Things were beginning to come together, and we'd discovered that there would be a meeting in the city of Dahshur of three of the pharaohs, where they would be discussing inciting civil war.
We decided, on the whole, that we really wanted nothing more than to beat them to it...
5 Koiak, Inundation, Year 4 of the Reign of Rameses II (October 21st, 1275 BCE)
We had to wait around for Grrrbek to return from the elemental plane of Earth, which is where he goes when he's killed. We skinned the blue dragon a bit, and I snagged some spell components and things from the body that could be sold as spell components for other people. We discussed our next move and decided to go to Dahshur, using the Wadjet express, the next morning. I shook off the aftereffects of dying and being brought back, and went for a bit of a run with Isu that night. Relatively safe within sight of the pyramid, it was a quiet night spent waiting.
Grrrbek appeared promptly at sunrise the next morning, cranky as Senit when she first wakes up. (Oh, all right, I'm no Mary Sunshine in the morning, either.) We loaded into the doorknob, and within a few hours we were in Dahshur.
Dahshur was a small city, smaller than Heliopolis which it's situated just south of, though still far larger than a village or a town. The odd thing was that the Unas in the city seemed to have grown an attitude. They no longer moved out of the way when they met people on the street. It was strange and, honestly, a bit disturbing. The theory of a society of free Unas and the reality are two very different things. You forget how big they are. When you're that big, every movement can be a challenge. And here, it was.
We split up for a little bit, me to find spell components, Terik to check in with his Temple. When we came back together, Pepy said that he'd found an exclusive club where he thought that the three pharaohs might meet, and Terik said that he'd tracked down the name of the person who seemed to be leading the Unas. Raam said he would go track down the Unas leader.
All right, suspicions about Raam more or less confirmed, especially since he said that Terik couldn't go along, that they would know he was not an Unas immediately. But...there are pieces of this story that don't quite fit yet. And that is a story that only Raam and Rameses know, and neither of them are telling it.
The rest of went to the club, more a bar than anything else. Mayet was our ticket in, the rest of us her attendants and bodyguards. I'd left Isu in the doorknob, knowing that there are places I simply can't take her. She was good-natured about it, though I felt badly about leaving her behind.
Uneasy, I sat in the room, watching any number of people around me in various states of drunkenness. I didn't feel any need for anything stronger than dark beer, myself, though if I thought about it I would wonder why. Surely the occasion of this being my last life would call for a roaring drunk or two. But I didn't really feel like it.
The only completely sober person in the whole room other than us was a tall man across the room, standing next to a door that was strongly warded. As men and women came up to Mayet to pay their respects, Pepy went to speak to him. when he came back, he said that beyond the doors was a meeting room, which was booked for the same day as the meeting between the pharaohs was set to be. We thought it was rather a coincidence.
Grrrbek (who had taken on human form, looking uncomfortably like the First Prime) took off when Pepy returned, off to work the room and charm inebriated women. It made me blink and wonder how the man Grrrbek resembled is doing, whether he's finally healed, how Peribsen and he are getting along. It was strange to realize that I actually miss him a bit. Not that we really know each other, but he really does seem like a good sort, if often driven to distraction by Raam.
Honestly, knowing Raam as I do, I think he's probably justified.
Anyway, after listening to Grrrbek practice his spiel on a nearby woman, I turned my ear to the other conversations going on around us. Everyone was talking about the Unas, how they were causing problems, how some had needed to kill their Unas, they were so unruly.
Eventually, we came back to the inn in which we had taken a room. Raam said he was going to join the revolution; an Unas named Farrakan was the leader of the rebellion. Raam told us that he had blocked the Unas mind probes, but it hadn't been Farrakan probing him, and he seemed far too educated for an Unas. Grrrbek said that it didn't sound as if he were an Unas at all.
The other things that Raam had to tell us were more disturbing. In eight days, the Unas were to meet in the Plaza of Ra near the center of town, where Ra himself would appear and declare himself the god of Unas instead of humans. They would burn the city of Dahshur to the ground as an example of what the Unas could do.
Grrrbek was cranky about this. After all, he has a number of unas among his worshipers. He rather fancies the title "god of the Unas" himself, I think.
It was disturbing, but we could do nothing that night. Pepy would stay in town with Xeres, who was evidently heartily tired of being stuck in the doorknob. She wanted a room at an inn and to be alone with Pepy for an evening. We took their child Rosetta with us, and went outside the city for the night.
6 Koiak, Inundation, Year 4 of the Reign of Rameses II (October 22nd, 1275 BCE)
We had an uneventful evening; Isu had a successful hunt. We retired, and fell asleep. The next thing I knew, there was an alarm bell ringing and someone dark bent over me, obviously up to no good. I threw a cone of cold right in his face, and rolled off the bed to find my staff and Isu. He was strange, his eyes glowing purple, his pupils slitted like a cat's. The miscreant webbed me! I finally fought my assailant out the door of my room, and in the corridor I discovered that the others had also been attacked. A few minutes later, we all heard a disembodied voice that said, "Target has been acquired. Withdraw."
Our blood ran cold. We finished off the men in the doorknob, all of them with strange eyes, and Raam mentioned that they had managed to dispel the guardians on the door. We ran into town, to the inn where Pepy and Xeres had been staying the night.
We found Pepy the subject of a Hold spell, and Xeres gone. After Pepy came unfrozen, he told us what had happened. He and Xeres had been attacked by several men, and after he had been Held she had gone with them...evidently of her own free will.
We didn't know quite what to think. She could have been threatened, or she could have genuinely wanted to go with them. We could only follow, and find out.
Between Isu and Terik, we tracked her to a house that was strongly warded. After Pepy blasted through the magic on one of the doors with a Dispel Evil, we went in and found...nothing. The tracks went to a pile of broken furniture and stopped. After a bit of searching, we found a table that was the trigger for a panel in the floor that dropped down into a subterranean area.
Xeres' tracks continued from here, between two people. It didn't look like she was struggling. We did find her, in a room surrounded by Unas, with a man we recognized from the portraits we had seen was the pharaoh Teti. Teti was casting something from a scroll that I saw was a dimension door that was strangely augmented, as if it would go for much farther than a dimension door usually would.
The Unas began to head for us, but suddenly, all of them looked at Raam, suddenly looking confused and scared. Evidently, Raam gave them a telepathic dressing down, because as one they swiveled to look at Teti.
I think the pharaoh did not yet quite realize the danger he was in. The fighters and Pepy swept in, and Teti was suddenly no more.
Xeres was standing alone, Teti's blood pooling around her feet, white and shaking. Mayet wandered around behind her, and spoke a quiet spell. Pepy asked her, "what happened?"
She shook her head. "They said if I didn't come with them quietly, they would kill you. I had to." Her soft eyes were entreating, and over her shoulder Mayet nodded to Pepy. She was speaking the truth.
Since I was over by Teti, I searched his body and discovered that he had quite the sheaf of papers on him. I tucked those away for later perusal. Terik, of course, wanted to question the corpse.
Menes, Teti's corpse said, needed to hold on to Xeres. When asked why, he said that back when Xeres was killed, Anubis was mightily annoyed that Pepy had left his service. In retaliation, in addition to Pepy's curse, Anubis linked together Xeres and Menes. If she is out of the doorknob, Menes has to travel to where she is within ten days.
Well, then. I thought it would be difficult to stand at the black pyramid and tempt Menes to come close. Now we have a way to get him there. But he will throw at us literally everything he had before he comes himself, I am sure.
So we take down the weaker lions and then tempt the largest to come to us. Run him onto our home ground and bring him down.
And still, the possibility that he might be redeemed niggles at me...
No matter. The last thing Teti's corpse told us was that Merenre has the Staff of Ra and will take on Ra's form, to take control of all of the revolutionary Unas' minds.
One of those who had come into the doorknob said that they had harnessed the power of the staff of Ra to dispel the door guardians. The staff was also the reason that the men who attacked us had such strange eyes. When the staff is used on the upper back of a subject, it brands a sun symbol into the skin and gives the subject extra life, as well as letting the holder of the staff see out of their eyes.
Until that point, it sounded like a good deal. It still might be almost worth it...maybe. We'll see. I am unsure such magic would be compatible with the greyling, who is currently curled deep in my ear.
Menkaure, they also said, can also be found at the Plaza of Ra, always when the sun is highest. Something to keep in mind.
We discussed it, trying to decide what we wanted to do. Raam finally decided that he wanted to get all of the Unas out of the city. We talked over the plans, and then turned in. We're now posting watch shifts in the doorknob, as a guard against what happened to us last night.
And in a few days...we throw the fabric of society into disarray.
Sounds like fun, huh?
8 Koiak, Inundation, Year 4 of the Reign of Rameses II (October 24th, 1275 BCE)
We have been very busy for the last few days. I've been speaking off and on to the Temple of Imhotep, and Raam has been preparing to pull off something that he keeps referring to as "this damn thing my brother is going to kill me for".
At noon today, all things came together. We'd spread the word that all Unas in the city were required to be in or near the Plaza of Ra at the appointed hour, by imperial decree. The Pharaoh Guard, probably confused but willing to follow orders, helped round them all up.
When all the Unas were in the plaza, Raam spoke. His message was very simple. He told them that by decree, all of the Unas in the city were free. And he recommended--strongly--that they go to Abydos, the free city of Unas.
Seemingly awed, the Unas quietly filed out of the city. The Pharaoh Guard were handing out those psi nuts that we've been gardening in the doorknob, so that they could actually think about their new-found freedom. I watched the crowd, the greyling in my eye, looking at what each of them truly were. I came to one that the greyling balked at, saying, no, no, that one god magic. "That one," I said. "That's one of the pharaohs."
We launched an attack, lightning and swords. Grrrbek dispelled his disguise, and it turned out to be Menkaure, who was very pissed that Raam had spoiled the timing of his plan. He managed to put a dent in a few of us before, outnumbered, he went down.
The Osiris and Imhotep temples are combing the city for the largest concentration of the strange-eyed people, where we'll likely find Menkaure and an artifact that has a very, very nasty bite.
All right, I have to admit it. I'm having fun again. Though I am starting to wonder if I've done what I need to do, before I become Rememberer...
Quotes:
"When was it made?"
"France!"
*everyone stares at Kris*
--Graham, Kris
"With the Circle of Doom, everyone starts playing computer games and gets distracted."
--Laura
"Not much fighting involved in being the most beautiful woman in the world."
"I don't think you've ever been a beautiful woman, dear. You have to practice your bitch-slap."
--Derek, Laura
"They respect my size."
"How do they know about your size?"
"This is Egypt!"
--Raam, Mayet
"I am Farrakan, and you are...?"
"...Hm. I suppose I made this up beforehand."
--Storm, Bryan
"If these walls could talk...and who said they couldn't?"
--Laura
"I could....horribly abuse my power!"
--Raam
"I'm going to get such shit from my brother."
--Raam
"Ryan is attacking the gazebo!"
--Kris (about the fact that another friend was over and trying to knock down an old shed with...a stick.)
"He...missed!"
"What AC does a shed have?"
"Must be about a ten."
--Derek, Kris, Storm
"I hit once, twice, three times..."
"A lady!"
--Graham, the rest of us in chorus
