Zahara, Satina:

Ophelia continues concentrating on the arcane awareness granted by her Detect Magic ritual even though nothing has yet been revealed.

She, for one, listens intently to Thoth's lecture, though how much of it she absorbs remains unclear.

"The sphinx.  Not the riddler but the riddle itself..." she mutters obscurely as she trails behind the group.

Satina halts as she notices something. "Zahara, hold up. There's a pressure plate right at the exit of this chamber." She points out the spot to the others. 

She had listened to Thoth's words about the pyramid. Or had sort of listened - she was more focused on looking out for any dangers. And she wasn't sure she understood all of what was said. 'Are elemental convergence points a real thing?' she wondered. But not for long, as her attention focused in on what she presumes to be a trap.  

"Can we get past it? Or do we need to figure out a way to disable it?" she asks. 

Zahara exhales softly through her nose as Satina confirms what she already suspects. Her pale gaze lingers on the pressure plate, then lifts to the silent sentinels that flank the passage. The air in the chamber feels heavier now, as if the walls themselves are holding their breath.

“So be it,” she murmurs, stepping forward until she stands just short of the plate.

She looks to the others. “A weighted object of similar mass might spring it from a safe distance. Or if someone has finer tools, we could try a manual disarm.”

At Zahara's concept of springing the pressure plate with weighted object(s), Ophelia snaps out of her distracted mumbling to summon her spectral Mage Hand.  Potentially to lift and carry weighted object(s) onto the plate to trigger the trap.

She then goes cross-eyed for a moment as if remembering something, and begins digging into her pack, producing a set of Thieves' Tools which she begins to extract and arrange as if she is proficient.  She raises a questioning eyebrow to the group as to how they wish to proceed.

"Please stand back, this usually works but you never know with pressure plates." Nephthys says, seeming fairly confident but nodding and motioning for Ophelia to assist her as she tries to disarm the trap. "While we could possibly set it off it is hard to know what would be set off exactly. We can't rule out the tunnel will be blocked or something so at least trying to disarm it should be the better option." She says to no one in particular as she kneels by the pressure plate and brings out her own tools to get to work.

Thieves Tools: 25 (nat 20) + Guidannce: 3

Satina does back up a bit, allowing room for Ophelia and Nephthys to come forward to help.  She stays alert to see what happens. 

Ophelia kneels unceremoniously on the stone floor between pillars and statues with the earnest attention of an eager child, Thieves' Tools laid out, handing each one to Nephthys as needed with her Mage Hand to help disarm the trap.  Just far enough back to (hopefully) be out of harm's way just in case.

Zahara watches Nephthys and Ophelia work with the focused stillness. Her hand remains loosely at her side, fingers brushing her staff. Instead, she steps back the requested pace, keeping her eyes on the floor, the statues, the dark corridor beyond.

“Agreed,” she says quietly in response to Nephthys’ logic. “If this trap was meant to protect something sacred, or dangerous, it may trigger more than darts and falling stones.”

She moves to the edge of the chamber, just behind one of the winged statues, positioning herself at an angle with a clear view of the hallway and her companions. The falcon-headed creature’s expressionless gaze mirrors her own.

Her eyes flick to Ophelia, noting her childlike enthusiasm, the Mage Hand dutifully passing tools like an invisible apprentice. A faint smile, brief and quiet, ghosts across Zahara’s lips. “Careful fingers. Let’s hope the stone respects them.”

As the two work, Zahara raises her hand again and whispers a soft incantation, casting Druidcraft once more, not for weather or blooming petals this time, but for the subtlest hint of change in the air. A drift of dust, a shift in pressure, a tremor beneath the stone. Anything that might signal the trap’s hair-trigger tension giving way.

Zephirah lingers a pace behind the working pair, still smarting from her earlier misread of the floor. She lifts her viol beneath her chin and draws a hushed, suspenseful tremolo—just enough to cloak the chamber in a low hum while Nephthys and Ophelia ply their picks. “Are we certain this isn’t some long‑forgotten doorbell rather than doom?” she quips softly between strokes, eyes fixed on the pressure plate as the melody hangs in tense anticipation.

The young dark-haired woman casts a curious glance back at the tiefling violinist. "Considering this is a tomb I would be surprised if it had a doorbell, but if it is indeed a doorbell I wouldn't expect a friendly greeting from whoever the doorbell would summon. Either way, better safe than sorry if you ask me?" She says quietly, returning to her work with the pressure plate while humming softly to the tune of the violin.

Zephirah lets the tremolo fade into a single soft chord. “Fair—‘doorbell’ was poetic license,” she murmurs with a wry half‑smile. “I only mean the plate might release a latch or counterweight we’ll actually need to lower later passages. Just a possibility, mind you; odds are it’s a dart‑spitting menace like every other royal welcome mat. Carry on—I’ll trust your hands either way.”

As the others speculate and watch attentively, Nephthys and Ophelia, working together, are able to jam the pressure plate to prevent it from triggering (success!).

Examining the carvings and statutes:

History DC 12:

Arcana DC 10:

Ahead, to the west, an incredibly long causeway appears to lead to the pyramid's interior. Shafts of sunlight shine down from slots in the ceiling of this long, straight corridor, illuminating the piles of sand that have accumulated beneath each slot. Elaborate carved reliefs, their paint now faded with time, cover the walls on both sides of the passage, depicting the legendary deeds of a great pharaoh.

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"Good work." Nephthys says to the peculiar elf beside her, giving her an approving thumbs up before pocketing her tools. "Okay everyone, it is safe to move on now. There will definitely be more traps ahead though so lets try to find them too and we'll do our best to disarm them."

Meanwhile Thoth is caught up in studying the walls, mumbling to himself and taking mental notes for his research.

Ophelia diligently packs up and stows her Thieves' Tools with her spectral Mage Hand, which remains active.  She continues concentrating on Detect Magic in a 30' aura around herself as she falls in line near the front behind whoever is leading.

Focusing on all of that, she has little spare attention to discern much about the carvings and statues despite gazing at them with  slack-jawed wonder.  She implicitly trusts anything the others say on the matter, particularly Thoth.

Through the sands, the dark threads flow, to this place lost long ago,
Though moth to flame, my soul yet follows

Zahara exhales, quiet and steady, as the faint click of the jammed mechanism settles into silence. She watches for a moment longer, waiting for a rumble, a dart, but none comes.

"Well done," she says softly to Nephthys and Ophelia, stepping forward. Her footsteps carry her past the disarmed plate and into the corridor beyond.

The sudden spill of golden sunlight from above glints off the sand in soft waves, and she slows, tilting her head slightly as she takes in the murals lining the walls.

She crouches on the tile, scanning the floor and the gathered sand before staring up at the  first beam of light.

"Each shaft might mark something," she trails off, narrowing her eyes at the ceiling before looking to the group.

Survival Check to determine if the sand has been recently disturbed by others that may have come ahead of them: 7
Investigation check to compare the tile illuminated by the shafy of light to an adjacent one to determine if they differ in some way: 17

Satina breathes a sigh of relief as Nephthys and Ophelia manage to successfully neutralize the pressure plate. She heads forward, stepping into the corridor as well. "Shall we move along?" she asks. "Not much point in staying put."  She keeps a sharp eye out for any signs of movement or danger. (Perception: 9)

The young dark-haired woman nods and cautiously follows Satina down the long corridor, as does Thoth, still excitedly studying it's walls. 

Perception
Nephthys: 13
Thoth: 17

Zephirah falls in behind Satina, boots crunching lightly through the thin drifts under each ceiling slot. She lets her fingers trail the wall reliefs, then frowns at the modest scatter of granules on the otherwise clean tiles. “For a hall buried to the eyebrows in legend, there’s precious little dune in here,” she murmurs, voice pitched for the group. “Either the builders left some clever way for the wind to empty itself, or someone’s swept the path more recently than the murals suggest.” She keeps pace, eyes flicking between the sand piles and the distant darkness ahead. (Nature to estimate if the amount of sand is reasonable, given for how long it was, or wasn't? exposed to a harsh environment: 13)

Zahara does not notice any disturbances in the sand. Nor does she discern any differences in the floor where the light hits.

Satina leads the way, stepping into the causeway.

Thoth recognizes that the carvings on the walls of the causeway represent he deeds of Sekh‑pa‑Mefer III, the Pharaoh of Sphinxes.

Zahara figures that the amount of sand in the causeway could make sense, if the shifts above were covered in hard-packed sand that wasn’t disturbed, such as might be the case with a deep burial.

Zahara and Thoth remember from their external observations that the causeway extends quite far to connect the outer temple and hall to the pyramid, well over two hundred meters. But just over one hundred meters ahead, the tunnel seems to stop at a wall or door of stone.

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