Their continued delve into the tomb went a lot smoother. With Hafsa unchained from her self imposed duties she avoided taking nearly as many hits as before. Meanwhile she was quicker to lock in on a kill.

  Admittedly Shiina had gotten some hard knocks in return, but Delilah easily healed them up. She was getting used to pain now, even if she wasn't a huge fan. At least it didn't trigger her violent instincts.

  Soon they reached the penultimate room. After murdering the mummies that rose up to complain and securing nine lanterns filled with Sun Tears, they inspected the final door.

  It looked like a simple tomb door, but someone had carved a warning into the front in a language Shiina couldn't read. It was extra strange because normally dungeons healed damage like this.

  She turned her attention to the surroundings, but there didn't seem to be any traps or puzzle pieces attached. "I don't sense anything. But I can't read that writing."

  Hafsa stretched. "Oh right. Yeah it's the local tongue. Well okay it's a stupid archaic version. But roughly it says 'This is the tomb of the great Sultan Komeniah. Here in this dungeon he shall rest for all time, guarded even after the world falls.'"

  "That's a really stupid reason to punch a hole in reality," Delilah said, smoothing out her robes.

  "They're a bunch of stupid assholes," Hafsa agreed.

  Shiina looked back to Ife and Zanya. "Why don't the Arbiters murder people who open dungeons the first time?"

  "New dungeons aren't inherently a massive problem," Ife replied. "They're less troublesome because the contamination isn't as bad, the lords are more sane, and most of the time adventurers sack the place fast." She grimaced. "This dungeon was probably created via a sacrifice. Get a slave to form the dungeon then execute them to keep the place from going wild. Noone would even have the chance to notice it opening."

  That sounded really fucked up to Shiina, but then again the people involved seemed pretty terrible. She was starting to empathize with Hafsa's urge to ruin the place. Still that was a later problem. She gave her attention to the door. "Right. Well final boss time."

  Hafsa pushed it open, revealing a shimmering room with a massive sarcophagus almost the size of a human sitting on the far dias. White and black marble tiles cut the room in half, while statues and figurines were scattered around the room, surrounding pedestals and cubbyholes.

  There was no sign of the boss.

  Hafsa leaned forwards, then hesitated. "This place screams trap."

  Shiina tapped the floor right outside, trying to feel the reverberation. The light clack of loose tiles hitting fixed ones made her shake her head. "Uh, yeah the place is full of the damn things."

  "Where's the monster?" Delilah asked, eyes flickering around the room.

  "It's a puzzle boss!" Ife said, the fox's tail wagging happily. "Oh, I've never seen one before! So few dungeons have them, and they're almost never free for outsiders to run."

  Zanya looked less happy, something Hafsa echoed. "That sounds a lot like it's a huge trap."

  Shiina looked closely. "Yeah kinda. Let's see, it's a poison gas trap if we screw up too bad. But there's a certain amount of leeway." She pulled out some chalk and soot. "Let me mark the tiles that are dangerous. Then we can start on the puzzle."

  She carefully moved through the room, marking the deadly tiles in their opposite color. As she got close to the dias she noticed the prickle of a magical trap as well. Peering at it she saw it was a mess of lines. Definitely harder than anything she'd worked on before. And it didn't tie into the mechanical puzzle triggers.

  "Okay." She shuffled back to the group. "The death traps are marked, but there's another trap on the dias itself. It's not connected to the puzzle, so I'm going to have to disable it."

  "Annoying," Hafsa said, ears flicking back.

  Zanya shrugged. "The puzzle means we have something to do while we wait for Shiina to clean that up. Let's take a look around and see what nonsense they want us to do."

  Shiina felt a little disappointed she wouldn't get to go puzzling, but as she turned back to the trap that feeling went away. The maze of connections in front of her was a serious challenge, and it'd have her brain and fingers working at their best.

  Peering deeply at the magic run she identified the primary triggers. Protecting and Killing. But they were each triple bonded to another attribute, making it a stage four trap. Protecting was tied to Reverence. Meanwhile Killing was bound to Rule.

  "Shiina!"

  Her attention snapped behind her, where Hafsa was standing looking annoyed. "What?"

  "Sorry. We need the genealogy tree you made off the puzzle before." She pouted. "Something about animal names matching the left side's pedestals. Figure we should get that now before you started scratching out things."

  Shiina forced herself to only look a little smug as she pulled out the paper. Then an idea occurred to her. "Oh Hafsa, were you the one who killed the Sultana?"

  The catgirl smirked. "I didn't get the kill, but I did help hang her outside."

  "Thanks!" Shiina turned back to the trap. Based on the runes here the Killing attribute was tied to the sultanate's rule. Being on a team with someone who had shattered that rule gave her an advantage dealing with the trap.

  With that in her mind she turned to the Protection attribute. With it tied to Reverence she guessed it was related to paying respects to the dead. She wondered for a moment if bowing politely or something would work, but then they couldn't loot the place. And that defeated the whole purpose!

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  She traced the Reverence rune to Eternal and Rest, which both flowed into Death, linking back to Protection. That all made sense. Now to break it!

  She started with Eternal. That was an easy one. Eternal attributes were super fragile. With that one broken, she was able to crack the Rest attribute. From there Reverence had nothing to tie to. Then it was just cutting the Death from Protection.

  Shiina let her attention wander as she took a quick break. Behind her she heard the others working through the puzzle. "Right. These heretics claim no one can speak for the gods of law and chaos at the same time, so we need to face them away from each other." "Hafsa, do they use the elven magic system here?" "Yeah, why?" "Then the order of the animals should be based on the tiers of life."

  It sounded like they had things covered, so she went back to the trap. She might be able to just smear out Rule, but she instead checked what it tied to.

  This attribute had only one true connection. Ownership. Which tied into Enslave. A mental attack then. Those traps were the least effective, but some of the scariest.

  Still Shiina had a powerful weapon here. She'd just broken the slavery system in the area. After a thought she just shattered the Enslave rune.

  The trap sputtered and flared with power, but the magic died quickly. Shiina relaxed back and waved to the others who were all looking at her. "Trap's clear!"

  "That seemed a little rough at the end," Ife said. "Did the trap insult you?"

  "More we insulted it," Shiina said with a grin. "Need anything for the puzzle?"

  Zanya gestured at the setup so far. "These are the ones we're mostly certain about. Check the mechanics and see if we can fiddle with the rest."

  She checked over the traps seeing there wasn't any tension. "Everything is right so far."

  "Nice!" Hafsa looked pleased. "Guess writing shit down is useful. Now let's see who's right on this one."

  Delilah held up four figurines. "Based on elven life tiers, it should be humans, halflings, and catfolk on the second pillar, with the top one empty for the gods and the elves to the side of the gods."

  "And I'm telling you there's no way the fuckers would ever have themselves anywhere but the top," Hafsa replied.

  "While they're terrible people, it does seem somewhat foolish to insult the gods," Zanya said.

  Ife huffed. "They were quick to spout heresy. I put nothing past them."

  "Well we know where the catfolk and humans and elves go," Shiina pointed out. "Why not put those down, then play with the last one."

  "That was the plan," Delilah said. "Tell us if we get one wrong."

  Shiina nodded. "Okays!" She moved to the side of the pillars and put her hands on them to feel the shifts.

  The catfolk and the humans gave the right results, but when Delilah put down the elf figurine the trap twitched. "Huh? It didn't like that."

  Everyone else looked confused at that. "Elves are supposed to be to the side though," Delilah muttered. "At least in their tier system."

  "Wait," Hafsa shook her head. "Dumb of me. Bet they see elves as slaves too."

  "Worth a try," Zanya said.

  Delilah moved the elf statue, and the trap relaxed, while the puzzle ground to the next step. "That worked!" Shiina said happily.

  "Well based on that," Delilah put the halfling figurine on the top pedestal. With a grinding sound stone block shifted to keep the traps on top of the dias locked. "Done. With the gods to the side."

  Shiina grinned at the clever solution. "And that's everything!"

  "Looting time," Hafsa said, stepping forwards.

  The sarcophagus was amazing to start. The gold plating was thicker here, and the gems around were every color of the rainbow. And in the eyes of the relief sat two large Sun Tears.

  "Let's get this off," Zanya said motioning to Hafsa. The two pushed the sarcophagus open revealing the corpse inside. In its hands sat a bronze scimitar, and a platinum mask encrusted with Sun Tears covered its face.

  Ife and Delilah both stared intently at the artifacts, but relaxed after a moment. "No magic beyond the normal," Ife reported.

  "The sword looks ceremonial," Delilah added. "They probably kept their actual sword in use."

  "So it's worthless except as a relic?" Hasfa asked, a gleam in her eyes.

  "Yeah." Zanya looked at her. "Want it?"

  The catgirl grinned. "Please~?" Shiina waited happily. Something funny was likely gonna happen.

  Zanya hesitated, but after a shrug from Ife and Delilah said, "Sure."

  "Thanks!" Hafsa took the blade, before plunging it through the corpses neck. After decapitating the man she then swept it through the canopic jars lining the back wall next to the sarcophagus. Mummified organs fell out, dropping onto the floor. With a well placed knee she snapped the blade in half.

  As the rest of them watched Hasfa started to pick up the broken pieces of the blade and the organs as she hummed a cheery song.

  "Uh, what do you plan to do with those?" Delilah asked. A fine question, given the woman probably wasn't planning on eating them.

  Hafsa put the last one, the brain, in a sack. "Feed them to the desert animals. Gonna take his head too, if you're cool with that. Figure I'll reforge the sword into something useful. Latrine trowel maybe?"

  "Just make sure to drop them off away from any camping sites," Zanya said before taking the burial mask. "Alright lets get the gems and start peeling off the gold."

  "Sure thing!" Shiina got out her tools. It was time to get the dungeon's final rewards!

  A lot of readers are probably wondering why the elven religion and systems of magic are so well known. Even more readers probably assume that it's because elves are naturally gifted at magic so everyone tried to copy them. Which is close but not quite accurate.

  The reason elven magic is the baseline for so many nations is because they were willing to share.

  Most early mages were super secretive about magic. They hid their findings, covered their casting in all kinds of nonsense, and generally played up the 'unknowable' aspects. Wizards were writing their notes in code so no one could steal them.

  Elves consider magic to be as natural as sunlight, and are happy to teach anyone who asks about it. They aren't usually very good at teaching (or at least they weren't until a few centuries back when a clever elf designed a teaching curriculum) but enough of the knowledge stuck that elven magic became the most common system.

  Groups that were more open about magic, or at least developed traditions and schools to pass their secrets on, generally have their own systems. Ife's a good example of that. The core of magic is apparently still the same, but the way it's explained, and some of the assumptions mages make, are different.