I kinda lost any sense of what I was doing so sorry if chapter 11 is weird. I also don't want to mess with vampires anymore, so that might be a one and done. I'm not really enjoying this anymore. I'd rather be working on my original stuff.
Chapter 12_ Trinkets from the Sands
3:00 pm, Monday, August 24th 2016
Marinette
Marinette, Chloé, Kim, Max, Myleene, Alya, Nino, Sabrina, Zoé, Nathan, and Mark followed Alix into the Museum. Jalil, Alix's brother, was waiting for them and wove greeting.
"Hi everyone! Wow Alix, you… brought a lot of friends." stammered Jalil. Alix asked, "Is that a problem?"
"No, no, its fine." Insisted her brother. He led them into the Egyptian wing of the museum.
"The first piece is a tablet depicting Cat Noir or rather his ancient equivalent in the pose of a pharaoh, his hourglass figure signifies that he was meant to appear powerful the way a god or a king would want to appear in the artwork. His depiction is wears little armor and carries a long staff and a khopesh. Which fell out of fashion around 1300 B.C. the script below the painting literally translates to 'death comes' which I find fascinating even though its incomplete." Jalil paused, "Obviously I could write an entire essay about this piece, let's move on."
"Jalil!" shouted a man approaching, he was old, grey hair and beard, he wore a grey suit and a brighter striped necktie, his countenance was not a happy one. A pin on his jacket read: Warner Xytle Head Curator.
"Mr. Xytle-" "Tell that monkey to get his hands off the display case!"
All eyes were on Kim as he pulled his hands away and put them behind his back in embarrassment, "Sorry." The curator nodded to Kim for doing as he was told, then turned back to Jalil, "Where is your father?"
"He's in his office." "Come on then." "But-"
The curator gave a stern look, "I just got off the phone with Oxford." Jalil seemed to groan and sigh at the same time, "What do they want now?"
"Price, the entitled brat that crashed a jeep, he's flown in because an artifact that was supposed to be in England never arrived, and now our Egypt documents say we have it." Jalil put a hand to his face, "If I never hear the name William Price again. What's he after?"
"A damn amulet, carved gold wings with a red gem set in it. Obviously, we need to sort this out quickly." Jalil shook his head, "Fine, fine, but I don't understand why all the fuss over a little thing. Let's go look at the manifests."
Jalil pulled a stack flash cards from his jacket, and handed them to Alix, "That's the script, or uh parts of it… I don't have the final version." he stopped to check the order, rearranged a few cards, frowned again, then handed them to Alix, "These aren't in order." He explained, before leaving with the curator.
Marinette strolled past the exhibits. Alix muttered something about her brother's illegible shorthand while she tried to organize the cards. The blue-nette surveyed the room, no mummies or sarcophagus, these discoveries were older than the mumification process, older than wide usage of hieroglyphs.
It's a wonder they found anything, let alone a picture of 'Khem Mau' or whatever his name was. Marinette felt her eyes gravitate to medallion matching the Curator's description. "Hey Alix, I think I found the amulet they were looking for." Alix took a picture of the case and took off after the two.
Marinette turned back to the amulet. It was only a few inches across, and it wasn't bird wings she noticed, it looked more like bat wings, and something circled the border of the object like a snake.
Marinette looked around again, Chloé looked like she had about fifteen seconds left in her attention span. Sabrina, Myleene and Nathan and mark were looking at the notecards.
Another piece of limestone caught her eye, "Hello, Panya" the heroine whispered, recalling her training, calling her 'sebau' both endearment and mocking. The art wasn't very accurate, she wasn't physically powerful, she was leaner and agile. The Plaque read: "This tablet depicts a previous Ladybug, who likely lived far before any of the pyramids of Giza had begun construction. The full text under the image reads: 'Salvation finds the worthy and will save the suffering' it becomes clear she was an actual hero even before the Greeks invented Hercules or the Argonauts…"
Marinette stopped reading and slumped a little. Could she go ask Panya? About just whatever? She couldn't share the information freely, stuff needed to be secret. She could spill in an interview with Alya, but if she gave the impression that she had met Panya; that would raise other questions. It was probably better to not put in the trouble. When did being a superhero become work?
This train of thought stopped when Alix came back leading Jalil, her father, and another man roughly five years older than Jalil. Judging by the mannerisms, and English accent used this was Price.
"…I don't rightly care, either that piece goes back in a box back to Egypt today, or it's on its way to Oxford."
"Alix why don't you round up your friends, I think this is early viewing is over." Alix didn't fight her dad's decision, "Hey guys, we're out of time!" "Just one minute!" declared Chloé, "Why isn't there anything about Queen Bee in this place? Did you guys find anything about her?"
Jalil let out a laugh, "Ha! Yes, we did, sadly Oxford's contributors were persistent that half of the findings on our expedition were sent to the British History Museum. You'll have to visit London if you want to see it."
The group gathered by the exit, while Jalil and Price glared at each other.
Price rolled his eyes, "Forgive my French. I'd like to point out half was generous." He spoke carefully in French like he wasn't comfortable with it.
Dr. Kubdel fussed with his keys, while he spoke not looking up, "I don't want to hear another argument from either of you. If you think I'm above writing to every Archeology professional in Europe about exactly how intolerable the two of you are roll those dice, otherwise shut up." He found the key he was looking for and opened the case, "Let's take this to restoration, verify its authentic and send it on its way."
Jalil looked over to all the people watching them, "Go on Alix, we'll talk at home."
Marinette habitually did a headcount; Chloé, Sabrina, Kim, Max, Alix, Myleene, Alya, Nino, Zoé, Nathan, and Mark. They were all headed out together. Leaving three men looking over a medallion.
No one else was in the museum, she looked up at the ceiling thinking maybe an akuma was coming, no that's not it. Alya bumped her, "Hey, are you okay?"
Marinette jumped, "Oh, yeah, I've just got a feeling."
The students found their way back to the open sections of the museum, "What kind of feeling?" asked the vlogger.
Marinette shrugged, "It's dumb, my gut is telling me somethings about to-" an explosion cut her off. Rumbling through the building.
"LIKE THAT!" Marinette clarified.
I'm sorry I just can't finish this story, I don't like it anymore, I'm doing too much at once, and failing to do any of it well. I might come back to this but until then we're stopping here.
