I actually did some mini-research for this, so I would have some vague idea about Egyptian stuff and the area. (course I made up the other half ^_^*)
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Chapter 5: Egypt
People have described Egypt as a wondrous land of ancient tales and untold mysterious, where a man finds himself transported back in time to the land of men of old…For Dante it was a land of sand, a burning sun, fat tourists with cameras, and more sand.As he stood in the shade of a pyramid at Giza, Dante thought about the events that had led him here.
After his little episode at Sarah's which had left him with voodoo paint flecks on his shirt and a strange pulling link to the Staff, he had gone home and done some thinking. The river he had seen in his vision that had split into large delta could only be the Nile. Which meant Egypt. Which had meant a hell of a lot of money and phone calls for airplane fast tickets. He'd also had a fun time getting Force Edge and his handguns through the Chicago airport security. A contact of Ray's finally managed to get them through on the notice that they were rare collector's items or something.
The trip over hadn't been too bad except for the noisy kids behind him and the Egyptian airplane food, which he wasn't even sure how to eat. The other interesting thing on the trip was when in the middle of flying over Egypt and about ten minutes away from landing in Cairo, his brain link (as he was coming to call it) suddenly decided to point straight down and completely spazz out. Half a minute later it was pointing the opposite direction of where they were headed, and Dante got the sense that it was annoyed. Apparently they had directly passed over the Staff's location.
After getting a hotel room in Cairo, he had passed out. It was 6 am when his flight had arrived after all. No way he was getting to work this early. Hours later he had woken up, got dressed as a casual civilian/tourist, and tried to follow his brain link wherever the hell it was leading him.
Dante was still cautious about the brain link thing. It was there and it didn't see like a bad thing…but that didn't mean it seemed like good thing either. On Mallet Island, when the Ifrit gauntlets had swept out of the sky and latched themselves on his hands, it had been a wave of power when he conquered them. It had also lifted him off his feet and almost broken his wrists. This link felt much the same way. On top of that, it seemed almost sentient at times, sending vibes of annoyance and impatience.
The link was one directional though, so trying to head directly southwest out of Cairo had been not easy due to one-way streets, dead ends, and sudden turns that threw him off course. Eventually, about an hour and a half after he started, he had found himself crossing the Nile and heading west towards Giza with his brain link humming happily. At least it couldn't talk. He had wandered around the various small pyramids of Giza until he managed to pin point the exact location that seemed above the Staff…which was not very helpful since all he had found was a few tons of sand.
So now, as he lounged next to the pyramid, he debated his next move. After a moment's consideration, he decided to get a drink. The sun here was hot enough to make a fire demon sweat. He wandered over to a small nearby bazaar where he picked up some Egyptian ale. Not half bad, he thought with a taste. He might have to crate some of this stuff for home. He looked with amusement at some of the tourist stuff for sale, which ranged from miniature pyramids and postcards to small glass bottles of "real Egyptian sand" that sold for $2 each. Dante tapped a bottle. "Nice sand. Must be hard to come by around here," he managed to say with a straight face. The shopkeeper quirked a grin for second then shrugged. Moving on with a chuckle, Dante was about to hassle another shop owner when a storyteller caught his ear. An old man was surrounded by a captivated audience of children, telling a legend of ancient Egypt.
"--and so Osiris sent his great guardian down from the Heavens," the old storyteller said bringing his hands down with whoosh, "and bid him to hide the relic of power deep within the sand of Giza where the minions of evil would never be able to find it. It is said, though," he whispered as if conveying a great secret, "that one day the armies of darkness shall rise again, and the shadow of the great guardian will also rise to claim the relic and fight back on the night of Shazmekat, the dark moon on the fifth day of the fifth month of the fifth year after the second great beginning,." Dante blinked. It was a nice story up to that point. The old man leaned back and gave the children a mysterious look. "As you have know, tonight just happens to be a new moon on the fifth night of the fifth month, and it is also the fifth year after the turning of the second millennium." [yes, this takes place in 2005.] The old man paused for effect. "Perhaps the great guardian's return will be tonight!"
Apparently that was the end of the tale, for all the children jumped up suddenly and ran off, an excited gleam in their eyes. Dante had to admit the storyteller was good at his trade. It was the story itself that interested him though. He wasn't a fan of coincidence, especially where legends, predictions, and mystical junk was concerned. The fact that he happened to be in Giza, where some 'relic of power' was hidden, and it happened on a predicted night of legend when armies of darkness were rising just like they were…well there was no way he was just going to ignore it. Unfortunately that meant a stake out tonight. Dante finished his beer and head back to Cairo and his hotel for some rare sleep and preparation for the coming evening.
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It was 2 am. Dante was glad he had come dressed in his traditional red and black leather layers. It got COLD out here during the night. He was currently half hidden behind some ruins near the area where he had been above the Staff's location. He'd been here since 10:00, unsure when whatever was suppose to happen tonight happened. If it happened. He personally hoped something would, because sitting in the same position for hours on end in the cold didn't agree with him. God damn, this was boring. He'd checked Ebony and Ivory at least twenty times out of sheer boredom, and now he was feeling his brain numbing like the way it did back during eighth grade algebra.
A gust of wind rippled his jacket, like a thousand other gusts had that night, but then caught Dante's attention as the sand around it was picked up in unusual patterns. The sand about twenty feet fell into symbol shaped mounds in some areas, while in others the wind cut into the ground and left striking indentations. The wind howled suddenly, and Dante crouched low, prepared for anything as a small cyclone formed and lashed at the sands beneath it. This would certainly make for an interesting postcard.
Just as suddenly as it started, the tornado faded away and the excess sand that had been floating around fell to the ground like rain. Dante sighed as he felt the grit settled in his clothes. That was going to itch like hell later on.
Walking over to where the cyclone had been, he saw that the weird carved and raised sand symbols had formed a series of concentric circles. The inmost circle had a diameter of about six feet and the sand within its borders seemed to be quaking slightly, as if being sifted. Dante looked around, shrugged, and with his fingers on the triggers of his handguns he moved into the center circle. For a second nothing happened, then the sand beneath him rolled outwards like a ripple and he staggered as the ground suddenly sank and pulled him down below the sands.
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Above, the sand symbols rippled away until the desert floor lay as calm and unchanged as the day before. Tourists came and went, the routine the same as always, though one man with sea green eyes stood atop a nearby dune and peered intently at the desert. Then, with a smirk and a shrug he turned…and seemed to shimmer and fade like a mirage.
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Dum dum dum! Semi-cliffhanger! Next chapter some time soon…busy week or two coming up.
Next Chapter: Sands of the Temple
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Chapter 5: Egypt
People have described Egypt as a wondrous land of ancient tales and untold mysterious, where a man finds himself transported back in time to the land of men of old…For Dante it was a land of sand, a burning sun, fat tourists with cameras, and more sand.As he stood in the shade of a pyramid at Giza, Dante thought about the events that had led him here.
After his little episode at Sarah's which had left him with voodoo paint flecks on his shirt and a strange pulling link to the Staff, he had gone home and done some thinking. The river he had seen in his vision that had split into large delta could only be the Nile. Which meant Egypt. Which had meant a hell of a lot of money and phone calls for airplane fast tickets. He'd also had a fun time getting Force Edge and his handguns through the Chicago airport security. A contact of Ray's finally managed to get them through on the notice that they were rare collector's items or something.
The trip over hadn't been too bad except for the noisy kids behind him and the Egyptian airplane food, which he wasn't even sure how to eat. The other interesting thing on the trip was when in the middle of flying over Egypt and about ten minutes away from landing in Cairo, his brain link (as he was coming to call it) suddenly decided to point straight down and completely spazz out. Half a minute later it was pointing the opposite direction of where they were headed, and Dante got the sense that it was annoyed. Apparently they had directly passed over the Staff's location.
After getting a hotel room in Cairo, he had passed out. It was 6 am when his flight had arrived after all. No way he was getting to work this early. Hours later he had woken up, got dressed as a casual civilian/tourist, and tried to follow his brain link wherever the hell it was leading him.
Dante was still cautious about the brain link thing. It was there and it didn't see like a bad thing…but that didn't mean it seemed like good thing either. On Mallet Island, when the Ifrit gauntlets had swept out of the sky and latched themselves on his hands, it had been a wave of power when he conquered them. It had also lifted him off his feet and almost broken his wrists. This link felt much the same way. On top of that, it seemed almost sentient at times, sending vibes of annoyance and impatience.
The link was one directional though, so trying to head directly southwest out of Cairo had been not easy due to one-way streets, dead ends, and sudden turns that threw him off course. Eventually, about an hour and a half after he started, he had found himself crossing the Nile and heading west towards Giza with his brain link humming happily. At least it couldn't talk. He had wandered around the various small pyramids of Giza until he managed to pin point the exact location that seemed above the Staff…which was not very helpful since all he had found was a few tons of sand.
So now, as he lounged next to the pyramid, he debated his next move. After a moment's consideration, he decided to get a drink. The sun here was hot enough to make a fire demon sweat. He wandered over to a small nearby bazaar where he picked up some Egyptian ale. Not half bad, he thought with a taste. He might have to crate some of this stuff for home. He looked with amusement at some of the tourist stuff for sale, which ranged from miniature pyramids and postcards to small glass bottles of "real Egyptian sand" that sold for $2 each. Dante tapped a bottle. "Nice sand. Must be hard to come by around here," he managed to say with a straight face. The shopkeeper quirked a grin for second then shrugged. Moving on with a chuckle, Dante was about to hassle another shop owner when a storyteller caught his ear. An old man was surrounded by a captivated audience of children, telling a legend of ancient Egypt.
"--and so Osiris sent his great guardian down from the Heavens," the old storyteller said bringing his hands down with whoosh, "and bid him to hide the relic of power deep within the sand of Giza where the minions of evil would never be able to find it. It is said, though," he whispered as if conveying a great secret, "that one day the armies of darkness shall rise again, and the shadow of the great guardian will also rise to claim the relic and fight back on the night of Shazmekat, the dark moon on the fifth day of the fifth month of the fifth year after the second great beginning,." Dante blinked. It was a nice story up to that point. The old man leaned back and gave the children a mysterious look. "As you have know, tonight just happens to be a new moon on the fifth night of the fifth month, and it is also the fifth year after the turning of the second millennium." [yes, this takes place in 2005.] The old man paused for effect. "Perhaps the great guardian's return will be tonight!"
Apparently that was the end of the tale, for all the children jumped up suddenly and ran off, an excited gleam in their eyes. Dante had to admit the storyteller was good at his trade. It was the story itself that interested him though. He wasn't a fan of coincidence, especially where legends, predictions, and mystical junk was concerned. The fact that he happened to be in Giza, where some 'relic of power' was hidden, and it happened on a predicted night of legend when armies of darkness were rising just like they were…well there was no way he was just going to ignore it. Unfortunately that meant a stake out tonight. Dante finished his beer and head back to Cairo and his hotel for some rare sleep and preparation for the coming evening.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was 2 am. Dante was glad he had come dressed in his traditional red and black leather layers. It got COLD out here during the night. He was currently half hidden behind some ruins near the area where he had been above the Staff's location. He'd been here since 10:00, unsure when whatever was suppose to happen tonight happened. If it happened. He personally hoped something would, because sitting in the same position for hours on end in the cold didn't agree with him. God damn, this was boring. He'd checked Ebony and Ivory at least twenty times out of sheer boredom, and now he was feeling his brain numbing like the way it did back during eighth grade algebra.
A gust of wind rippled his jacket, like a thousand other gusts had that night, but then caught Dante's attention as the sand around it was picked up in unusual patterns. The sand about twenty feet fell into symbol shaped mounds in some areas, while in others the wind cut into the ground and left striking indentations. The wind howled suddenly, and Dante crouched low, prepared for anything as a small cyclone formed and lashed at the sands beneath it. This would certainly make for an interesting postcard.
Just as suddenly as it started, the tornado faded away and the excess sand that had been floating around fell to the ground like rain. Dante sighed as he felt the grit settled in his clothes. That was going to itch like hell later on.
Walking over to where the cyclone had been, he saw that the weird carved and raised sand symbols had formed a series of concentric circles. The inmost circle had a diameter of about six feet and the sand within its borders seemed to be quaking slightly, as if being sifted. Dante looked around, shrugged, and with his fingers on the triggers of his handguns he moved into the center circle. For a second nothing happened, then the sand beneath him rolled outwards like a ripple and he staggered as the ground suddenly sank and pulled him down below the sands.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Above, the sand symbols rippled away until the desert floor lay as calm and unchanged as the day before. Tourists came and went, the routine the same as always, though one man with sea green eyes stood atop a nearby dune and peered intently at the desert. Then, with a smirk and a shrug he turned…and seemed to shimmer and fade like a mirage.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dum dum dum! Semi-cliffhanger! Next chapter some time soon…busy week or two coming up.
Next Chapter: Sands of the Temple