So we'd managed to get two of our number captured. We had to leave them where they were overnight, but the next day we of course mounted a rescue mission.
And were rejoined by an ally we had not seen for a while, and our small god managed to do some very impressive damage indeed...
We returned to the palace to discuss our next steps. First up was sleep for those of us who are magic-users; the day had been very long already and it wasn't even sunset. After a brief night of sleep (in my case, somewhat interrupted by a midnight soul-searching session, after being ganged up on by Usi, Isu, and the greyling), we reconvened before dawn to plan what we could do.
I went to fetch some Imhotep priests from the local temple, who brought with them some scrying instruments. Terik, the night before, had questioned Horemheb. He'd said that his mission was to reconstruct the temple to Anubis on the outskirts of Pi Rameses, and that Thuthmosis was doing something in regards to Amunet and the Crocodile Council.
I used the greyling to talk to Amunet, who had the goldling in his ear, and he confirmed that he was alive and in some sort of posh prison. He said he could hear Pepy screaming, though. Then he paused and said, "Huh. He stopped."
The Imhotep clerics scried on Pepy, and instead of him being hung up like we thought he'd be, he was on the floor, looking quite worse for wear but not quite dismembered. (Maybe they were waiting for Menes before they took him apart?) There was someone nearby, and as they pulled the image back a little, much to our surprise, we saw Peribsen. We looked at each other. What on earth was he doing here?
We asked them to scry on Amunet, and when the priest did so, he blinked. "Which one?" he asked. I looked into the globe he was using as a scrying device and blinked. There were four Amunets. One appeared to be asleep, one was pacing and muttering to himself, one was having sex with an attractive elven female, and one appeared to be suspended in some sort of amniotic fluid. I told Amunet to wave, and the one who had been muttering did so. "That one," I said. "He's ours."
Curiously, I asked Amunet, "Did you know there were four of you?" This was new information to him, evidently. We kept up a running conversation, me updating him on Pepy, while the Imhotep priest scried on Peribsen.
Peribsen evidently could feel us scrying on him. Pepy said that it was probably us, since why would the enemy have any reason to scry on him? The enemy, after all, knew where he was. They took this as a good sign and proceeded to start working their way towards where Amunet had said he was. And when I say "working" I actually mean "mostly killing".
It finally dawned on us that we'd better get our butts over to the Temple, and so we did. Landing outside of the temple, we located Amunet's room by the simple means of seeing which one had Amunet in it, frantically waving at us. We knew quite a bit about the physical layout of Amunet's room and the corridor outside, and I figured, if we were lucky, they hadn't warded it too well against dimension door spells. They'd sealed the doors and windows very well, so we were actually going to have to get up close and figure out how to get in from there.
So I opened a d-door...and it did open. But only large enough for something small to go through. Grrrbek turned into a mole and flung himself through, and the rest of us came through by the simple expedient of climbing into the doorknob and having Terik flow through as a shadow. He let us out and handed the doorknob back to Raam, and then battle was indeed joined.
At first, we only had a couple of guards to deal with. Mayet Stone Shaped an opening in Amunet's wall, and he stepped out, followed by a pair of scantily clad female elves. I cast Fly and did a Stone Shape on the ceiling, which conveniently enough was also the roof. I figured that now we had Amunet and we hoped Pepy and Peribsen would be joining us shortly, we could leave.
Unfortunately, things didn't work quite like that.
Pepy came pounding up, and finding that the container that held his and Amunet's things was warded by the same sort of shield that had held Amunet in his room, simply used the edge of his shield (the only thing they'd left him with, for some reason--he mumbled something about it coming back to him when he asked it to) to slice through the wards. He picked up the most important of his things, his battleaxe, and then turned to attack Thuthmosis, who had come up the stairs after him.
I had been floating just above the hole in the ceiling, the hyenas having come out after me, when Thuthmosis did--something.
The last thing I remember was pain.
Evidently, I'd gotten myself killed, and the hyenas set up a most unholy racket. I wasn't there to witness what happened next, but according to the stories my companions told, Peribsen came up the stairs and said, "There's a few hundred priests heading this way." And then Grrrbek decided to cast a spell.
It was Earthquake. The temple was built on an island in a marsh. The predictable thing happened, and the whole place collapsed. After my companions dug themselves out, they found that Thuthmosis was still alive and quite pissed off, and a pitched battle followed. Amunet swiped a few things right out of Thuthmosis' pockets--a fireball wand and three little marbles that each contained a Time Stop. Nice of him to grab those, really.
Finally, my compatriots killed Thuthmosis, after much pain and swearing. And I woke up.
My first impression of what was going on around me was very confused. Last I remembered, I'd been flying, and now I was lying on top of some very uncomfortable--rubble? There was something very sharp poking me in the left kidney. And Imhotep was looking down at me. "Oh, crap," I said. "I died, didn't I?"
"Afraid you did, love." He gave me an odd smile and then faded from view. I sat up and looked around, and Isu licked my face.
After wiping my face off, I saw my companions mostly busying themselves with the corpse of what I assumed was Thuthmosis, Peribsen wandering around killing Anubites as they pulled themselves out from under the tumbled stones of what had been a temple. Evidently, they'd somehow leveled the building. I thought of the records that were supposedly somewhere in the temple about the maresh, and winced. If I wanted them now, I'd need to excavate them. We questioned Thuthmosis' corpse, and he said that he'd been working on trying to get Amunet's knowledge and background into the clones of him, while preferably not keeping what one assumes are his scruples. They were trying to destroy the Crocodile Council from the inside. He also said that he'd expected Menes to arrive within a day, which meant we had little time to finish up here and be gone.
(Must remember to interrogate the smug elf about this council business. Or perhaps one of his clones.)
The others accepted my explanation that Imhotep had brought me back to life. However, Isu was pouting at me, and later revealed that she'd been the one to raise me while everyone else was distracted with the battle. She did have to admit that I'd made a somewhat valid assumption--usually, when you wake up after being dead, the first person you see is the one who performed the Raise Dead on you. He won't, I think, she said to me. We're your physical guardians, so to speak, as you're ours.
It makes sense, and I scratched her behind the ears in the spot that she really likes, thanking her.
We found that Thuthmosis had taken Menes' notes about the maresh to his chamber, which was currently buried underneath the collapsed building. Terik animated some zombies for us, and they helped excavate. I found what I was looking for--a book with a section in it on how the maresh were made. It turned out that Peribsen had been tracking Horemheb, and had caught up with us as Thuthmosis had captured Pepy and Amunet, and decided to go in and try to free them.
Three of the four Amunets had evidently survived the collapse of the building, and it was sort of odd to see them talking to each other. They're very difficult to tell apart without a Detect Magic, and they use all sorts of bizarre shortcuts when they're talking each other. It's like watching someone talk to themselves, only that self is split across three bodies.
Of course, what if the Amunet we had with us wasn't the original? What if the original is somewhere else--or was the one that got killed in the collapse of the Temple? I suppose it doesn't really matter, since we're used to our version, but it's just something strange to wonder about.
How little we know for certain, small people caught up in this larger web...
Quotes:
"Amunet, Amunet, throw down your hair."
--Laura
"Ewwww! It's like eating a cat with the fur on!"
"Do you usually peel them?"
--Graham, Laura
"Amunet, why are there four of you in the same building?"
"I.....have no idea!"
--Sitefnut and Amunet
"If you can't be quiet, be quick."
--Amunet
"We can't really wait. Thuthmosis will be back soon."
"Well, we can certainly keep up appearances."
--elven slave, Amunet
"Don't mind the elven girls."
"The naked elven girls?"
"They're not naked!"
"They're wearing necklaces?"
--Amunet, Terik
"If you stick the doorknob into your cloak, I will beat you to within an inch of your life and then take that inch."
--Raam
"Owwww, I breathed wasabi!"
"New spell! Cone of Wasabi!"
--Laura, Kris
"What the hell is this guy, a dragon?"
--Laura
"He's going to be really upset with us if he dies, since we didn't run away."
"I'm already upset with you."
--Laura, Graham
"It'll only be a little fireball."
"You'll kill Grumpy!"
--Amunet, Raam
"I stomp up and down on him till he dies."
--Grrrbek
Menes' Maresh documents (the highlights)
I have completed the joining of a human to a hyena. The test subject died within seconds of the merging but lived long enough to scream once. That is the best I have come to so far. A normal human and hyena joining produces death instantly. But finding a human and hyena with the hyena god in each gives me the best shot of finding a way to merge the two. The merging will produce hopefully a way to track the chosen to its lair. 08/05/3000 BC
The union created a maresh today as I call my new creations. Anubis granted me the merging spells to make this work. The maresh now have all the senses of the hyena and the brain of a human. 10/12/2995 BC
The trouble with the new maresh is that they lack motivation for finding the chosen. The creation of a more deadly maresh is needed. I have returned to the lab to continue my work. 11/11/2995 BC
Reneb encountered the Chosen with the tracking help of the Maresh. Though unsuccessful in killing the Chosen, he was able to obtain blood samples of both Chosen and Rememberer. This blood will help me integrate the scent into them. So they will be born with the chosen's scent in their muzzles. 12/01/2978BC
It has worked. The first one born smells the scent of the chosen and started crawling toward the chosen's blood, just out of the womb. They are still too slow and lack a motivation. 05/31/2976 BC
I have adapted the maresh again. Now a poison courses through the veins and into all their bodily fluids. The spit, tears, urine and sweat all have the poison. Though the concentration is greatest in the spit, this one died right after birth though. 06/24/2964 BC
The error is that they can't adapt to their own poison. An error Anubis pointed out. His ways are beyond mine. He adapted them to feel the pain of their own poison but still live through it. He has created some sort of blood filtration so that it doesn't kill them when the poison hits the brain. His wisdom is even more divine when he used the blood of the chosen as a cure for the pain. Now they seek the chosen to end their pain. One last adaptation and they will be unleashed on the world. 06/27/2964 BC
The final adaptation was successful, I joined wings to the backs of the maresh. A larger circulatory system was needed to keep the wings moving and gill slits to allow them to breathe at high speeds and elevations. 11/01/2923 BC
Allowed to breed on their own, their numbers are small but growing slowly. They breed singly rather than in litters. Unfortunate that. I have released them to Reneb and he is working to find the chosen again. 09/25/2846 BC
Reneb has encountered the chosen, this one is more powerful than we thought. The Maresh can't seem to kill him. But he is very adept at killing them. By the hundreds. 04/23/2275 BC
I have sequestered the few remaining Maresh away. Their life signs hidden from the Chosen. The chosen has found that the tracking works both ways. They can find him and he can find them. I don't know how but capturing the chosen alive is a priority. A time will come, when the maresh can breed again but they will sleep for the next several centuries. 07/28/2273 BC
Awoken again at last, they will take centuries to increase their numbers. But someday when the female chosen awakens and joins the immortal, this will end. 06/02/1835 BC
