Malachi rolled his shoulders, moving the satchel strap and rubbing at the tender skin beneath that had been rubbed raw by hours of walking with the weighed down satchel moving with his every step and rubbing against his skin through the meagre protection of his cloth shirt. Unfortunately the satchel was something he couldn't leave behind, it contained his food and drink, as well as a whetstone and other basic necessities. Knowing his luck as soon as he'd taken things out of the back to lessen it's weight it wouldn't be long before he'd need those exact things, so with that in mind the extra weight didn't seem as much of a burden.

Pulling the tattered piece of cloth from a pouch on his belt, Malachi unrolled it to reveal a map so faded that only the vaguest of outlines were recognisable. It had taken him many months to decipher the map and find the location that it pointed to, but the fact that the map was so old and presented so many codes and puzzles to unlock it meant that surely the tomb that it lead to would be a mighty bounty indeed. It'd be nice to have some more gold around, he was beginning to run low now, it hadn't taken him long to blow through what he had and now he needed a big score to buy more supplies with. 

One arm drifted down towards his belt, the calloused hand running across the pommel of first a shortsword and secondly a longsword secured to hang just below it. The shield on his back resounded with a faint bang as he reached a fist back to strike it simply to check it was still there, a habit he'd developed on one of his first runs as a way to check that he'd not left anything behind. Everything crucial was where it should be and so he had no issues with continuing his trek across the plains.

Hand after hand, the next handhold was what mattered, followed closely by the next foothold he could find after that, it was at too much of an incline to be able to walk up it normally yet not quite enough that you were required to constantly climb. Unfortunately it was in the between stage where it was awkward to do either at any sort of speed, to try and walk was to likely pitch yourself backwards and to attempt to climb was to spend the whole journey hunched over moving at a snail's pace. 

Malachi let out a long sigh as he crested the rise, placing his hands on his knees and hanging his head as he panted like a dog to replace the air lost in his system. It took him moments only to check the state of his equipment, and as soon as he was satisfied all had made it up with him in good condition he continued to the very summit of the rather unimpressive hill. The next problem presented itself very quickly, that being that the other side of the hill consisted of a rocky cliff face that he would have to find a way to descend, the rope in his bag wasn't long enough to make the whole distance and he doubted that trying to climb down would work all that well for him. If that was what it came to though it was better than spending another day going down the hill and then around it, while he wasn't really on much of a time limit his own impatience meant that he wanted to be there as quickly as he could be.

For now however he undid the buckle and flipped open the cover to his satchel, pulling out a skin of water and some hard flour biscuits he'd bought when he passed the last village several days ago, they weren't particularly fresh by this point but he needed something in his stomach just to give him enough energy for the rest of his journey.

Biscuit in hand Malachi approached the cliff edge, taking a small swallow from his water and holding it in his mouth, sloshing it around for several seconds as he assessed the obstacle before swallowing it and following it up with a bite of biscuit. A slight grimace marred his features as the taste of the biscuit hit, it definitely wasn't all that fresh, but he needed the sustenance and these were all that he had left. Once he'd hit his latest score he could afford meat again, the land around here didn't seem to have much wildlife so he'd gone without for longer than he'd have liked, but after this he was sure he'd be able to afford as much quality foods as his heart could desire.

For now however he needed to get over this cliff, and in the way least likely to get himself killed. It seemed there might be enough holes in the rock for him to climb down, but even with the amount of potential handholds he could see it'd likely still be quite risky, the cliff was easily high enough that if he were to fall he'd count himself lucky to make it out without some form of serious injury. The rope held in his bag wouldn't make the distance, it could potentially do half of it but no more, and if he were to use the rope to get down the first half he then wouldn't be able to bring it with him for the rest of his journey. It seemed as if he'd have to climb down, an idea that he really wasn't looking forward to.

Well there was no time like the present, he wanted to get there as quick as he could and that meant getting down this cliff, in short order the remains of the biscuit was polished off and the water replaced back in his satchel which was then replaced. Swords and shield were strapped tightly as were bow and quiver, if any were to fall from this height they'd likely be damaged, something he couldn't afford considering he had no idea what to expect from his destination.

Malachi sat with his legs dangling over the cliff, taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, heights weren't really an issue for him but still he needed a second to steady himself. That being said if he waited too long he'd never go at all, and with that in mind turned so that he was facing the cliff face and lowered himself gently over the edge, his feet scrabbling momentarily against the rocky surface before finding purchase. In short order he'd lowered himself more so that he was now hanging from the cliff face, hands jammed into cracks in the rock and feet on a small shelf that extended out below him. 

Taking a quick peek down Malachi spotted his next two points of contact, moving first one leg and then the other down to meet them, following closely with first one arm and then another. Speed was good and all but it was useless if you slipped and fell to your death, a calm and safe approach was much better even if it did make things slightly longer. This way at least if he were to lose a foothold his three other limbs would still be in contact with the wall in spots that were already holding his weight, far less risky than just scrambling down. 

Several times his heart skipped a beat as sections of rock crumbled beneath his hands or feet. each time he'd scrabble before eventually righting himself, clinging onto the wall by the limbs still in contact with it and seeking to restore his balance and stability. It was exhilarating, the number of near death experiences that one can possibly have in the space of doing one activity was quite astounding, luckily enough for him they were near death experiences and not the real thing. Practice could have something to do with it, and the fact he was in good physical condition, all in all it was a mosh of several different things that prevented him falling to his death on the way down.

Once his feet eventually touched the floor he gave out a sigh of relief, he'd survived the climb and had managed to do it with only a few minor scrapes and scratches to show for it, definitely a success in his book. It took only a few moments to dust off his clothing and remove any lingering pieces of earth from where they'd been trapped in his clothing, once that was done he removed a small scrap of cloth from his satchel and began wiping the sweat from his face, neck and arms. 

A quick sip of water once again and he was on the move, even in his tired state he could move at a slower walk and that was enough for him, a little movement was better than none at all after all. The fatigue of his travelling and then awkward walk/climb and then climbing down was starting to catch up to him however, and the walking didn't last anywhere as long as he'd initially hoped it would. It got to the point where with each step he felt as if he were dragging a mountain behind him, his feet were lead and his brain synced to the monotonous drag of his feet along through the tough grass of the plains.

Eventually he did have to give up the ghost, slogging onwards only until he found a lightly wooded area that would at least provide him some sort of shelter while he slept. It took nearly no time at all in fact once he got under the cover of the trees for him to find a larger one with a slight alcove in the roots that was perfect for him to set up his bag in. From there he was asleep in several minutes, laid shield over his chest and a sword within easy reach of both hands, of course just in case, he hadn't slept without his weapons within easy reach for years.

A bloodcurdling howl was what awoke Malachi. Seeming to have come from all around him at once yet when his eyes snapped open there was no source in sight. His sleeping mat fell away as he stood, revealing him already with a sword in either hand, his shield strapped to the arm holding his shortsword. Malachi crouched low as he moved slightly away from the tree, preventing himself from being trapped with his back up against it would help in this. 

Was it really too much to ask for a decent nights sleep, from the sound of it he'd been found by wolves, while he'd heard only one it was unlikely that there was only the one considering wolves are pack animals. It was unfortunate that wolves were his hunters, if it were a single animal like a bear he'd have had little issue but the ability of a wolf pack to coordinate it's attack was truly remarkable, and terrifying to a lone traveller. Fortunately for him he'd fought wolves on several occasions, that and picked up tips from other travellers and miscreants on how to combat them with the minimum of issues. Malachai sprinted towards the largest tree in the little area he'd set camp, hooking his arm over the highest branch he could find and climbing for his life, the wolf pouncing out of the shadows missing his feet by mere inches.

Just to be on the safe side he went up several more branches, beyond what he reasonably thought that a wolf could jump, and so unless the wolves had suddenly developed the ability to climb trees he'd be safe where he was. And once he was safe it was time to remove the threat so that he could sleep through the rest of the night in peace. Malachai removed the bow from his back and accompanied it with an arrow drawn from his sheath, pulling the string back to his cheekbone and lining the arrowhead up with the head of the first wolf. While he'd climbed up into the tree three more had appeared, all circling the base of the tree and jumping upwards occasionally as if they believed they had a chance of catching him at the height he was.

A sharp twang sounded followed quickly by a yelp, it wasn't quite the headshot he'd been hoping for but it'd seemingly gone deep into the wolves shoulder, a laming shot if not a killing. The process of drawing and firing was one Malachi repeated near autonomously into the four wolves below him. He wasn't a fantastic shot and the wolves were quite agile creatures, there were more hits than misses but most of said hits weren't anytihng that would cripple or even kill the beasts. One fell under the sheer number of arrows Malachi had put into it, the wolf more resembling a porcupine at this point than a wolf, in contrast one wolf had not even a single arrow in it. This wolf was near double the size of the others, looking more similar to a canine version of a lion than a wolf, it was a safe assumption that this one was the alpha, but how it'd gotten to the size it had was something he wasn't so sure of although presumably magic was involved somewhere down that line.

When his reaching hand met an empty quiver Malachi cursed, he could try and wait things out for the wolves to get bored, but they'd had blood now and he'd had one of theirs so the chances of them leaving were so miniscule they weren't even really worth considering. Unfortunately however that did mean that the only other choice left to him was to fight them, he'd taken on three healthy wolves in a previous fight and lived to tell the tale, (barely) but the larger one threw him off completely simply because he'd never seen one and wouldn't be sure quite how to address it's threat. 

Bow and quiver were hung from a nearby branch and both swords were taken up once again, what he wouldn't give right now for a spear so he could keep his distance, or even a flaming brand so that he could at least attempt to drive them away. He was lacking either of those things however and lamenting that fact wouldn't solve the problem in front of him.

Malachi pounced out of the tree and straight down onto the first wolves head, stunning it with a two footed kick before rolling clear and stabbing it twice in the flank, neither were kill wounds but he'd definitely gotten it's attention. He needed to get the two smaller ones out of the way before he could even consider fighting their alpha really, as it alone would likely be difficult enough for him. A swipe of the wolf's claw was avoided by a hairs breadth as Malachi jumped backward, landing on his feet and leaping forwards as soon as his feet touched the floor to jam his longer blade down the wolves throat and pull it out once again as the beast sagged lifeless to the floor.

The alpha lunged, and a well timed roll under it prevented him from getting anything more than a deep scratch in his shoulder, coming up to the Alpha's rear and in front of the second wolf Malachi first slammed the flat of one blade into the side of the wolf's head, knocking it sideways and then following it up by jamming his shortsword into the side of it's neck twice for good measure.

The two regular wolves were left, now it was just Malachi and their boss facing down, he'd sustained only the scratch from him so far but even that put him at a disadvantage. Malachi rolled his shoulders forward, ignoring the sting of the claw mark, it was likely he'd need to bandage it and add some herbs or he'd get a fever from this, but that was a useless idea if he didn't finish off their boss and manage to survive himself. It had far superior speed and was likely stronger than him also so he'd have to take the defensive and bide his time until he could look for a chance to take it out.

Sticking his shorter blade into the ground Malachi pulled his kite shield onto his arm properly, making no sudden movements as he strapped it on incase they served as a trigger for the wolf to attack him before he was ready for it. Much as he hated sacrificing some of his damage potential by using his shield, in this case it was definitely necessary. 

The wolf's first lunge was met with only air as Malachi had moved around the moment it's feet left the ground, his blade scoring a light scratch on it's flank as it flew past that wasn't deep enough to really do any damage. It crouched low, slinking across the ground closer to him as Malachi backed off to prevent the beast gaining the ground that it desired. The first leap was met with a wild swing of his shield to it's snout, the unfortunate effect he'd forgotten was that this was a huge beast, and as such when he smacked it on the snout it then half fell over him and he was knocked to the floor by it's weight.

It's weight was crushing, the equivalent of a horse half landing on you wasn't something that was particularly pleasant, he'd managed to roll out of the way so that it'd only been a glancing blow as the wolf fell but it still hurt like being hit by a car. It however was only slightly dazed from taking a full strength shield bash to it's head, no way at all that this was a normal wolf. In no time at all it was back to attacking him, and swinging his shield was about all that he could do to counter it's huge paws swiping at him, dodging ducking and diving around as well as catching blows on his shield was all he could do, it wold only take one or two hits of these paws to finish him so he had to ensure that didn't happen.

It was a very fast paced fight, claws were flying everywhere and blades were flashing in the sparse moonlight filtering through the trees, the clang of claw on shield could be heard occasionally yet at no point where their any noises of pain from either of the combatants. Neither could score a hit on the other, the wolf quite simply had so far superior speed that Malachi couldn't land one of his counterattacks, and the wolf couldn't hit him as he merely reacted to it's actions and pulled his shield a small amount to cover anything it was aiming for. At this point in time the fight was basically coming down to a test of endurance, whichever of them could go the longest without flagging would be the winner, the minute they began to slow and make mistakes was the minute that the fight would be lost in.

The unfortunate part of this however was the fact that Malachi knew he'd be the one to tire first, already he was having problems keeping up his initial blocking speed, sweat was dripping from his forehead and blood was welling from the cut he'd obtained on his shoulder. He really needed to end this fight fairly soon or there was going to be a problem. Throughout the course of it they'd been moving around quite a lot so that now the Alpha was between the tree where he'd first launched his assault on the beasts. He had one idea but it was likely to really be quite dangerous for him to try and pull it off, if he mistimed it at all then it was likely he'd die as the margin for error was completely nonexistant.

Malachi blocked a particularly terrrific blow, bashign his shield outwards causing the wolf to jump back to avoid it, as soon as it had moved back he himself took a defensive stance with one leg behind the other bracing himself and crouching slightly waiting for the next attack to hit him. As soon as the wolf left the floor he also launched himself forward directly at it in something similar to a shoulder barge with a shield, smashing into it head on and sending them both flying to the ground. 

A loud thump could e heard as the two hit the floor, seperated by a couple of metres and both very dazed from the head on collision, Malachi less so however due to the fact that it'd been only his shield whereas for the wolf it had been quite literally head on. It took him a moment to shake his head and stagger to his feet, a moment quicker than the wolf however which allowed him to plunge his blade into it's neck, drawing it otu and sticking it in several more times just for good measure to ensure his kill.

Once that was doone he slumoed against the tree that had been his original point of attack, wiping his arm across his brow once again to mop up all of the sweat that had gathered on his face. His shoulder stung badly and so his first order was to make a poultice from the small supply of herbs he kept in his bag, then binding it with cloth ripped from a spare shirt to his shoulder, it'd have to do for now only time could really heal this sort of wound. Malachi gazed over at the corpse of the wolf, it really was a big old bastard, there was no way it'd naturally grown to that size. 

Once he had taken a sufficient rest and some food and water Malachi began gathering up his arrows, climbing the tree once again to retrieve his bow and quiver, filling up his quiver with arrows and putting both on his back again before tidying up the area he'd been camping in. He wasn't going to be able to sleep now really, and it was likely the corpses would attract other animals, he didn't want the trouble of more fighting.

By the time the sun had risen properly he'd already been travelling for several hours, while his sleep had been interrupted by the sudden appearance of the wolf pack he'd gotten enough that he'd be able to function for now at least. Possibly at some point later if he could find a spot to lay down and get some more sleep then he'd take the chance, but it wasn't the thing at the top of his list and it wasn't like he was going to die if he didn't. 

One thing he couldn't argue about was that he'd made good time, the several hours less sleep that he'd had had mean that he'd gotten in a couple of hours worth of extra travelling, and as such he was ahead of schedule which was fantastic to him. Just because he was already ahead of schedule didn't mean that now he could slack off, if anything it was motivating him to move even faster in order to see how much time he could cut off of his estimated time of arrival already. If he could get there earlier he could get to looting the place much quicker, meaning that he'd get his money sooner, what wasn't to like from that, and what part of it wasn't worth him just walking a little bit faster and putting in the smallest amount more effort into the walking just to be there a bit quicker. If the score was as big as he believed then there was no issue.

It'd taken weeks of research even to find this place, poring over books all day and night, digging through tomes none had looked at in years and reading every poem, rhyme, and story hoping just for a glimpse of truth hidden inside one of them. Finally, he'd found what he believed to be the correct location and he wasn't far off now. The tomb of Farcagar the Black, one of the most evil mages to have ever walked on Argelon, however he'd also been the richest man to ever walk Argelon, so if this truly was his tomb it could set him up for life, not to mention what sort of magical artifacts he'd find.

The sparse vegetation of the plains even was starting to disappear, it growing smaller and tougher, parched of the water that it, as every living creature, needed to survive. Tough packed soil slowly gave way to sandier ground, until eventually you'd be hard pressed to find any ground that wasn't made up of sand, stretching as far forwards as the eye could see, not that the eye could see particularly far as dunes rose and fell chaotically throughout the landscape.

Through this Malachi continued, trudging onwards and cursing that it was in a desert, sand gave way every time he placed his foot on it making walking twice as hard and three times as energy consuming. His spare shirt wrapped around his head to keep the sun off he continued, taking small sips from his canteen only when it was absolutely necessary, he was unlikely to find any water out here in the desert and his canteen wouldn't sustain him for all that long if he wasn't careful with it.

When night fell he covered himself in the sand, using it as an insulator to sleep under, better than the meagre sleeping mat he'd brought with him by far yet still not keeping the chill from him. It was two extremes, scorching sun during the day and near enough to arctic cold during the night, definitely not his most favourite of environments. He kept going however, happy at least in the knowledge that now he was very close, the map had shown his target destination to be within the desert, and in a desert he was so it couldn't be that much farther to walk now surely...right?

When he finally spotted the cracked building he first didn't believe it, it seemed like a mirage coming out of the sand and he treated it as such. Burnt all over and head light from the heat he'd assumed that it was just another piece of fiction, similar to the oasis that he'd thought he'd seen several times now. It was only once he got closer and the building didn't dissapear that he realised it was real. 

The monolith stood tall and weathered, a large rectangular block rising up high seemingly near to reaching the sun, partially made into a dune from the flurries of the sands now gathered up around it's sides. All Malachi could do was hope that he could still find a way in, digging through the sands certainly wasn't something he was up for, and in his current state he likely wouldn't be able to dig that much, even if sand was a particularly easy material to dig through, which of course it wasn't. 

At least he was here, that was a good part out of all of this, he was burned, beaten and parched beyond what he'd ever been before but now he was here. He'd need some time once inside to recuperate a bit and restore some energy but once he was done he could get to it. Maybe if he was lucky there'd even be a well of some sort that he could refill his water from, he doubted it but he had enough water that he could last still so it wasn't his primary concern, his primary concern was getting in there and finding a place to take a seat and rest, who knew what dangers could be in there waiting for him.

Malachi began to climb up one of the large dunes that had formed up against the outside walls of the monolith, the sand however had other ideas, shifting and falling as he climbed to make it incredibly difficult for him to move properly. It was a real struggle for him to make even a metre of progress, if it were possible for him to sweat more than he already was then he would, but the heat was already causing him to sweat so much it looked like he'd just walked out of a lake. Another way of doing it would be to dig his hands in for more traction, but the sand was boiling hot and he'd likely burn his hands, he had nothing left to wrap them in either unless he wanted to dismantle his spare clothing and sleeping mat, neither of which he was willing to lose.

It was a scramble, a very long winded and annoying scramble that caused a lot of burning skin and curses, but eventually he did make it to the top, it would have been significantly easier had he been willing to remove his weapons and shield but he had no idea what he was going to find inside of the tomb and so reasoned they were better kept for now even if they did cause some trouble. He made it to the top eventually anyway without needing to lose the equipment, yes it would have likely been easier for now but later on he knew he'd regret it, and what was a bit of extra trouble now in order to actually survive later. 

Once he'd finally reached the top of a dune it was quite simple to get in, far easier than he'd expected it to be. He was about three quarters up the height of the Monolith by this point he'd climbed so high, there were several broken openings and windows to choose from and then simple for him to sling a grappled rope through one of these and climb up and in. Finally he was inside his potential biggest score ever.