When they reached Waset's riverport, they were going to park the wagons and rent some boats. There was just one problem: the giant crab monster which was blocking up the river. And it was big. It wasn't as big as the city behind them, but it was almost a sixth of the size.

"We've tried everything!" shouted one of the lower priests hysterically. "But nothing we do even scratches it! It just won't die!"

"Hmm," Berenati looked at her thoughtfully. "Everything you say? Even summoning the gods?"

"Everything except that!" the lower priest shouted.

"And even if we did summon the gods, it still would take at least a few minutes to destroy that monstrosity," Berenati mused. "They will not be pleased if we summon them for menial labor."

Harris and his traveling companions approached.

"Hi Berenati," said Harris, bowing his head respectfully. "Have you tried any instant removal spells which don't require dealing damage?"

"Hello Harris!" said Berenati. "No, we haven't. Our temples don't have many of those, so we use them very sparingly."

The lower priest who had been complaining to Berenati cursed loudly and whined, "We'll need to contact the pharaoh or priest Siamune to get the authorization! That could take weeks. I don't suppose you can just cast one of those spells now and get authorization later?"

"The laws exist for good reason, Beketa," Berenati admonished her sharply. "Those spells are in such short supply that we must make sure no one abuses them. Most of them take a full day to recharge and up to half a minute to cast. That is why we have a long authorization process."

"And how many people are going to be stranded here until that monster goes away!?" the lower priest, Beketa protested.

"How many more people will die from the chaos if someone attacked the pharaoh while those spells were not available to save him? You do recall what just happened last night?"

Beketa bowed her head in apology. "You're right, Nati, I'm sorry."

Harris pulled his deck out of his pocket and took out a card named Unsummon.

"Here, you can borrow one of mine," said Harris. "It's not from any of the temples, so you won't need to get royal authorization for it."

Berenati took the card and looked over it briefly, then said, "Very well."

She cast the spell and an instant later a beam of blue light went out and struck the giant crab monster.

It had no effect. The giant crab monster was still there.

"That's odd," said Berenati. "Surely that should have—"

"Oh come on!" Beketa whined. Then she muttered loudly, "It's gotta be some kind of mysterious aura. I'll just have to Demystify it!"

She cast the spell, intending to remove the enchantment.

"Okay Harris sir, do you have another one of those spells?"

"Sure, here you go," said Harris, handing his second copy of Unsummon.

Right before Beketa was about to cast spell, Harris said "Stop! Sorry, I just realized you gotta put a bit more mana into it! That monster's Charix, the Raging Isle, you have to make your spells a little more powerful or they won't affect it at all.

Beketa nodded and him. She cast Unsummon.

It still didn't work. Charix was still blocking the river.

"Oh come on!" shouted Beketa. Nearby, other priests continued fighting.

Berenati sighed. "Guess we'd better head back and fill out those forms."

There was a collective sigh of disappointment from all the nearby priests.

"It's probably wearing some kind of equipment," Harris noted. The priests including Berenati looked at Harris in surprise.

Harris's cheeks flushed just a little in embarrassment, but he pressed on. "There was no enchantment to remove, damaging it isn't working, and it can't be unsummoned. It probably has some kind of object on it somewhere that's giving it hexproof."

Everyone looked at him in horror.

Thus an expedition was formed to explore the surface of Charix's shell, to see if they could discover the artifact which was preventing their spells from working on it. That was going to last several hours, and in the meantime they had lots of time to wait. So Beketa and Berenati returned the cards they'd borrowed from Harris and everybody stopped to get a bite to eat in a small tavern near the riverport.

There were very few people in the tavern. Since the river was still blocked by a giant crab monster and that didn't seem likely to change anytime soon, most would-be travelers had decided to just return to Waset.

Aside from Harris and his traveling companions, there was a very large, powerfully built man wearing a heavy tattered gray cloak with his face hidden beneath the hood quietly sipping his beer.

The bartender laughed at Harris when he asked for water. Apparently there was no clean water available since it rarely rained over Waset and the Nile was too heavily used for public transit.

"Excuse me, but from what I saw earlier, Waset is about a tenth the size of the city I lived in back home, and we had eight-hundred thousand residents. How did your city grow so big without any clean water!?"

The bartender grinned skeptically at him.

"The same way yours did, I'm sure," he said.

"My city did have clean water available to everyone, thank you very much."

The bartender laughed. "I'll believe it when I see it!"

"You will want a drink, Harris," said one of his traveling companions who'd walked up to the bar counter beside him. "We have a long journey ahead of us, and we should conserve the drinks the pharaoh gave us."

"Fine, I suppose you're right." said Harris nervously. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do, right?"

"That's the spirit!"

A cup of wine was purchased for him. A cup of wine gradually went down his throat over the course of several hours of conversation.

Sip. Sip. Sip.

He was already drunk after the first ten sips, which made it a lot easier to drink the rest despite his caution.

By the end of their lunch, very few of them were still sober.

"I feel kinda sick," said Harris woozily.

"Outhouse is that way," said the bartender kindly, pointing towards the back of the bar.

"Ugh," said Harris. "Don't you have toilets in this world?"

"Sure we do!" said the bartender. "The pharaoh must have at least two of them in his palace!"

"Ugh," Harris groaned. "This world is so fucking poor. I'll use the outhouse then, thanks."

He walked through to the back of the bar and went outside. He swayed a bit, then took another step towards the outhouse—

There was a flash of white light, and he suddenly found his back slammed up against the wall of the building, pinned by powerful arms. He looked up and saw it was the gray-cloaked man, his face still hidden beneath his enormous hood.

"Where did you take them from!" the cloaked man demanded.

"What?" asked Harris, startled and confused.

"Which graves did you rob!?" the cloaked man growled. "Answer me!"

"I didn't rob anything!" Harris shouted. "What are you talking about!?"

"I'm talking about this!"

The man shoved a hand into Harris's pocket and yanked out his Magic: the Gathering deck.

"Give that back! That's mine!"

"Sure it is," the cloaked man said sarcastically. Then his voice hardened dangerously. "I am no fool. Such artifacts are rarely found but in the most ancient of tombs. Which ones did you steal these from?"

"I didn't steal them!" Harris shouted back, enraged. "Let go of me!"

The cloaked man waved his hand, the one that wasn't gripping Harris. There was a flash of red light, and then Harris was no longer drunk.

"It's a pity that even a nobleman like you would stoop to tomb robbery," he said.

"What makes you think I'm a noble?" asked Harris angrily.

"You speak the sacred tongue," said the hooded man, as if Harris were an idiot. "Now, are you going to tell me where you stole these spells from?"

"The Wizards of the Coast, ruled by King Hasbro," Harris said sarcastically.

"I cast a spell so no one else can hear you," said the cloaked man. "And if anyone approaches, I will just bring you with me. We will go to every single tomb in Egypt, one by one, until you return what you stole."

Sounds romantic, Harris couldn't help but think.

Harris eyed him thoughtfully for a long moment as the gears turned in his head. "Why don't you just report me to the pharaoh if you're so sure?"

"The pharaoh has other problems to deal with," said the cloaked figure evasively.

"I see," said Harris. "Well, do you have a way to get past the security at the riverports? Because I don't think you'll be able to kidnap me properly otherwise."

"The Nile is convenient, but not necessary for travel."

"Which means you can survive in the wilderness and protect me from attack," said Harris, nodding. "In that case, show me your face. I'd like to know who it is I'll be traveling with."

"What?"

This was apparently not the expected response.

"You're obviously a noble who's abandoned his position," said Harris. "You've got a lot of time on your hands, enough to travel through the wilderness for months or even years with someone like me along for the ride, for the sake of righting a perceived wrong. That means either you're in love with me―"

The cloaked man shook his head in disgust.

"―or you're lost and far from home, just like I am." Harris finished. "I would like to see the face of who I'll be traveling with."

"You don't already know who I am?" asked the cloaked figure, incredulously.

"No, I don't," said Harris. "I'm not from around here, so I don't know who all the celebrities are."

The cloaked man removed his hood, revealing...

"Damn," said Harris to the handsome bearded man who was holding him against a wall. He gulped. It was going to be so hard to keep his hands to himself over the next few months (at least) he was sure.

He'd have to manage. It wasn't like he had a choice. At least his kidnapper was a good person.

Strong, honorable, protects the weak, probably at least twenty years older than you...

Harris clamped down on that line of thought. He was doomed.

Said man was now carrying him bodily away.

"Not that it doesn't feel nice to be carried like this by a handsome stranger, but I can walk you know," Harris complained. "I'm not running away."

"Very well," said the cloaked man. He put Harris down, and the two of them walked away towards a horse with a bag strapped to its side parked a short distance away.

The cloaked man mounted the horse and pulled Harris up with him so that Harris was sitting in front.

"By the way, what's your name?" Harris asked.

The cloaked man stared at him strangely.

"You really don't know," he said.

Harris shook his head.

"In truth, I have no name," the cloaked man told him. "I abandoned the one I was given long ago. I am the Warrior of Atonement. You?"

Harris grimaced, trying desperately not to lean back into the older man's arms.

"I'm Harris."

D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D

Author's note: What do you all think of the Warrior of Atonement? I was originally planning for Harris to get away from him, but I couldn't figure out a good way for that to happen which felt fun to write. The scene kinda just started writing itself. I honestly didn't expect the sexual/romantic tension between them to start this early.

And for those of you who wish we'd spent more time in Waset (biggest city in the world at the time, so much culture and history we can get into there) don't worry we'll probably be back there later.

Also, I originally had the city's name written as Thebes, but it turns out that was just what the greeks called it. It's original egyptian name is Waset.

Also sorry I published this chapter prematurely and forgot to add the author's notes. There were also some minor mistakes I fixed.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Don't forget to review!

Edit: accidentally referred to Beketa as him instead of her. This was from before I decided that particular lower priest would be Beketa in an earlier less complete drafat of the chapter. Also added a clarifying sentence to Berenati's dialogue to make it more clear. Sorry for the confusion everyone.

Edit 2: Just fixed some more significant typos that I somehow missed. Names of spells should be in italics not quotes. Autocorrect had changed "unsummoned" to "summoned" without my noticing and I had to change it back. Also added a little bit of clarifying details to the narration. Like changing "over the next few months" to "over the next few months (at least)" which is what I'd meant to say.

Really sorry about that!

Also sometimes the word deck is used to refer to both deck and sideboard together. Just in case anyone's confused by that.