We continued on into Heliopolis, thinking that a quick excursion to rest, resupply, and do some investigation was just the ticket. A day or two there and we could continue on to Pi-Rameses.
Unfortunately, Raam's duty quite literally came calling, and we learned the hard way that there is sometimes such a thing as too much information...
3 HetHert, Inundation, Year 4 of the Reign of Rameses II (September 19th, 1275 BCE)
Just outside of Heliopolis, on a boat we "liberated" from its former owner
Discussed Ay's appearance and our next steps, after pitching the zombie bodies into the river. (Crocodiles aren't picky, after all.) It was very strange--I was all set to tell them about Usi actually being a human, but somehow I just never got around to it. They did (mostly) believe me about Ay having drained Usi's life and memories, and Mayet looked quite disturbed when I said that Ay may be after Usi, me, and her specifically.
Pepy gave us some more information about Ay; he probably killed two pharaohs and definitely married his own granddaughter in order to attain the throne. Once he got there, however, his reign was short and mostly incompetent, and he built many monuments in a very short period of time. He was in a hurry, as he was seventy years old when he ascended to the throne. When Horemheb succeeded him, he went on something of a rampage, destroying all of Ay's monuments and removing his name from all the records as he could. He more or less attempted to erase Ay from history.
The only place of Ay's that Horemheb was unable to destroy was a funerary shrine that was then on the border between Egypt and Nubia. At this point, we believe it actually may lie within Nubia proper, as Rameses I lost quite a bit of land in the south and Seti I did not retake all of it.
After describing what Ay did to Usi, Terik and Mayet put their heads together and figured out that Ay is what they call a soulseeker, an undead creature that absorbs the life, memory, and abilities of its victims. In other words, it's very likely that what Ay stole from Usi, he'll never get back. And Ay is likely a strong soulseeker, which means he is probably an extremely well-rounded individual who has none of the weaknesses associated with fighters, clerics, mages, etc.
Just the news I wanted to hear about someone I strongly suspect has been following us around for a while now or so.
My real question is, what exactly does he want? And why did he wait until the middle of a battle to strike?
There was also the question of what Khafre was doing. We knew he'd been heading towards Pi-Rameses a month ago, and it appeared that he was sailing back upriver, so it was likely that whatever he'd been after he'd accomplished. We decided to head towards Pi-Rameses, but we needed to hit Heliopolis to restock our supplies, and we thought we'd stop by the Temple of Osiris. Terik wanted to ask the high priest if there was a way to turn off the call that the Osirean longsword gives off, and I wanted to ask if there was a good way to fight a soulseeker. Pepy came along with us, Usi as always beside me.
The high priest, thankfully, was neither evil nor undead, and helpfully showed Terik how to turn off the damn longsword. Finally, we are no longer broadcasting our exact location to every undead in the area! (But now we have possession of the barge used by an undead pharaoh, quite possibly just as visible. We'll see.)
It turned out that the Temple had had a run-in with Ay three days ago; he'd gotten in through their shields, only detecting as undead intermittently. We knew that was possible, because of the crystal we have that does that very thing. There is at least another item out there that will cast that particular set of spells, then. The Temple was very confused after they tracked him and discovered that his tracks turned into hyena tracks near the river.
I muttered, "Of course they did." And now I know Ay still has a hyena form. In a way, he is still somewhat one of us. Which means he is doubly dangerous, because he knows us, knows how we hunt and how we are hunted. I asked if there was a good way to fight one, and the answer was, of course, that there was not.
The Osirean Temple had been under occasional attack for the last several weeks, including several undead who had run in armed with delayed-blast fireballs, and done a fair amount of damage. The high priest surmised that whoever was building the army wanted there to be as few people as possible to oppose them once they were finished.
After saying respectful goodbyes to the high priest of Osiris (who is a man I would not like to see on the other side of the battlefield!) we wandered towards the Temple of Imhotep. It was a small Temple, but the high priest there was quite helpful, telling us that Imhotep, aside from being a master architect and artifact creator, was also a bit of a prophet. Evidently, he scattered some things around Egypt for a group of people he foretold that he called the Seven--sometimes the Fated Seven, sometimes the Doomed Seven. There are no real records of these prophecies; evidently, Imhotep took his personal papers with him when he became a god.
There is no sensation quite as uncomfortable as knowing that you're included in a prophecy that was first spoken over a thousand years ago.
They did look at our artifacts and told us that they were very likely keyed to each of us alone--not that anyone could use mine without removing my hand first, but still. They said, also, that the only clue that Imhotep had left to what the artifacts did was, "wish".
(Later on, discussing it, we concluded based on an experience that Mayet had that the artifacts would respond to a deep and urgent desire of some sort. Under what exact circumstances, it is hard to tell, but Mayet evidently set hers in battle yesterday. Now I have to wonder what whim of mine my artifact will decide to satisfy; if I can choose it, I should choose something useful--but what? An extra spell, perhaps something useful that I can't cast yet? Healing, perhaps? Or possibly communication? Oh, the possibilities.)
I asked, out of curiosity at the idea that Imhotep may have left more artifacts lying around for us, if he had any other known workshops. They said that he had been known to keep a workshop in Thebes, and another in Gebelein.
Which is, by the way, the town which Mayet and I are from. Another piece of this strange puzzle, this one adding much more mystery than it resolves. Why on earth would Imhotep have had a workshop in an insignificant farming village on the Nile?
Afterwards, we reconvened at the boat. The rest reported an uneventful day of shopping; Mayet said that she showed the people at the Temple of Hathor her new crown, and they were duly impressed. Evidently, not only was it an artifact of singular power, but it was also consecrated to Hathor--not unheard of in an artifact, but certainly unusual.
I'd bought some honeycomb for Tetikare, just to see the look on her face when she ate it. (Just wait till I make her some date balls. Silly Amunet, never giving her a chance to try these things!)
Tetikare and Amunet had heard very little, other than that a part of the city had been blocked off due to the amount of undead activity that had been sighted within it. Raam had spent the entire day out of sight, sharpening his sword. It's a big sword. It takes a lot of sharpening. So he claims, at least.
Tetikare had run into someone who appeared to be what she is--a djinn, a denizen of the elemental plane of Air, who like her was evidently unable to go home. (It seems to be a theme among us, we exiles; the hyenas exiled from the Dreamtime, Tetikare from her home plane.) His name was Ka, and she said he'd expressed interest in traveling with us. Several of us went with her to talk to him and check him out. He checked out as both not evil and not undead, and he was wearing a necklace that looked much like Tetikare's whirlwind ring--the same symbol, and all. A gift from Imhotep himself, he claimed.
We agreed to take him on, though I at least will be keeping a sharp eye on him. He may in fact be what he seems, but we'll see.
While we were talking over our respective days, from outside the boat came the ringing of booted feet marching in time. Unfortunately, the footsteps stopped on the dock we were moored at. I went up to see who it was and what they wanted. Up top, I could see that the men were a group of Pharaoh Guards, hauling a bedraggled-looking Unas between them. "Can I help you?"
"We need to see Lord Raam, on a manner of some urgency."
I considered my options and decided that trying to tell these people that Raam was elsewhere might in fact get me killed, and told them to wait a moment. Raam looked cranky but went out to talk to them. Curious, I followed, as did the rest of us.
It turned out that the Unas was accused of committing murder in the process of escaping; he had supposedly killed the wife of his owner, a man named Artereus. He had requested a stay of execution, and so the pharaoh guards had come to find Raam as the person of highest station within the city.
(Amunet, at this point, murmured something to Raam. Afterwards, it was revealed that Amunet had said that Artereus was in league with the Anubites. How he knew that, we'll never know.)
The Unas, when taken aside and given one of those nuts, said that he had been slated for execution, and chosen to run. While escaping, he had ducked around a corner just as Artereus' wife had come around the same corner in the opposite direction, and had taken an entire flight of arrows meant for him.
Raam thought about this and then called for Artereus to come to the high courthouse in Heliopolis tonight at dusk. Pepy went to scout the courthouse; beneath the building was an underground temple of Anubis--underground in both the literal and metaphorical sense of the term.
We could already tell that this was not going to go well.
However, while we were waiting for Pepy to return, we heard yet again feet marching in time--only these seemed to be metallic, as if they were mailed. Raam gave up and went outside, and the man in front identified himself as the First Prime, and said that Rameses told him to go find Raam and report to him. Raam made what would have been some very injudicious comments about the person of the pharaoh coming from anyone but him, and then shrugged philosophically, giving in to inevitability.
We noted that the Prime and his men were all mailed in that same armor that the Imhotep artifacts gave us; it seems to have been a standard thing of his. (And here I am, excited about the prospect of creating a Magic Missile wand! I suppose everyone has to start somewhere.)
We all went to the courthouse, and stationed Pharaoh Guards at the grates that allowed access to that underground temple. I put on all of the detection spells I usually carry, and we went inside a courtyard, the only place large enough to hold the entire assembly.
Artereus arrived about the same time that we did. His litter was glowing brightly with protection magic, and I noted that he had in tow about fifty invisible undead Unas. His few visible warriors were carrying the torn body of a woman that appeared to have been savaged by some sort of animal.
Again, we noted that this was unlikely to turn out well. Raam seemed to be determined to see this through, though, and asked for the accusation from Artereus, who had stepped out of his litter. Artereus repeated the charges, and then Raam called a witness. The moment that witness began to speak, Artereus' guards rained a hail of arrows on the poor man.
Raam very quickly pronounced a death sentence for Artereus and swept his sword through him--and the man's image sparkled and disappeared. Thinking quickly, Amunet slid that land mine we had gotten a while back under the litter, upsetting it.
With that explosion, there was a grinding noise as the stone of the floor melted away, and the courtyard was suddenly full--with zombie Unas, coming out of invisibility, and Anubis clerics. Raam rent the litter in two with his sword and Artereus jumped out and began running, Raam following close on his heels.
I cast Fly and then appointed myself Botherer of Anubis High Priests. This, I determined, was a hazardous profession as the man kept on slinging Flamestrikes at me. (However, while he was doing that he wasn't attacking any of the others! Sometimes, a mage's best use is as a distraction.) While I wasn't being set on fire, I had a lovely view of the battle below. Raam and Amunet were chasing Artereus around, Terik used the Osirean longsword to attract all the Unas in the courtyard to him then turned it off and ran away as Pepy lit them all on fire, Mayet healed me something like twice as that damn high priest kept on hitting me (and otherwise made herself useful) and the Pharaoh Guards made a good accounting for themselves against the priests and the undead.
We received reinforcements towards the end; the local Hathor temple turned out in force to help. Finally, we prevailed. Raam captured Artereus, we killed the Anubis high priest, and the day was won. We put nearly all of the enemy to death, then tended to our hurts. I noticed that Mayet picked the most handsome of the Pharaoh Guards to heal and was quite cheered by this. Perhaps she's finally starting to notice the other sex.
Mayet cast a Zone of Truth and we questioned Artereus. He said he was raising an undead army to catch Rameses between the Hittites and his army in a pincer grip. Menes is in league with the Hittites and the Temple of Anubis; while we knew Menes was working with the Anubites, that he had also allied with the Hittites was new information.
Back at his own estate, he said that there were left a few mercenaries, about a hundred and fifty Unas who were waiting to be killed and converted into zombies, and one Unas who had been killed and somehow shrugged off the animate dead--and returned himself to actual life! He'd also had two wives die today--one shot by arrows, the other that he'd given to the zombies to kill so he could bring her body here. He named three co-conspirators, when asked.
Raam pronounced the sentence, stripping Artereus and his family of their lands, wealth, and titles, and Artereus himself and the people he had named were sentenced to death. Raam carried out Artereus' sentence, and that was that.
Terik questioned the dead high priest, who said that his direct superior was someone named Sesostris. Sesostris, as far has he knew, held a position in the artifact collection in the royal palace in Pi-Rameses. And one more mystery was solved--how the Osirean longsword managed to make its way out of the royal collection back towards Thebes.
(So how many other artifacts have liberated themselves, then? We'll see.)
We still do not know what Khafre was up to. We still have no idea how to deal with Ay. Usi gave me a demonstration of how, exactly, he could take control of me if he desired the other day, which was...disconcerting. If, I have to admit, very funny. And I have a strange feeling that we are going to have to go to Ay's last remaining funerary shrine, all the way up the Nile to Nubia.
If we do, we will go right past Gebelein. I never wanted to go back. I still don't.
But what if whoever sent that message--I am assuming it was Ay--lied? What if they are not all dead? What if they're in trouble and somehow waiting for Mayet and I to return?
And what if us returning is what will trigger their deaths? At this point, I assume we are shadowed by Ay; I am keeping up a Detect Undead more or less randomly, trying to catch some confirmation of that. What if that was a warning to stay away?
Too much uncertainty, and I am only one old woman, finally free of what's bound me. And now I find myself paralyzed with indecision....
Quotes:
"There's cutlery!"
"No, there's not." *smirk*
--Sitefnut and Amunet
"My house, my rules! No fucking hyenas!"
--Raam
"I buy honeycomb for Tetikare."
"Oooooh, seductress."
--Sitefnut, Tetikare
"Imhotep was a prophet, as well as an architect."
"That's...never good news."
--The high priest of Osiris, Sitefnut
"Sitefnut is our highest Charisma character?"
"I don't use it to make people like me. I use it to intimidate them."
--Bryan, Kris
"Remind me to beat that little twerp's life out of him."
"I will certainly relay that message."
--Raam and the First Prime, speaking about Rameses.
"Isn't that called pruning the family?"
"Not when you pull it up by the roots."
--Amunet, Raam
"The zombie slaves would just eat the babies, and that's a waste of perfectly good babies."
--Raam
*snap* *snap* *snap* "You will tell the truth, bitch! Z is for zone!"
--Mayet, being flashy
"I think a flight of arrows fired at the judge counts as contempt of court."
--Amunet
"She did say that the litter had a bunch of protection spells on it, but I doubt Protection from Bloody Great Swords is one of them."
--Laura
"Your grandmother's biting me again!"
"You're the scenery, I'm chewing on you."
--Bryan, Kris
