Free 2012-08-The Twelve-Hour Statue by Unknown

It was quite certain. Xaven’s next step would kill him.
    The halfling tomb raider had been doing this long enough to know that he was standing on a pressure plate. In fact, Xaven had known of his predicament for over eleven hours now, a fact carefully measured by the notched candle to his left, now slowly burning down to a stump. During that time, he had been left to stand in as near perfect stillness as he could manage. A stretch, a sneeze, a momentary lapse of concentration—one of these things would eventually kill him. Judging by the fatigue of his aching muscles, it would be sooner rather than later. Xaven had had plenty of time to contemplate the trap’s mechanism. Indeed, he had experimented with a disarmed deathplate once before, a year prior. As soon as any portion of his weight came off the plate, the ceiling arches would collapse. And judging by the placement of those arches, a hundred feet of stone corridor would come down on top of him, cascading all the way back to the entrance.
    Xaven blamed himself. If he had been a split-second sharper, he wouldn’t be standing in the exact spot his long-dead killer had anticipated. Admittedly, he noted with twisted pride, a split second slower and he would already be dead. Yet that particular achievement was soon to be regrettably academic.
    The issue now was what would happen when he finally hit the twelve-hour mark and the candle went out, plunging him into darkness. At that point, keeping his center of balance would become exponentially harder. The candle had been left by his fellow tomb raider, Hrokon—a half-orc who should have been back seven hours ago. The reality of the situation was quickly becoming clear: that either Hrokon wasn’t coming back in time, or he wasn’t coming back at all. Technically, it wouldn’t really matter which was the case, but the former pointed to incompetence, while the later was betrayal. Xaven had already decided that if it was a betrayal, he owed the half-orc a serious pummeling in the afterlife.
    And vengeance in the afterlife would be his only option for revenge. As a successful tomb robber, Xaven had enough gold stashed away to be revived. But with his body buried under a thousand tons of rubble, his corpse would never be retrieved. This life, his first, was going to be his last on Golarion after all. Perhaps Hrokon was off somewhere spending their revival funds right now. The damned half-orc was a lot smarter than he like to let on. Admittedly, if their situations were reversed, Xaven would also have given desertion some serious thought.
    In any event, Xaven estimated he had less than a half-hour to go before the candle burned its last, at which point he would have a decision to make. He could either play it out until he inevitably slipped or fainted from exhaustion, or he could pick his moment, step off the plate, and welcome the rock shower in the last of the dying light. Presently, Xaven was leaning towards controlling his destiny and stepping off, but he still hadn’t come up with a sufficiently clever line for his final words.
    The fact that an appropriate zinger eluded him was, for Xaven, a strong argument that he wasn’t meant to let things end just yet. The halfling considered whether the ordeal was driving him crazy. Then again, debatably Xaven had lost his sanity a long time ago. Anyone who robs the dead, fully knowing they leave traps of this nature, couldn’t be quite right in the head.
    Yet here he was. Forgotten temples had always been one of the halfling’s most cherished targets, both for their relics and for their inevitable death traps—two items that, until about eleven and a half hours ago, had been among Xaven’s favorite things.
    A voice came from above: “Well, the ceiling is still here. Are you down there, little buddy?”
    It was Hrokon, calling from above and ahead, near the temple’s entrance. Xaven stilled himself, fighting the sudden rush of excitement. Every movement had to stay under