(Scars do not appear to be cause of death –shock ... - Bad Request

one of his well-honed insults as the gith meditated.
The sooner I got this over with, the sooner I could rescue them from each
other.
I scrounged the key from the sarcophagus and trudged to the seal and into
my fate.
Spreading my arms like a hawk about to take flight, I embraced the spear of
light as it sliced through my body.
~~~~~
I stumbled weakly towards the entrance.
Tendrils of smoke curled from my flesh, the only hint of warmth in this cold
tomb. My limbs were rubbery. My muscles were weak. The strength was
flowing back into my body in a sluggish trickle, and the keys clinked in my
loose grip.
I almost didn't notice that I had passed the arch without being teleported
once again.
Collapsing on my back I began to laugh. Victory was mine and I was too
weak to fully claim it. The chuckles echoed cold and hollow against the walls,
taunting me in yet another bitter twist of irony.
Eventually the nausea trickled away and the weakness crumbled from my
body. My stomach began to growl and I thought back to the last time I had
food... a half-cooked cranium rat and a crust of bread that could've been
used to cobble the floors. Softening the damn thing in mildewed water had
improved it little.
Strange how you suddenly think of the little things when you're inches from
your greatest goal.
I stood over the grand sarcophagus. The workmanship was rigid and alien,
and gripped with multiple bronze fingers. There was no moisture to tarnish
the metal, but mere age had begun to turn the edges green. The slab
covering it was carved with a rigid, utilitarian pattern, and the pedestal the
whole thing rested on was inlaid with more bronze and gray-brown stone.
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