egypt ♔ is this called living or something else

[lissatrinall]

♬ amsterdam - daughter

WHO || Lis'sa, Riddick, Phineas, Ella, Dimitri, Raegos, the Mithril Scarab, and more [Closed]
WHAT || The Knights head to Egypt to try and ascertain the location of a lost pyramid
WHERE || Cairo, Egypt
WHEN || Jan 21st, mid-day[forwarddated]
HOW || Actionspam. Single thread, don't worry about maintaining tagging order.

The party arrives in the bustling city of Cairo around mid-day, where it's a beautiful 70 degrees outside compared to the cold London January they came from. Along with whatever gear they brought individually for tomb raiding*, Wynn has also sent them with a chest of 2,000 gold pieces - because the woman who has promised to take them to meet Raegos (the only living man who can claim to have seen the lost tomb) plans to meet them at an antiquities auction.

Wynn has pre-arranged with the woman, who goes by the name of the Mithral Scarab, to recognize the party by the fact that they will cast several bids at the auction - and all of their opening bids will always be exactly ten gold more than the starting price. Once she has recognized them, she will find a way to show them a symbol of the Knights of the Silver Dragon discreetly to identify herself, and they are to follow her away from the crowd. Raegos' rumored paranoia concerning anyone else learning his location seems well demonstrated by the levels of security embedded in Scarab's directions.

The auction itself is a direct result of the recent elemental-driven storm that has unearthed a number of structures long buried in the desert. Some industrious tomb raiders have already taken to looting the lesser pyramids, and this underground sale promises to deliver some of the discovered goods into the hands of eager collectors. Wynn's generous supply of furnished gold was delivered to them with explicit instructions to purchase anything that they thought might be an item of actual valuable historical or magical significance, to become the property of the Knighthood.

* Don't forget to make a list of all items your character is carrying in an entry in their journal before tagging into this post! Please try to stick close to your character's maximum carrying capacity.

Comments

[lissatrinall]

[ the hall terminates in a t-section. a corridor of pillars stretches to the left and right. inscriptions cover the eleven pillars - or did, as many of them seem to have been burned off, as a spot check of 15+ can attest. lis'sa runs a hand over one such scorched symbol. ] Acid. Someone worked to obscure these markings, sometime in the last century.

Perhaps Raegos' expedition.

[likeagod]

[Dimitri is more focused on preparing for more fighting or something I guess (spot 12).]

How will we decide which way to go? Splitting up might not be a wise choice.

[sorceresslite]

Splitting up is probably never the right choice. But I think Dimitri is right, it might be the only choice..

[lissatrinall]

They already outnumber us. We need to be careful and on our guard for traps. And don't forget what Raegos told us, about seeing the runes he was so afraid of. [ she decides to go left and if other bitches wanna split right she won't stop u ]

[likeagod]

[Yeah, no, splitting up bad. He turns left, following after Lis'sa and attempting to keep a look out for said traps (spot 27, listen 15)]

[thesleeper]

[Phineas is 100% on the "Don't split the party" train.]

What was all that terrible shit I threatened to do to him when they stole my book? I'm too angry to remember right now - but whatever it was, I'm doing it when we catch the little bastard. [Phineas seems extra angry, for his normally detached self. It pairs well with Ella's snappiness, the group morale is great right now!]

[lissatrinall]

[ dimitri doesn't notice any traps - but as they turn another left after lis'sa, he would see crude runes splashed on the walls in black ink, that look like:

]

[likeagod]

[Dimtiri makes a single snap of his fingers to get the others' attention before he points out the runes painted on the walls.]

[sorceresslite]

[ moving closer, ella peers at the runes for a moment before she casts read magic, her lilting gaelic an echoing whisper in the tunnel. ]

[lissatrinall]

[ ella reads them as the Rune of Subjugation, Rune of the Desert, Rune of Fealty, and the Rune of Reckoning, but lis'sa eyes them warily, before averting her gaze. ] The paint is fresh.

[likeagod]

They could be close, then. Stay sharp.

[lissatrinall]

[ the hallway ends in a large chamber, whose walls, floors, and ceilings are blanketed with a dizzying wash of hieroglyphic characters. lis'sa stares up around it in awe, raising a light to examine every direction, while neferet pushes past, drawing a book out of her pack absently as she starts to look between her translation texts and the walls. lis'sa steps backwards to read the text on the raised platform that they entered on. or to try to, because lmao she... crit failed. ]

[thesleeper]

[Knowledge Arcana 21 - Phineas can't translate, but he's got his eyes peeled for anything that looks magical - or better, any obscure seals or symbols to copy into his journal]

What's it mean?

[lissatrinall]

[ he definitely sees the symbols that were outside in the hall here, and neferet looks over the text, to say: "It speaks of the curse of the Four Encircled Runes: unwary invaders are condemned to undeath, conscripted to become to the tomb's guardians for eternity. Throughout the pyramid, you can find these four symbols - each one representing one of the four pharaohs. An identical death ring - the circular glyph representing undeath - overlays each symbol. Individually, they are harmless, but if anyone sees all four of them becomes... beset by the curse." ]

[thesleeper]

[Cue disgruntled face.]

This day is just getting better and better. So what do we do? Blindfold ourselves like our addled friend Raegos?

[lissatrinall]

We'll simply have to be cautious about what we choose to look at.

[ neferet's focus shifts to the wall, pulling out another scroll and staring at a section of hieroglyphs, growing slightly pale. ]

[sorceresslite]

[ ella focuses on neferet, moving forward with concern on her expression. ]

What is it? Aside from the death and death like symptoms we've got 'round the bend.

[lissatrinall]

[ "It... it says Ankana's true line will be known by the specific mark it bears." she points a shaking finger at a symbol on the wall. a spot check of 15+ is all it takes to notice the back of her shirt riding up ... where the same symbol runs across the small of her back, a birthmark half hidden by her clothes. ]

[likeagod]

[Dimitri's spot of 23 is more than enough.]

You mean like the one you carry on yourself.

[And given how she's shaking, he has to think she knows. That she's not just afraid of this curse.]

[lissatrinall]

[ neferet pales a bit, turning around so that her back is to the wall.

"I-it's nonsense. It has to be a coincidence."

lis'sa frowns, turning her attention to another wall of the chamber. ] Ankana. It speaks of her here. How she forced her closest servants to swallow the eggs of fiendish insects procured from Hell itself. Those who successfully demonstrated their loyalty or curried her favor before the end of the incubation period received her blessing in the form of a cure disease spell to abort the hatching. Those who did not--

Well. They were devoured from the outside in. [ she raises an eyebrow at neferet ] What charming ancestors you had.

[thesleeper]

Perhaps we should press on to the next horror... before that visual fully forms in my head. [A shiver goes down Phineas' spine.]

[likeagod]

We can't let them get too far ahead if possible.

[Also, gross. Even Dimitri is creeped out by that. Seriously.]

[sorceresslite]

Too late, it's been proper visualized. That's gross.

[ she's saying what everyone is thinking, but she forges ahead, keeping her eyes peeled for people she's going to beat the fuck out of, not really paying much attention to the walls

or, say, for traps. ]

[lissatrinall]

[ they've pretty much reached a dead end here, and while neferet clearly wants to stay and read more, they head back to explore the halls they haven't touched yet, finding a hollow triangular shaft composed of the same smooth green stone, extending at an angle both upward and downward into the darkness. it almost looks like an angled elevator shaft. without the elevator. ]

[thesleeper]

Well... up, or down? [How angled is it? Is it climbable?] If I recall my studies correctly, I believe we'd want to go up...