In which Sadie has to be semi responsible and stop Percy from mouthing off, and also, Percy is adorable and is smart when she actually tries to be.
Replies:
Undeath9087: Yeah, Kronos only started with that 'cause of Alabaster and the others were all sort of like 'Well she is very pretty and strong... hm. If Kronos hadn't wanted her then the Giants wouldn't have been anywhere near so interested. It's kinda like with kids when they decide that because the other kid wants something they want it too.
AlexusAP: That's a very interesting theory, very interesting indeed. Also very cruel- look how Amos ended up after Set did it to him? And as bad as Set did he's not on the same level as Apophis.
Guest: It's Percy, Percy sees something dangerous and she's like 'Whoo! Fun!'.
PJ Fan 285: I have it all planned out, Apophis has his reasons for wanting Percy- and some of them do align with your theory though what he wants her for is the important thing. He has very specific plans- but he chose Percy because of how chaotic and powerful she can be.

After a long charged moment Sadie spoke, her voice soft in the silence. "How did they die?"

And, much to their surprise a voice directly in front of them echoed, "The wasting disease-" and all three magicians moved almost instantly. Sadie's staff in her hands, Percy snatching her khopesh from the Duat and Walt's flashlight shining on the doorway.

And then a ghost stepped into the room-and he had to be a ghost- he was see-through. He was a heavy older man with short-cropped white hair, bulldog jowls, and a cross expression. He wore Roman-style robes and kohl eyeliner.

"Newly dead?" he eyed them warily, ""Haven't seen any new arrivals in a long time. Where are your bodies?"

"Uh-" Percy blinked slowly and Sadie shifted.

"Actually we're wearing them."

The ghost's eyebrows shot up. "Di immortales! You're alive?"

"So far," Walt said.

"Then you've brought offerings?" The man rubbed his hands. "Oh, they said you would come, but we've waited ages! Where have you been?"

"Um…" Sadie's arms tightened around Percy. "Perhaps we should introduce ourselves. I'm Sadie Kane. This is my sister Pe-"

"Of course! You need my name for the spells." The ghost cleared his throat. "I am Appius Claudius Iratus."

"Uh- right. That's not Egyptian I gather?"

The ghost looked offended. "Roman, of course. Following those cursed Egyptian customs is how we all ended up here to begin with! Bad enough I got stationed in this god-forsaken oasis—as if Rome needs an entire legion to guard some date farms! Then I had the bad luck to fall ill. Told my wife on my deathbed: 'Lobelia, an old-fashioned Roman burial. None of this local nonsense.' But no! She never listened. Had to mummify me, so my ba is stuck here forever. Women! She probably moved back to Rome and died in the proper way."

"Lobelia?" Sadie spoke up slowly, and Percy had to stifle the urge to giggle. It was kinda a terrible name.

The ghost huffed and crossed his arms. "But you don't want to hear me ramble on, do you? You may call me Mad Claude. That's the translation in your tongue."

"Um…" Walt raised his hand. "Are you mad as in angry? Or mad as in crazy?"

"Yes," Claude said. "Now, about those offerings. I see staffs, wands, and amulets, so I assume you're priests with the local House of Life? Good, good. Then you'll know what to do."

"What to do!" Sadie tried to sound confident "Yes, quite!"

Claude's eyes narrowed. "Oh, Jupiter. You're novices, aren't you? Did the temple even explain the problem to you?"

"Um—"

He stormed over to the family of mummies we'd been looking at. "This is Lucius, Flavia, and little Purpens. They died of the wasting plague. I've been here so long, I could tell you practically everyone's story!"

"They talk to you?" Sadie asked looking horrified.

Mad Claude waved his hand impatiently. "Sometimes, yes. Not as much as in the old days. Their spirits sleep most of the time, now. The point is, no matter how bad a death these people had, their fate after death has been worse! All of us —all these Romans living in Egypt—got an Egyptian burial. Local customs, local priests, mummify the bodies for the next life, et cetera. We thought we were covering our bases—two religions, twice the insurance. Problem was, you foolish Egyptian priests didn't know what you were doing anymore! By the time we Romans came along, most of your magic knowledge was lost. But did you tell us that? No! You were happy to take our coins and do a shoddy job."

Percy's eyes narrowed, "Well maybe if you Romans hadn't-" Sadie's hand clamped down over Percy's mouth to stop her from starting to rant at the ghost, and she pulled Percy backwards as she did- and- was he glowing? Yeah he was glowing, that was never a good sign with magic.

"Ah-" Sadie's voice was panicked, "Well I'm sure the House of Life has a customer service number for that-"

"You can't go halfway with these Egyptian rituals," he grumbled. "We ended up with mummified bodies and eternal souls tethered to them, and no one followed up! No one said the prayers to help us move to the next life. No one made offerings to nourish our bas. Do you know how hungry I am?"

"We've got some beef jerky," Walt offered.

"We couldn't go to Pluto's realm like good Romans," Mad Claude went on, "because our bodies had been prepared for a different afterlife. We couldn't go to the Duat, because we weren't given the proper Egyptian rituals. Our souls were stuck here, attached to these bodies. Do you have any idea how boring it is down here?"

"So if you're a ba-" Sadie was definitely trying to keep things calm, not usually her strong point but Percy couldn't blame her. "why don't you have a bird's body?"

"I told you! We're all mixed up, not pure Roman ghost, not proper ba. If I had wings, believe me, I'd fly out of here! By the way, what year is it? Who's the emperor now?"

"Oh, his name is—" Walt coughed, then rushed on: "You know, Claude, I'm sure we can help you."

"We can?" Sadie asked before Percy elbowed her. "Oh, right! We can!"

Walt nodded encouragingly. "The thing is, we have to find something first."

"A scroll, part of the Book of Ra."

Claude scratched his considerable jowls. "And this will help you send our souls to the next life?"

"Well…"

"Yep." Percy managed to shove Sadie's hand down away from her mouth, "I'm sure you'll get judged fa-" she was pinched by Sadie and she shot her sister a dirty look.

"Shut up. We'll know what to do when we find it." Sadie said quickly, "It's supposed to wake Ra, you see, which will help the Egyptian gods. I'd think that would improve your chances at getting into the afterlife. Besides, I'm on good terms with the Egyptian gods. They pop over for tea from time to time. If you helped us, I could put in a word."

And Percy watched the Roman's expression shift, become shrewder, a thoughtful look on his face as he stared at the trio.

"On good terms with the Egyptian gods." he mused, "Put in a word you say..."

Then he turned to Walt. Claude's expression was so calculating, so eager, it made Percy's skin crawl. "If the scroll you seek is ancient, it would be in the oldest section of the catacombs. Some natives were buried there, you know, long before we Romans came along. Their bas have all moved on now. No trouble getting into the Duat for them. But their burial sites are still intact, lots of relics and so on."

"You'd be willing to show us?" Walt asked, a relieved look on his face.

"Oh yes." Mad Claude nodded, a winning smile on his lips, "And later we'll talk about an appropriate fee, eh? Come along my friends, it's not far."

And Percy pulled a face, gripping Sadie's hand tightly- something about following the clearly mad Roman ghost into the creepy tombs was not a good idea she was sure- the problem was she couldn't think of anything else to do- she wasn't quite sure what would happen if they didn't follow the ghost but she doubted he would just let them wander off without him.

So, clinging to Sadie Percy let them follow the ghost, and as they passed through tunnels and chambers, Mad Claude gave them a running commentary on the various mummies.

Caligula the date merchant: "Horrible name! But once you're named for an emperor, even a psychotic one, you can't do much about it. He died betting someone he could kiss a scorpion."

Varens the slaver: "Disgusting man. Tried to go into the gladiator business. If you give a slave a sword, well…you can guess how he died!"

Octavia the legion commander's wife: "Went completely native! Had her cat mummified. She even believed she had the blood of the pharaohs and tried to channel the spirit of Isis. Her death, needless to say, was painful."

Percy felt sick at the way he spoke about them- he didn't care at all that they'd once been living people with real lives, he looked like he found their deaths funny. Sure some of the deaths were ridiculously stupid but still, it wasn't something to be so callous about, not in their tombs!

And there were so many of them- and not all of them were in the same condition.

Some were wrapped in real gold. Their portraits were so lifelike, their eyes seemed to follow them as they passed. They sat on ornately carved marble slabs surrounded by valuables: jewellery, vases, even some shabti. Other mummies looked as if nursery school children had made them in art class. They were crudely wrapped, painted with shaky hieroglyphs and little stick-figure gods. Their portraits were not much better than Percy could've done—which is to say, dreadful. Their bodies were stuffed three-deep in shallow niches, or simply piled in the corners of the room.

And when Sadie asked about them Mad Claude was dismissive. "Commoners. Wannabes. Didn't have money for artists and funeral rites, so they tried the do-it-yourself approach."

Percy just glared at the man, curling her fingers into fists as they moved- she could see Sadie's gaze lingering on some of the portraits, see a sad look on her sisters face and she squeezed her hand tightly, offering up some silent comfort- even if she didn't know what to actually say.

After several more long tunnels and crowded mummy rooms they finally arrived in a burial chamber that was clearly much older. The wall paintings had faded, but they looked more authentically Egyptian, with the sideways-walking people and hieroglyphs that actually formed words, rather than simply providing decoration. Instead of realistic facial portraits, the mummies had the generic wide-eyed, smiling faces that Percy had seen on most Egyptian death masks- and she'd seen a lot of them over the years. A few had crumbled to dust. Others were encased in stone sarcophagi.

"That's how it's supposed to be." Percy mumbled the words.

"Natives," Mad Claude confirmed. "Egyptian nobles from before Rome took over. What you're looking for should be somewhere in this area."

Percy looked around slowly. The only other doorway was blocked with boulders and debris. While Walt began searching, Sadie pulled the first two scrolls from her bag- clearly hoping that somehow they'd lead them to the third scroll.

Unfortunately that didn't seem to do much, and from the other side of the room Walt called, "What's this?" so Percy pulled away from Sadie and darted over to him where he was stood in front of a shrine, a niche set into the wall, with the statue of a man wrapped like a mummy. The figure was carved from wood, decorated with jewels and precious metals. His wrappings glistened like pearl in the light of the torch. He held a golden staff with a silver djed symbol on top. Around his feet stood several golden rodents—rats, perhaps. The skin of his face gleamed turquoise blue.

Percy's brows furrowed- for a moment she thought that it was her dad but- "I-" her brows furrowed, "It's- ugh who is it dad'd be disappointed at me forgetting like this-"

"Yeah right." Said let out a snort, "I don't think dad could ever be disappointed in you Percy. You're the favorite-"

"No I'm not-"

"You so are." Sadie shook her head, "Don't worry it doesn't hurt anymore. You're the baby of the family. Now baby, use those hidden brains of yours that you pretend aren't there and channel carter for is."

Percy let out a laugh. "Okay." She giggled, straightening up and putting on a serious face, and making her voice go slightly deeper and solemn "And this is a fine example of a statue of- Ptah!" she beamed, "It's Ptah! The god of craftsmen-"

"Ptah-" Sadie snickered, "Like Ptah, son of Phitooey, the god of spitting?"

That earned her a glare from Claude. "Are you always so irreverent?"

"Usually, more."

"A novice and a heretic," he said. "Just my luck. Well, girl, I shouldn't have to teach you about your own gods, but as I understand it, Ptah was the god of craftsmen. We compared him to our Roman god Vulcan."

"Hephaestus." Percy murmured softly, her brows furrowing before she shook her head- thankfully Claude didn't seem to have heard- they couldn't be sure if he'd be friendly to Greeks or not- after all Greeks had a lot of history with Rome- but he didn't notice, mainly because Walt had spoken.

"Then what's he doing in a tomb?"

Claude scratched his nonexistent head. "I've never been sure, actually. You don't see him in most Egyptian funeral rites."
Walt pointed to the statue's staff. When I looked more closely, I realized the djed symbol was combined with something else, a curved top that looked strangely familiar.

"That's the symbol was," Walt said. "It means power. Lots of the gods had staffs like that, but I never realized it looks like—"

"A netjeri blade." Percy breathed, her gaze swinging to Sadie. "Anubis' gift."