We continued on our way in the strange place we had found ourselves in, exploring our way through. We would find things strange, lovely, and terrible, and one thing unexpectedly precious...
1 Koiak (month of Sekhmet), Inundation, Year 4 of the Reign of Rameses II (October 17th, 1275 BCE)
Before we slept that night, I sent a message of apology to Bden, though I know not if it managed to make it through to him. We camped near the stairs upward, and in the morning, mostly refreshed, we took the stairs.
The next level had a trap that drained most of our scrolls, potions, and wands of magic. The same level also had a pool of stagnant water that seemed to heal us, three rooms with creepy interactive illusions (only creepy because the people inside of them knew who we were, and were evidently reading our surface thoughts) and a mist that coated us with protection from fire. There was also an armory of some sort, and a room full of female clothing of all sorts, evidently belonging to one woman, someone about Mayet's size.
Another room was filled with animal skeletons of all different sorts. In a niche outside, we found the skeleton of what appeared to be a phoenix, and below the skeleton a single shining phoenix feather. Grrrbek lit the feather, and the empty eye sockets of the skeletons began to glow. He extinguished the feather, and they stopped.
I ventured into the room, sans feather. Immediately, all of the skeletons came to life, and began to attack me! "STOP THAT THIS INSTANT!" roared Grrrbek, and thankfully the skeletons listened to him.
We saw a niche beyond the skeletons, feather-shaped. Grrrbek laid the feather in the niche, and it disappeared. In its place appeared a book.
"Look at it! Isn't it pretty?" crowed the small god.
I looked at it, blinked, looked again. The room swayed dangerously around me as I recognized the object Grrrbek held in his hands, possibly one of the most evil things the world has ever known. It was The Book of the Dead.
A brilliant form flew past me and landed on Grrrbek's shoulder. It was a bird, long-necked, a brilliant blue edged with red and yellow. A phoenix. It appeared to be speaking to Grrrbek.
We tried to put the book back, but it appeared that we were stuck with the damned thing. The Book of the Dead lets you turn yourself into a living undead, as Menes and the rest of the pharaohs were. We stashed it in the doorknob.
The phoenix, who we called Ash, said that the armory and the clothing we had found belonged to an elven woman who had "strange eyes"--red from corner to corner. The red dragon from upstairs. Ash said that the dragon was under some sort of control, that she was being held here as a baby machine. The Anubis priests upstairs would raise her dragonets until they were about human size, and then slaughtered them and made armor out of their skins.
I shuddered. While I hear that red dragons in general are unpleasant creatures, that sounds like a terrible life. Poor thing.
We went up a level. The first room we came to was a long room, empty, with a strange wall at the end. Grrrbek made short work of the wall, and behind it were mounted four wands, all pointed at one end. One was made of purple wood, one of mithril, one of copper, and one of iron.
Amunet identified the purple wood wand with his ring. It would change someone from evil to good, or good to evil. It had one charge expended and one charge left.
Mayet did a quick divination, and discovered that the first charge had been used on Bden....by Sekath.
Sekath. What game is he playing, then? He has been a mystery since the moment we met him, and he has never gotten any less mysterious.
We split the wands between us, to make carrying them less risky, and continued on.
There was a room that was apparently a trophy room, filled with Sekhmet holy symbols, with a few Isis and Hathor symbols. Pepy took a few of these that had historical significance.
We found a room that had a strong wind in it, so strong that only Raam and Grrrbek could make it to the other side. Isu made some headway by dropping to her belly and creeping forward, but even she could only make it halfway across the room. Raam carried Mayet, hoping to find some way to turn off the wind.
Behind us appeared eight hellhounds. I dropped into Sanctuary, my first time doing so. The others made short work of them. Raam turned the wind, which was coming from a cone-shaped device, into the wall so we could proceed.
In another room, torches were used as a system of levers. The first room we opened was a room full of fire, with the key to the next level in it. Raam fetched it for us. The next room was full of ice. We tied a rope to Grrrbek and he slid down on his stomach and through the wall we could see on the other side--which was evidently an illusion.
I slid down myself after Grrrbek reassured me that it was safe, Isu right behind me. The ground was covered with a white, cold substance that turned into water when I picked it up. Grrrbek said it was called snow.
It was very strange stuff, but soon enough the cold seeped in through my sandals, and I began to shiver. Isu was frolicking, making odd yelping noises as she gamboled. There were strange foods--a sort of sweet fried dough and a warm, sweet drink that seemed to be made from some sort of fruit. When Amunet asked where the "donuts" came from, Grrrbek said, "The bakery, of course!" and behind him a building appeared that issued a warm, sweet smell. He handed me a long garment that opened in the front--a coat. I put it on, and was much warmer.
It appeared that Grrrbek's thoughts were controlling the place. Of course, since he is Grrrbek, he expects the world to rearrange itself to his whims and saw nothing unusual about it. We played a game where we threw balls of the snow at each other. I nailed Grrrbek a good one!
We rested for a bit and then went back up.
The was one more room opened by the torches. It was an empty room with tendrils of magic in it. They recharged all of our empty wands one charge, and replaced the alignment change wand charge that had been expended.
We camped and slept. I scried on my husband, staring at him as the body that I still remembered after twenty years floated suspended in golden liquid, not moving. I wondered if I looked long enough, I would see his eyes open and his face raise to meet my gaze. I found myself wanting to wait, to see.
Dangerous sentimentality, old woman. Very dangerous. I broke the spell and the mirror turned back into a simply reflective metal surface.
Isu and I hardly spoke. Something was pressing down on us like a hand, some darkness. Imhotep came, but he said not a word. The look in his eyes was worried as he watched the two of us, Rememberer and Chosen, huddled silently together on the mat in our room in the doorknob.
2 Koiak, Inundation, Year 4 of the Reign of Rameses II (October 18th, 1275 BCE)
We went to the second level, where we found a long-disused temple of Isis. At the back, Terik found that Bden had been here, and had been prying at some of the stones in the wall. We found many scrolls lying about--color spray, glitterdust, invisibility sphere, improved invisibility, seeming, antimagic shield, mass invisibility, and true metabolism.
Pepy, watching the others poke at the wall, said, "What on earth are they doing?" He walked forward and stuck his hand...right through the wall. The greyling told me that the wall was god magic.
Pepy, disconcerting us all, walked right through the wall. He came back with something called the ankh of Isis, an artifact that was created when the goddess Isis was annoyed with Anubis. It will summon Anubis' true self to this plane--not an avatar, his self. She wanted to be able to beat on him and teach him a lesson. Pepy was....whistling. This worries me, a lot. I think Pepy wants to kill Anubis. This strikes me as a very, very bad idea.
And the tracks...Bden was leading us places. I wished we could talk to him, but he was staying ahead of us.
Farther along on that level, we found a bottle in the middle of a corridor. We pulled the cork, and a djinn appeared. Remembering Tetikare and Ka, we stared with wide eyes. He said he was at our service, and said that each of us would receive a desire. We had only to ask.
Each of us asked for something--Mayet asked to be recalled if Rameses needed her, Terik asked to be stronger. Pepy asked for something that would help him kill Anubis...and received the opposite of the Book of Death, the golden Book of Life. The book would bring even the living undead back to true life, and would revert a god to the mortal form he wore before he was a god.
The golden book was just as heavy as the black one, and as able to be used for evil purposes. I thought, for just a brief moment, about my own god--and then shuttered that thought away. No. Not now. Think of it later.
I thought for what seemed to be a long time, and then simply asked to be wiser. Whether it was a good use of my wish, I do not know.
We moved on. We found a spinning disk that recorded and played back anything it heard. In another room, Raam said he heard voices discussing which items of ours they would inhabit. He questioned them, and they said they were the spirits of those killed by the pharaohs that have returned to life. They wanted revenge, and they would inhabit our magical items and make them even better. Unfortunately, there was a chance that a spirit and an item would be incompatible, and both spirit and item would be destroyed.
Many of us tried our items. The only ones that exploded were the Osirean longsword, much to Terik's dismay, and Raam's earring, his gift from Imhotep. Myself, I had a spirit enter the magic missile wand I created, as well as my staff.
We found a few more things in that level, including five random-result potions, a giant skeleton which we had to destroy, seven Unas who were powering a psi recharging crystal, and a bunch of healing potions. The last thing we found on that level was a mirror that spoke to us. We discovered quickly that it always lied, and by asking the right questions, we found out several interesting things about the next level.
It also told me (interpreted) that Menes was about to wake Soren, my husband, and set him in motion. He would not have the same personality that he did when I last saw him it said.
I can't decide if that made me feel better or not.
We stretched and then tackled the last level, level one.
We went through a room that was filled with poison gas, and then found the source of the gas, a young green dragon pinned to the wall. We let the dragon down and Mayet healed it, which seemed to seal its instant adoration of her.
We are a bleeding menagerie. We could go on exhibit if we ever needed a few extra coins.
We passed through a room that turned us all briefly into various animals, a room with a bunch of orcs in it, a hot room with seventeen cone of cold potions in it, and a cold room with the key out. More finds were a jar of magical healing preserved lemons, and a symbol that combats the powers of Anubis clerics. Considering that we'd discovered a couple of levels ago that this complex was directly under a large temple of Anubis at Amarra, this would come in handy.
And then, we came to a room filled with mist. As we walked into it, it resolved into an eerily familiar space...the long garden that lives inside the doorknob, the place where I and the hyenas run. Standing in the garden was Usi, in his human form.
Usi?
It couldn't be, and yet it was. It had to be a trick, a cruel one, and I turned my face away. But then, improbably, I felt a thread of fire in the place where my bond to Usi had been. Silently, he said, It is I, Sitefnut, Isu. I do not have much time here, so if you would speak to me, now is the time.
It was him. Silently, Isu and I went forward, and he knelt so that he could embrace both of us at once. In that moment, I had no care for the others or what they thought. "You're alive," I whispered, my throat closed with tears.
He shook his head. "No. Only back for a few minutes before I go on. I have an appointment. But we were given a gift. A few minutes more."
I did not ask who had given us such a precious gift, only clung to him, weeping. Isu licked my face. Peace, Chosen, she said. It's all right.
We knelt there in the still garden, and the blackness that had descended upon me when Usi died lifted a bit. "I failed you," I said when I could speak again. "I'm so sorry, Usi. I tried to protect you, but I couldn't."
He brushed my hair away from my face. "All happened as it was supposed to, but I do forgive you, if it's forgiveness you need. I knew death was coming for me, even if I didn't know the exact hour. You would have worried yourself to a thread if you'd known. But," he said, his voice warming, "you could have avoided getting yourself killed in the wake of my death."
I gave a soft snort. "I was--cranky. I'll try to avoid getting killed in the future."
"Good."
I rested my forehead briefly on his shoulder. "I love you," I said. "And I'm always going to miss you."
He tightened his arm around me. "And I love you. We'll see each other again some day, Chosen. Don't let this doxy here push you around," (and here Isu snorted), "and don't let your love for Imhotep blind you. He is a good man, but he is also a god. They have agendas."
"I know," I replied. "Here, let me go." He complied, and I fitted myself into hyena shape, letting Isu flow into elven form. They too embraced, tears making Isu's bright blue eyes look like wet jewels in the diffuse light.
"You idiot. Going and letting yourself get killed like that." Isu's tone was lightly scolding, but it wavered at the edge of tears. "I'm never going to forgive you."
He held her closely, and said, "I love you too, sister mine. You and Sitefnut take care of each other, all right? And don't forget the maresh."
Isu kissed Usi on the cheek and they looked into each others' eyes intently. I could only hear the edges of what they were communicating to each other, things too large for words, and I turned my mind away from even what I could overhear.
Usi broke eye contact and glanced upwards. "It's about time," he said. He kissed Isu on the forehead and ruffled her yellow hair fondly, and then I took human form again and he kissed me as well, only without the hair rumpling.
"Goodbye," I said. "Tell Osiris hello from us, all right?"
"I surely will," he said, grinning briefly at the two of us. Then he stood, brushed himself off, and closed his eyes. Slowly, he faded from view, and then around us the garden faded into mist as well.
In the silence that was left behind, surrounded by featureless white mist, Isu and I stood frozen. Neither of us moved. Finally, I let out a breath that I didn't know I had been holding. The dark blanket of grief that had been wrapping my soul for three days did not return, and I realized I had been holding myself tense, waiting for it. I was still sad and grieving. I had lost someone who had been entwined with my very soul. But I had been given a gift rarer than any jewel--a chance to say goodbye.
And that alone made it bearable. Not painless, surely, but I no longer felt the despair that I had been fighting. I had spoken the truth when I'd said I would always miss him. But the wound where he had been was no longer torn and bleeding, and I could begin to feel where it would heal.
Isu's head came up, higher than she'd held it in days. She too had felt that quiet despair, it seemed, and she shook herself vigorously as if throwing it off and away from her. I took a deep breath. "Shall we rejoin the others?"
Can't think of anything better to do. Her tone held a ghost of her old self and I smiled, cheered by it.
We returned to the others, who were gathering in a room nearby. Tonight, we sleep.
Tomorrow...we take on the Anubis temple above our heads.
And we still have not managed to speak to Bden...
Quotes:
"I will gladly tie you up, says the kinky elf man."
--Laura
*Sitefnut is sniffing at the air*
"Grandmother, that looks really funny."
"And this is different from normal how?"
--Mayet, Sitefnut
"I'd have the elf look for traps before you pick anything up."
"We have an elf?"
--Sitefnut, Terik
"It's a goth kid's Livejournal."
--Laura about the Book of the Dead
"The room is empty."
"Grrrbek sniffs it!"
"It smells of cheese."
"It's a cheese shop!"
--Storm, Laura, Derek, Kris
"Grrrbek's an otter!"
"Grrrbek's an idiot."
--Kris, Bryan
"All right, I'm cold now."
*Grrrbek produces a parka*
*examining it* "What the hell is this?"
"It's a coat. You wear it when it's cold."
"You are weird, dude."
--Sitefnut, Grrrbek
"That was third level. This is the second level. I don't know shit."
"Goddamn union jobs."
--Ash, Pepy
"You find a mirror covered with a sheet."
"A sheep?"
--Storm, Terik
"I leave the last two donuts as a sacrifice."
--Grrrbek
