Hello people, Im back with a chapter update -flails-
nothing much more to say really except I swear Im using the wrong tense of 'to wait' when the waiter says it xX
I failed so much at that section in French III

- Euro

Chapter 2
Enter the Scepter

The Night wind blew cold wind as the fair skinned woman walked up to the entrance of the restaurant. At the base of one of the pillars that lined the entry way, and holding up the upper floor, stood a dark wood podium. A rather stuffy looking waiter stood, he watched her approach down the bridge of his overly large nose. She wore a lavender colored dress that sparkled and shimmered with every step she took and with every sway of her hips. It showed her svelte curves off quite nicely. The woman's hair was of a bright red color and she processed a pair of dazzling green eyes. Her nose curved softly down the gentle oval of her façade. The bun on the back of her head in which her hair had been bundled into let loose a few strands which fell across her face.

The waiter's expression seemed to grow more annoyed as the woman walked up to the podium. "Nom?" he huffed in a pompous tone.

The lady gave him a small smile exposing a row of perfectly straight, white teeth. "Beatrice Rousseau…" She said in a soft voice with a tad of nasal twang to it.

The head waiter scuffled around the papers that were on the podium, he looked up after he seemed to find which one he was looking for. "Je suis desolee, Ton table n'est pas prepare. Est-ce que Tu anttendait, sil-te plait?"

The woman tilted her head and after a short pause she said "D'accord." The waiter gave her a curt not and then retreated back into the restaurant. Beatrice let her eyes wander over the intricate lines that were carved into the marble pillars. How long had it taken the architect and workers to complete that?

She slowly found herself wandering away toward the city street while she waited for her name to be called to announce that the table for her was ready. She fidgeted with her hands a little, she was nervous. The woman was supposed to be meeting the famed American professor, Dr. Indiana Jones to try and convince him to help her and her college with a predicament they had reached in their hunt for antiquities. Beatrice brushed a strange bright red hair out of her face as she paced down the sidewalk of the street, peeking into the shop's windows at what they were selling.

She paused for a moment in front of one of the shops. It was a tiny building with peeling gray paint, the title 'Chapeau' was written in gold, illuminated text above the store windows. But what caught her eye was the gorgeous looking pale-green hat displayed on one of the mannequins. It was crowned with a gold organza gold ribbon that strangely complimented the green color. Gold, white and sage green feathers stuck out in a uniform angle where the ribbon tied off into a large bow. A smile came to her lips, she really liked that hat. However, she had no money for small pleasures upon her; she had only brought enough for the dinner and wound not risk not having enough to pay for both her and Dr. Jones. That would be rather embarrassing and after an incident like that she could only imagine that Dr. Jones would not want to help them.

She paced to the street corner and then quickly made her way back to the entrance of the restaurant, paranoid that she might have missed the call. As she was walking back, Beatrice heard a loud crash come from a side alleyway that ran parallel to the restaurant. Her attention was quickly drawn to it; it was pitch black up until a single point where a square of golden light flooded out onto the cobblestone and started clawing its way up the wall. A door had probably opened from the kitchen or some other servant's room.

However, her eye was quickly drawn to what was outlined by the patch of light on the ground. Lying, twisted, was a man; his silver hair glistened in the glow emitted from the open door and his once spotless gray suit got smudged with dirt. Beatrice squinted and started coming toward him to get a closer look. He did not fit the normal requirements of someone who usually ended up in a Parisian alleyway. He did not appear to be a drunken transient or some sort of failed thief, the man most definitely did not look like any sort of low-life. She tilted her head; perhaps he worked for the restaurant and had gotten into some sort of squabble with the management. Or perhaps he was just a normal civilian, what had he done to get evicted like that.

He screamed a few rather well chosen obscenities back over his shoulder at those who had threw them out. Beatrice jumped again as another object was thrown out the door. The man, instinctively, covered his head as it flew over him. It smashed against the opposite wall and tumbled to the ground beside him. Either Beatrice's eyes were playing tricks on her or it was reality, but he appeared to have had some sort of chair thrown at him. She suddenly caught glimpse of the light glittering off something spinning. Around and around, the strange wheel-like on the chair went; that was when it registered for Beatrice that the object was not merely a chair, but a wheelchair. This man was lame.

She felt herself drawn to the situation as the square of golden light disappeared signifying that the door to the restaurant was closed. The man groped around in the darkness trying to find his chair, his means of mobility. He was seething, obviously his temper was high for she caught sight of his red face and angered expression. He once again cursed back as the door slid closed and was audibly locked from the inside. There was, however, one thing that he said that caught Beatrice's attention almost instantaneously.

"Dr. Jones!" He cried in fiery rage, the rest of his words were lost for they seemed to be in another language.

Dr. Jones? Could this man perhaps know the famed American archeologist? Beatrice's eyes widened at the possibility. One thing was for certain, though, the professor was here, at the restaurant, waiting for her. He had kept their appointment and had kept his promise to meet her. Had she not been caught in this odd situation she might have broke into a smile of elation, but she did not. The woman only stared at the man writhing on the ground in front of her. How on earth did he know Dr. Jones? The woman was quite sure that the American would choose his acquaintances more carefully. She came up next to the man her features

"Monsieur?" she asked, her voice full of concern as she kneeled down next to him, not paying attention to the fact that she had gotten dirt on her dress where her knees where. "Est-ce que tu veux aider?" she asked him.

The man jumped and quickly turned around to face her, his anger receding slightly. She caught sight of the most horrid disfiguration of the left side of his face. The woman pulled back, but only for a moment, in shock for she had not expected to see that. Terrible, deep scars laced their way over his features and almost down t his neck, at first she was surprised, but then she was suddenly touched by pity. Her expression was not hard as she brought herself back to look directly into his face. Then she saw his blue eyes, icy blue and piercing; she felt as though he was seeing right through her.

"Est-ce que tu veux aider?" she repeated.

His face was blank; perhaps he did not speak French. He looked northern European, perhaps he only spoke German. Sadly, she did not speak any other languages other than French and English; maybe he knew English and they could reach some sort of middle ground.

"Would like help, Monsieur?" She translated her last sentence.

His face lit with comprehension, he understood her. She felt relieved for a moment, now language would not be an inhabitance and road-block to them.

"Can jou hand me zat chair?" he said to her as he gestured toward the over-turned seat.

He spoke with a very heavy accent. He was of Germanic origins, just as she had suspected and she instantly became wary of him. Beatrice disliked assuming about people before she actually had a chance to get to know them, but as of lately Germany had not been the friendliest of countries. She was not stupid, she had friends in high places and she had overheard classified information on how the number of spies of German make had increased over the last year. However, he was the one that needed help and she had offered it, thus binding her to give it. Beatrice got up and went over to the wheel-chair. It was made of dark wood with crudely polished steel rimmed wheels. She put it back right way up and wheeled it back over to the man, who was trying to lift himself off the ground.

She could only assume that he was just as wary of her. Even though she was only a woman dressed in the daintiest of dresses did not mean anything in his mind. She could feel his eyes watching her as she up righted the chair. It occurred to her that not many normal citizens would trouble themselves with the disabled unless they wanted something to bargain with, she was doing it out of her own free will and nature. Beatrice could sense the man was having none of it. She turned back around to find him trying to get over to his chair and doing a poor job of it.

"Here…" she said softly as she took his left arm.

She dropped it in surprise when, instead of feeling the soft flesh of a normal arm, she felt what seemed to be a wood stump where the lower half of his arm should have been. The man saw her shock at his deformity and quickly drew his arm back to his chest away from her. Beatrice saw that he had no left hand; instead it had been replaced by a rather crude metal prong. Where did he get that from? She was sure that modern doctoring in limb replacement was far more advanced than the model that he was sporting. Beatrice, however, was not going to ask him where he had come by that thing that would probably be more suited for a meat butcher than for use as a replacement limb.

"Sank jou foor jour help…" he said, his voice gruff and unfeeling. Beatrice felt bad that she had upset him about his arm, she was sure that he got that same reaction from plenty of other people and the last thing he needed was one more idiot gaping at him.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you…" the woman apologized.

The man did not respond to her words. He merely took a hold of the chair's arm and tried to flounder his way on to it with his useless legs. The wooden chair started sliding out from underneath him for he was trying to get back on it from a very bad angle, he lashed out with his other arm to try and prevent the chair from flipping over on top of him. She quickly got up from the ground and took hold of the wheel chair to steady it for the man. He looked to her once again, it appeared as though he was rethinking the situation and was maybe going to accept her help more readily.

"Vat do jou vant from me?" he asked, his voice was gave as his blue eyes narrowed.

Beatrice looked away as they locked with hers. "Nothing…" she said in all sincerity, "Can I not be a kind soul to someone who needs it?"

The man turned away from her for a moment before he continued, "Nobody does something foor nozing…" he murmured, as he tried, once again, to get up onto the chair. It seemed as if it was going to hold for a moment, but then it buckled and slid back. Beatrice caught him around the shoulder preventing him from falling face first onto the ground. His face wore an expression of surprise, probably from the sudden disappearance of the chair from his hands.

"I am sorry to disappoint you…" she said in a gentle voice as she looked him right in the face.

After nearly a minutes pause he let out a long sigh that reflected all of his emotion and troubles. Beatrice offered her hand to help him and he took it. She first had to readjust the seat, but in a few moments and with a single good pull, she helped him get onto the chair. The man's fake hand dug into her arm, but it was not enough to cause her any sort of excruciating pain. Once he was in the chair, he quickly twisted his body around to a seated position.

"Sank joo…" he repeated, this time with far more sincerity. The man took hold of the wheels and steered himself toward the open street. He tried to turn, but was having trouble getting his clawed left hand around the rungs of the wheels in the dark. He tried twice, but only managed in creating a lout metallic clag, as his fake hand slid off. Beatrice, taking one last chance to help with poor man quickly took hold of the back of the chair; she gave one shove of her own weight against it which started it rolling. She pushed him out of the alleyway and onto the sidewalk; the streetlights now allowed the man to solve his problem with his wheels and his left hand.

"You are welcome, monsieur…" she said with a weak smile.

Her own level of English was still very rudimentary, and she could sense that he was far more fluent in the language than she was. He bowed his head to her. The man then turned his wheelchair away from her and started to roll away. Beatrice tilted her head, why did she still feel like she had done nothing to aid this man? She did not realize that she kept on staring. The man in the wheelchair suddenly stopped on the street; he turned himself slowly back around to face the woman, a sad look upon his face. He must have felt her eyes burning into the back of him and he must have felt the sad look that she had been giving him. Their eyes met, he put a hand to the left side of his face and felt the long jagged scar that ran across his visage.

"Please…" he said to her in a deathly quite voice, "I don't vant jour pity…"

Beatrice dropped her eyes to the side walk: "I am very sorry, monsieur," she said.

The man gave her one more courteous nod of thanks before continuing on his way. Beatrice felt quite useless as she made her decision to continue on toward the restaurant. This night was turning out much stranger than she had expected, all she needed now was something to go horribly wrong with her meeting with Dr. Jones. As she came back to the red carpet which led inside to the restaurant she heard the stuffy head waiter call out, in a loud voice, "Mademoiselle Rousseau!" She was disappointed to find that is was the head maitre-d who was to be leading her to her table.

--

Indiana Jones lay on the ground rubbing his lower jaw as the two burly waiters dragged the German Colonel out of sight. The entire section of the restaurant was in an uproar, it was obvious that these types of things did not happen in this restaurant, ever, in this restaurant. Probably the most interesting thing that happens at this restaurant is the rare battle of words and wit between two posh Frenchmen who dislike each other. Mandy dashed over to his side, loose pieces of her jet black hair falling into her eyes as she ran; concern and despair filled her face as she dropped to the floor next to him.

"I'm so sorry, Indy… I… didn't think he would actually do it… I didn't mean for things to go that far" she apologized and fretted over her friend on the ground.

Jones gave her a sideways glance, "You didn't listen to my stories carefully enough, then," his tone of voice was soft; he did not mean to be angry at her. Even though it was partly her fault that he had nearly gotten the life beat out of him this early in the evening, there was the small glimmer of satisfaction within him that he had once again deprived the German colonel of his blood. Chaos still ensued around the place, waiters tried to get some of the disgruntled ladies calm back down from the sudden outburst of fighting that had occurred across the room. Some of the servers who were close enough to were the battle scene had happened were tossing Jones and Mandy all kinds of dirty looks, it was clear that if the two did not leave soon they were to be tossed out like the ex-colonel was a few moments earlier.

The American professor slowly stood up, still rubbing his jaw. He had to admit, even though Vogel was in a wheel chair, he had lost none of his punching power over the last six months. "Mandy," Jones muttered as he looked to girl at his side and then hastily back to the waiters, "Lets get the heck outta here."

"I couldn't agree more…" Mandy said as they both conspicuously started edging to the door, not hoping to draw any more attention then they already had from the restaurant's clients or its staff. Both Indy and Mandy tried as best they could in the heat of the moment to bring their minds from the events that had just occurred and that were getting them expelled from the buildings premises. The American professor really hoped that none of those events ever came back to haunt him later. He paused, that was his luck now, and he had only recently had the privilege of having someone he thought had perished come back from the dead. Perhaps he would be seeing Belloq or even that Toht character sooner or later again.

The two finally scooted out of the restaurant out into the cooler night air. Mandy had not said much more after her previous sentence, that was unusual and it was obvious she felt guilty for what had happened. Indy had been in many other situations that were far worse than the one he had just been a part of, his most recent scuffle had been nothing more than a mere friendly nudge compared to some of the other fights he had ever been in. "I'm fine, alright?" Jones said to her, it made him concerned that the girl wasn't talking his ear off.

"It just…" she squeaked, her voice almost a whisper, "He could have killed you…" her expression ashamed.

"Its nothing… he tried killing me before and he failed. Now he can't use his legs, he couldn't have gotten me if he tried." Indy said in a sarcastic matter-of-factly tone.

The two of them slowly passed by the outer most column of the building's architecture, passing several people trying to get into the posh French restaurant. Mandy's expression was unchanged as she fell silent even though Indy's explanation was quite valid. He had everything under control in the fight with the ex-colonel Vogel; it was pure luck that the German had gotten the upper hand, but Indy would have figured a way out before anything happened to him sooner or later.

"But Dr. Jones…" The girl tried to go on about her concerns, but Indy stopped her.

"It's over, alright…" The American professor said sternly.

He meant to say more, but he was suddenly interrupted by the sound of a soft voice behind him. "Dr. Jones?" it was thick with a French accent, but it held a distinctive smoothness about it. He turned around to see a woman with flaming red hair and pale ivory skin. She wore a pale purple dress that glowed in the light of the restaurants windows. Indiana raised an eyebrow, Mandy merely blinked a few times.

"That's right," he said in a suave tone.

The woman relaxed visibly, "Thank goodness. I was afraid that I might have been too late to meet you here." Both Mandy and Jones looked at each other and then glanced back at the French woman in front of them. Indy didn't recognize her, and neither did Mandy. The woman noticed their looks. She quickly jumped in where her introduction, "I am Doctor Beatrice Rousseau…" as she stated her name her voice seemed to trail off and get quieter at then end. So this was the person that Indy had come to the restaurant, to France, to meet and discuss the discovery of some artifact. Doctor Rousseau had not been very detailed on the discovery probably for secrecy just in case the letter came into the wrong hands instead of getting to Indiana Jones. She put her hands together as she looked to the American with emerald green eyes.

"Pleased to meet you, mademoiselle," The pain in Jones' jaw seemed to disappear.

Mandy jumped in as soon as she felt that Jones was going into his 'impress the ladies' mode. "Hello," she said as she quickly put herself in between the American and the French-woman. "I'm Mandy… Dr. Jones' aide." She gave a smart smile and wore an expression of great importance on her face.

"Enchate." Beatrice curtsied to the girl, oblivious to what was going and why she was acting that way.

Mandy's expression faltered, she did not know a droplet of French so Rousseau's greeting went right over her head. She turned back to Jones and gave him a sheepish look, wondering if he knew what the French archeologist meant. She assumed that Indiana, being the well traveled man that he was, knew bits and pieces of just about every language on the face of the earth. The American leaned in towards the girl and whispered in her ear, "she says' she's pleased to meet you too." Mandy face lit with comprehension.

"Why were you leaving so quickly?" Rousseau asked in a timid voice.

"Uh… well you see…" Indy could not explain fully without going into the entire story, so he thought up something else that might constitute a reason for them to be expelled from the place. "We got in trouble with the management… I guess I must have mispronounced something."

Beatrice's featured became full of alarm, "I could go and sort it out," she offered.

"Thank you for that, Doctor." Jones cut her off quickly, "But I don't think there is any repairing this one," He did not want this ordeal to go much farther than it already had so he tried to divert once again. The American had noticed a small café on the corner when he and Mandy had first gotten to the restaurant and his mind now thought of it again. "Can I buy you a coffee?"

Beatrice was taken aback; the pompous head maitre-d who was supposed to be leading her to her table had long since disappeared into the building, not aware that she had stopped to talk with the American Professor. "Are you sure, I can help?"

"Don't worry, we did not order anything…" Jones said as the three of them finally left the place's premise.

--

"Do you know what the Scepter of Amon-Ra is, Dr. Jones?" Rousseau asked as she sipped the steaming hot tea in the delicate china cups.

The three had come into the café and were seated almost immediately, this was a step up from the restaurant were many had to mull around and wait for their place to be 'prepared' for them before they sat down. They had opted to sit outside under the glow of the lamps that were hung on poles scattered around the café's patio. The tables and chairs were both made of wrought iron, painted black and were twisted and turned into fanciful designs resembling those of a creeping vine. The patio held about ten tables each paired with two to three chairs depending how closely they were positioned to the actual street, the closer they were the less chairs they had. Indy, Mandy and Beatrice sat at a table that was nestled between the wall of the building and the fence that blocked off the patio from the street.

"I've come in contact with the Staff of Ra in my travels." The professor stated. Mandy nodded in agreement for she could not speak because she was busy munching on a croissant. "I assume their not the same thing."

Beatrice shook her head, "Non, they are not." She put the cup back on the saucer and spun the handle away from her before crossing her arms on the table. "The Scepter of Amon has far greater purposes than the Staff was ever intended for."

"Continue," Jones said as he leaned in to the table, any mention of antiquities made him interested.

"The scepter has been lost ever since the 24th dynasty, but I and a fellow collogue recently stumbled upon a part of a map that has bits of hieroglyphics on it that mention, in great detail, the scepter." She paused as she took a breath. "They even start to mention a location, but then the lines are cut off, the rest of the map is missing and we have no indication of where the rest of it is." Even now Mandy was starting to get interested in what the French woman had to say.

"You know the origins of the Scepter?" Jones asked.

The French Doctor moved her head up and down. "In the twilight of the 22nd Dynasty, a Pharaoh by the name of Shoshenq the fifth, son of Pami, came to the throne of lower Egypt. At this point, Lower and Upper Egypt were slowly breaking apart and the split was becoming more and more evident the more days that passed. It was also during this time that the god Amun and the god Ra became one in the people's minds and they had worshipped this joint god for nearly a century, but as soon as Shoshenq came to power the cult of Osiris felt it was their time to strike. Kemenwati was the occult leader of the Osiris believers and he was a blood-thirsty man. He was obsessed with using war, conflict, and blood-spill in his quest to…" Beatrice paused as she searched for the right words to continue her story with. "Resurrect the god of the underworld. Religious skirmishes broke out throughout the kingdom as more and more people turned from the Sun god to the god of the underworld in this time or dissention and split in ancient Egypt. Religious skirmishes broke out throughout the empire and the people lived in terror of Kemenwati and his Osiris sect."

"So some guy just come up and decides he's going to take over Egypt and try to bring back the god of the dead?" Mandy suddenly chirped in.

"Yes," Beatrice looked to Jones who had been listening intently to her story and explanation about the pre-history to the scepter.

"It was at this time that Shoshenq took matters into his own hands. He pulled back all military he had sent out, and told all followers of Ra to cease fighting with the Osiris sect members. He made a proclamation that the Heretics will pay most dearly for their actions against the sun god and the people of Egypt. He consulted his most trusted priestess, by the name of Khepri, for help on defeating this new found threat to the Egyptian empire. She merely told him to protect those he could and she would take care of the rest. According to legend, that night Khepri called upon the great Amon-Ra himself to help defend her homeland and the god supposedly was the one who gave her the scepter. But Khepri paid a great price, she sold herself, soul and being, to the sun god in return for the scepter; her life was a price for the protection of her people."

Beatrice paused in her story to take a sip of tea, it was here that Mandy chimed in once again "She sold her soul, was it worth it? Did the scepter do what it was meant for?"

Rousseau tilted her head as she responded, "For the most part, it was everything that Shoshenq wanted. Kemenwati's occult was defeated and dismembered and he was to be buried alive along side his three most trusted sect members. When they put him in the sarcophagus they defiled his name, forever damming his spirit according to Egyptian mythology. People still say that Kemenwati's ghost still haunts the Valley of the Kings searching for the ones who did this too him. But anyway, the scepter became the most prized processions of Shoshenq. He found it had the power to heal and to bring prosperity and good fortune to the one who held it. Because of this, Lower Egypt prospered for nearly twenty more years. Khepri often came to the pharaoh, though, and told him to be cautious with what he did with the scepter. Because it supposedly was a gift from the gods, we mortals could not grasp what its full potential was or even dream to wield its full power. Shoshenq did not listen to his priestess, and thirty years later he was being prepared for his burial. The pharaoh had died in the night leaving the scepter to the priestess…"

That was where the archeologist faltered. Jones leaned in toward the French-woman, 'Is something wrong?" he asked her.

"That is when the history of the scepter just… ends. No one is really sure what happed to Khepri or the scepter after Shoshenq died and was buried. I and a few others like to believe the theory that she followed her own advice and was buried along side her pharaoh with the scepter in order to hide its power away from humanity. She would still be there, in the tomb with her leader, undisturbed to this very day." After she finished her story she turned her green eyes to the American professor, "Dr. Jones, will you help us locate this tomb and in turn locate the scepter and bring it back to the surface, back to humanity."

"I haven't had much faith in humanity over the last few months," Indiana said under his breath. After all his run-ins with the 'bad guys' he had to say that humanity was slowly degrading itself.

"But just think, Dr. Jones, the power of the ancient world… just think of bringing that knowledge back into the history books." Beatrice was practically pleading to Jones as she put on a hopeful smile.

Mandy just turned and looked to Indy; she had to admit that she was interested. She always had liked 'other-worldly' sort of things and all of Jones' stories had only made her long to see what it would be like to finally have the chance to go pursue one of these objects and relics. "Indy?" now Mandy had to find herself on Beatrice's side of this conversation.

Jones let out a laugh of defeat. Oh yes, he was interested, but something told him that this was all just a fairy-tale. He tried to think of something to say, some words of wisdom or greater cunning that would allow him to bring his head back down from the clouds, but he could come up with nothing. "I guess I have no real choice…" he said as a crooked smile played across his features, "Well, Miss Rousseau, I accept your proposal."

Beatrice's features lit up. "Now," Indy continued, "About the map that you spoke of…"