but in an incorrect manner."

"What!?" Khaseem Bai snarled, confused. His curiosity would be sated in moments when the door, now gaping wide like a vast wound, spewed forth three unknown shadow beasts from within. Demons, Abelard knew them to be. Shaped like apes and as dark as the blackest night and as even larger than the Stygian Giants. He had foreseen their presence and purposefully awoke them. He placed his hand on Anya's shoulder, the sunlight still within his staff as the beasts moved quicker than any horse, loping over and attacking the band of cutthroats. Men screeched and pissed themselves as huge arms of abyssal matter wrapped about them and consumed their bodies and souls utterly. 

"The sun will banish them before long." Abelard whispered, eyeing the now unguarded door to the Acheron ruin. "Grab your sword and follow me!"
[@Penny]