Luckily, the climb turned out to be as easy as Alex said. The shaft had plenty of evenly placed hand and foot holds and was narrow enough to wedge in place. Even so, it took the pair over an hour to make it to the top.<br/><br/>Alex hauled himself onto the ledge and flopped to the ground, panting for breath. "Holy shit. That was a hell of a climb!" Dan made it up just a little ways behind him. They both took a minute to catch their breath, but as the noise of their panting subsided, they both heard a faint scraping sound coming from ahead...<br/><br/>"What the hell was that?" Alex murmured with only a little alarm as he sat up. "Probably just a rat..." He shone the light towards the sound, giving them their first look at the chamber they were now in. A look they were unquestionably not prepared for.<br/><br/>The chamber seemed to be several dozen feet across and elliptical in shape, with the shaft at one of the narrow ends. Starting just a little past where the pair rested, the floor was littered with bodies. Ancient and withered, little more than skeletons, and draped in the remnants of ancient arms and armor. They had clearly died by violence.<br/><br/>As they both stared in shock, the scraping sound came again from the far side of the room. Alex lifted the light slowly, his hand shaking with trepidation. As the flashlight crept down the length of the chamber, the bodies lay more and more thickly, until finally, the source of the sound was revealed.<br/><br/>What could only be described as an emaciated corpse stood at the far end of the chamber, mired in a pile of the dead. It wore the broken remains of some kind of armor, and it's shriveled body was hacked and mangled so that it looked like it might fall to pieces any moment. In fact, many of the skeletal bodies it seemed to be entangled with still gripped the weapons piercing through it's body.<br/><br/>"Wh-what the fuck!?" Alex whispered. The creature definitely seemed to react to the light. It began struggling against the ensnaring bones, raising a terrible clatter.<br/><br/>Alex clicked off the light, but the clatter continued, and the creatures eyes flared into angry red pinpricks, focused right on the two of them. He turned the light back on. "Nope, it sees in the dark!" Alex scrambled to his feet, holding the light on the creature as it struggled to free itself.