Roak climbs up to look, and finds that he has a thorough impression of a space beyond the small hole, but also that it will require rather a lot of work to remove enough of the rubble to admit a body even as small as his.  He estimates that it will take 10 or twenty minutes of the entire party's work to clear enough of the rubble for the entire party to make it through into the space beyond.

Albricht set his warhammer and shield aside, rolled up the sleeves of the tattered robes that covered his chainmail, and began to heft rubble out of the way.

"The trick is..." he said with a grunt, "is not to sweat. Work steady, lift efficiently and ye'll not lose too much water." He lectured the others and gave tips and techniques on how to move the stone without over exerting themselves.

"Before the Great Fires, the dwarves of the desert... well, it wasn't desert back then. We were forced below ground to survive, and that's when we learned the importance of water. The green things never returned up there. Oh sure, there's a few places where water comes to the surface or collects when a rare rain comes through, but there's a sea of sand up there that used to be somewhat desolate, but at least produced life."

"Downward we delved lads, deeper and deeper, chasing the path of water. Where there was water, there was life... mushrooms, creatures, moss and the like... enough to live on, and for us to survive. Over time we grew shorter, better able to navigate small tunnels, our eyes adapted to see in darkness, and we learned to work the stone, the bones of the earth as we call it. A few clans remained near the surface, and we even ventured out to try and develop oases. The search for water has become more important than the search for gold and silver and precious gems."

And so it went while he worked, sharing the somewhat warped history as his sun-addled mind remembered it, but he spoke of it all in a way which seemed to indicate he'd been there... which to the long-lived elves seemed impossible of course, but it did make one wonder...

Vsaati regularly looks over her shoulder, making sure nothing can sneak up on them.

Sherborne moves to help with the removal.  While it was hard work he found a little solace and distraction in listening to the stories as told by the Dwarf.

Silverglade lends a hand, but makes sure that everyone knows that physical work is beneath him.

In the end, the rubble pile was larger than original estimates indicated, and almost half of an hour is required to create a hole wide enough for all of the party members to easily get through.

Once through, the room continues for another ten feet on the other side of the pile, then a narrow passage in the far wall appears, about two-and-a-half feet wide.  It looks to be wide enough to pass through, but definitely not wide enough to swing a sword in, and it turns to the right after several feet.

Silverglade draws his sword and holds it ready to stab, then pushes onwards.

Silverglade finds that the passage twists and turns, and eventually opens back out into an area ten feet wide and five feet deep, with a door at its end, which is closed. If anything, this area is even more dry than the rest of the pyramid.

Albricht edged through, keeping an eye out for places to pound in his stone wedges in order to keep the heavy stone from moving. He waited for the others and while he did, be began to examine the room they were in. He suspected another rockfall trap or some other sort of nastiness near the door. It was obvious that this hall hadn't been meant for frequent daily traffic.

Silverglade listens at the door.

Suspicious of everything here, as it was quite obvious that it had not been made by dwarven hands, Albricht finds several places that he feels the stone wedges will do some good.

Silerglade listens at the door, but can hear nothing from beyond it.  This might be at least partially due to the sound of Albricht hammering in stone wedges here and there.

Once Silverglade gives an all-clear, Plathstream opens the door!

Silverglade shortly indicates that he can hear nothing from beyond the door, and Plathstream opens it to reveal a room containing two sarcophagi.  Both gleam with golden highlights.  One sarcophagus is marked, "Alexander," and the other is marked, "Zenobia."  Surrounding the sarcophagi are a number of large wooden chests.  The room is littered with broken objects:  two smashed thrones, a broken chariot, smashed pottery, broken weapons, and torn clothing.  Piles of bones cover the floor.  On the walls is a mosaic showing famous events from the reign of King Alexander and Queen Zenobia.

Sherborne takes a peak into the room after it's opened.  "I wonder if their kingdom was only in this pyramid or if at one time this wasn't a desert and there was more to it."

"Wasn't always a desert. The Great Fires came through and burned so hot and so fast that it scorched the earth. Turned into a desert soon after. Gotta say, it used to be a lot prettier back then," Albricht explained absently as he eased into the room. Kings and Queens meant treasure... He looked around, but let Roak do his job, for surely if there was treasure here, there would be more traps!

The dwarf knelt to examine the piles of bones.

OOC: Can he tell what sort of bones these are? Animal? Humanoid? Were they graverobbers perhaps or maybe workmen who were walled in? Creepy!

Roak looks at Albricht. "How is this my job? Everyone looks at the halfling and says, 'hey, he's short, why don't you let him poke his nose in dangerous places?' Harrumph. I think I'm standing guard by the door."

Plathstream smirks and then moves over to the sarcophagus of Alexander. "Sherborne, prepare to strike anything that attacks me if it springs from the sarcophagus."

Silverglade examines the mosaic, looking for any clues about this place, while waiting for the thief to check the sarcophagi and crates for traps.

Sherborne readies his hammer and his holy symbol in case something jumps out at them.

Albricht's examination of the bones shows that they seem to be human.  They're too long to be dwarf of halfling bones, and not slender enough to be elf bones.  Another look around yields some cat bones (small cats and some very large ones), plus bones of a few larger four-legged creatures (some with solid hooves, and some with split hooves).

Silverglade examines the mosaics and finds images of Alexander and Zenobia holding court in some fairly large building, people dressed in loin cloths and/or short white kilts working in green fields, one army destroying another in a place with palm trees and multi-colored birds, Zenobia and Alexander standing before statues of the three deities already encountered, and so on.

"It's Hrrrumph lad, emphasis on the 'rrr'. You just said you have a toothache in your tailbone." Albricht let the touchy little halfling have his way, content that he'd been able to correct Roak's attempt at a dwarven idiom, as butchered as it had been.

Using his warhammer, Albricht pushed through the bones a bit, scattering them and supposing that it might create difficulty for a necromatic entity to arise if its parts were strewn about.

"Buried with his critters and farmhands it appears. I wonder if they were dead first," the dwarf observed with a gruesome expression.

"Well, I guess that leaves only one thing then Plathstream, pop'it open and let's see what loot ye've discovered!"

Plathstream nods and opens Alexander's sarcophagus.

The lid of the sarcophagus comes open surprisingly easily, and turns out to be nothing other than wood painted to look like gold.  Inside, Plathstream finds the mummified body of what appears to be a human, crowned and robed, although the crown is fairly obvious as a fake.

Glancing about the room, both Albricht and Vsaati are also noticing that the supposed riches here are fakes: gold and silver painted coins, paste gems, and so on.

Plathstream points out the fake gold to everyone in the party, then goes about opening the other sarcophagus belonging to "Zenobia."

Silverglade investigates the crates around the sarcophagi.