he cut throats whooped with glee at the sight of the bejeweled armor. Their excitement seemed a little forced having just seen the only obvious means of escape sealed behind them but Calliopie had observed that men tended to believe what they needed to believe in order to keep going. If the claustrophobia oppressed them it didn’t hinder their rush to the armor where they began to immediately pry jewels from ancient settings with the blades of their short knives. Calliope was no antiquarian but it seemed to her that the ancient pieces would be worth more intact than broken apart, but there was no way to carry the stuff out even if they found a way to return to the surface. Besides something else was at play here, subtle magics so ancient they could no longer be glimpsed lingered in the chamber like the hints of a storm in the clear air.
 
“Look at this,” she called to Markus, pointing downwards towards carvings made into the floor. They must once have been sharp edged but the passage of ages had worn them down to indistinct indentations. Even if they had been fresh cut, they didn’t appear to be in any language she was familiar with. It might have been a spell, a warning or simply funeary rites. There were probably scholars or wisemen who could translate the inscription but a pair of pirates were not up to the task.

“Aiiiiie!” A scream echoed through the chamber and they both spun to find Hayikk frozen in an attitude of horror. He had a dirk in one hand and a black object he had prized from the scorpion statue in his hand. Calliope realised that the statue's eyes, though indistinguishable from obsidian at a distance, were actually rare and valuable black diamonds. It wasn’t the loot the caused the bandit to scream however. Out of the yawning gap in the wall sprang a massive dark shape, its chitionous hide reflecting the light of Markus’ sword. It was a vast scorpion, with a body the size of a wagon and a stinger larger that Calliope's torso. Hayikk cowered behind the idol, the instinct saving his life as the grotesque bug thing struck the idle, its six joined legs flailing and its stinger stabbing down onto the stonework beyond the thief, gouging a trough in the stone that struck sparks. Its pincers tried to wrap around the idol to snuff out the thief but the articulation of the armor like plates prevented it from grasping a target so close. It hissed in frustration and scrambled back to give itself room. All of the bandits were shrieking hysterically and snatching up ancient weapons that they felt might be more useful than their own modest armaments. Before Calliope could react a second scorpion launched itself from the cavern opening, this one aimed at the knot of cut throats. It scattered suits of armor like a childs pick up sticks as it carreened forward. This one managed to catch one of the bandits by the arm and its pincer snicked shut with enough force to take the limb off at the elbow sending the thief tumbling away screaming and squirting bright arterial blood that winked black in the fire light. 

Calliope shouted something and prepared to leap forward, she would grasp its stinger in her talons and take a pincer in her jaws near the base, ripping it free and burning the creature's eyes, while using the scorpion's body as a shield against the second beast. She blinked in disorientation and lashed out with a spell, sending a wrist thick bar of fire blazing into the scorpion still trying to recover from its botched attack on Hayikk. The magic struck the creature and dissipated without effect other than causing it to whip around toward her. It must have been enchanted with some kind of spell protection by whoever had created the things to guard the idol. The scorpion lashed out with its stinger and Markus and Calliopie sprang apart to avoid the blow that shattered the ancient carvings to powder. Calliope gripped her scimitar with both hands and hacked down at the things tail, shattering one of the armored plates but doing little damage. An axe or hammer would have been a better weapon for the purpose, though Calliope supposed if she had the choice she would start out with a twelve pound cannon and work her way up.
 
“Watch the claws!” she shouted to Markus as she ducked under a flailing pincer and thrust the point of her weapon into the jointed ligature between its leg and thorax, causes a screaming his and a spray of ichor.