When the echoes of screaming died, they found nothing. No trace of flesh or bone or scattered gear where a delver might have fallen, no blood on the walls. At least, they were fairly certain that the rivulet running thick between the cobblestones could not be blood. It came from nowhere, trickling through a groove they swore up and down hadn't been there before, pooling in the basin of an old sarcophagus-- and that was where the 'nothing' became a major concern. Everything about this place suggested a resting place of great honor. There were shelves, pedestals, crates scattered about the room, all long since robbed of whatever finery had been left. Hints of colorful, long-faded paint still clung to the curving walls. And there in the center, an empty grave. 

Melite waited by the odd artifact, every muscle taut, while Rajinder returned to their waiting charges to report. While she watched the dark liquid pooled ever deeper in the sarcophagus. Where it sloshed against the stones it dried, then began to crack. The mess looked for all the world like a scabbing wound, and in spite of herself Melite began backing away. That was... wrong. Foul. She could not tell whether she truly smelled rot, or only expected to. 

The pool was several inches deep now and still rising. Melite could hear the others voices, now-- whispers carried from behind to echo oddly against the swelling substance. It almost sounded as though the pool did the talking, not her companions. 

"-- just left her?!" 

"Someone had to collect-- was faster!" 

Good sense, fear, and a morbid curiosity fought a war in Melite's head. Curiosity won. As the liquid rose nearly to the inner edge of the sarcophagus, she took two tentative steps nearer to that abandoned grave. Something seemed to move beneath the surface... swimming or... or perhaps drowning. Whoever owned that first distant scream must have fallen in! Suddenly frantic, Melite charged to the edge of the sarcophagus and peered into the pool, desperate to catch any glimpse of the drowning soul-- 

•☽────✧˖°˖☆˖°˖✧────☾•

"She's just around here--" Rajinder-- more than finished with Jasmine's whining-- lead the group around the bend to the circular chamber where he had left Melite, only to grind to a sudden halt. Wide-eyed, breathless, he stared at the empty chamber in disbelief. All that remained on the sarcophagus was bloodstains, faded with time to little more than rust. "Sh-she was right--" 

"She must have wandered off," Cyneric scoffed, strutting into the empty room with little care-- and no regard for Rajinder's obvious fear. Jasmine was not so oblivious. 

"What happened?" she snapped, stepping up to seize Rajinder's gaze. He could only shake his head. 

"I don't know... she was standing right here, and there was something-- blood, I think? Pouring into the sarcophagus, and then..." Rajinder swallowed hard. 

"We have to find her." 

"Well she can't have gone far," there was laughter in Cyneric's voice. Rajinder wouldn't have blamed Jasmine, in that moment, if she turned around and struck her fiance. 

"Let's... stay together this time," Rajinder whispered. Jasmine leveled a baleful glare at him, which he thought he rather deserved, but raised no objection.