From the journal of Kenari Sanura
Back at the ship, Vedis is being tended by Lenata in her quarters. It turns out the poor thing has been touched by the Mummy Rot and it has left her weak as a newborn kitten. Fortunately Lenata's magic will be able to help her… but it's going to take a few days as her daily spells are limited.
Fortunately I have something to keep me busy as I return to my room and carefully unroll the scrolls we saved to see if we can find anything interesting.
Hmmn… some of them are your typical evocation rituals and rites for the gods… and one is an especially magical one that I will have to give to Ef Utan to check out… but these other three are informative.
One of the scrolls ends up being a guide to the tunnels we came through to get to the city. The four main tunnels bisect the area, with the one we came from being labeled "To the Stars." The tunnel across from that is "The Path of the Sun," which makes sense considering the flaming chariot we saw.
The tunnel to the left is "The Path of Nova Roma," which is interesting… considering Nova Roma is also the home of the toga-wearing plague carriers we encountered while on The Infinite Staircase. I wonder… if we took that path… would we find them still ridden with plague, or was that a different time than now?
The last tunnel is labeled "The People." Could this be where everyone went when this sphere was afflicted?
The last of the scolls seem to be more like journals and personal notes that speak of trading with the Helenic people of Nova Roma. I wonder… would they know anything of what happened here? For that matter… could the plague that they were afflicted with have come from what happened here? It is a dangerous possibility that we should be aware of as we continue to explore this place.
Strange… the notes speak of a delegation that struck the writer as particularly strange, because of the oddity of "The two that are one."
Wait a minute… the Dvati? Could this delegation have been the people who kidnapped Melkot / Melkoth? I wonder if they were the ones responsible for what happened here?
A few days pass rather uneventfully as Lenata tends to Vedis. It's a drawn out process getting rid of the layers of curses and disease she was afflicted with by the mummy… but thankfully there is progress and she'll be ready to go soon.
In the meantime, I suggest to the others that we return to the library in the Temple of Thoth and try to read the rest of the scrolls for more information. I don't want to go anywhere we haven't been yet without our full complement, so it seems as good as an idea as any.
As we're getting ready to disembark, Lenata decides to join us. It seems that Vedis has improved to the point where she doesn't need constant care, and besides… if we (goddess forbid) encounter another mummy, Lenata's clerical abilities should be able to take care of it.
Once we've got our gear together, Ef Utan, Lenata, Word and I return to the temple of Thoth to discover something interesting.
"Achoo!"
… besides the fact that Lenata is allergic to dust.
As we walk into the temple, Ef Utan points to the back wall and the library door that is now closed. He looks to us with a raised brow, but we all shrug in confusion. Who closed the door to the library?
Carefully I examine the dusty ground in the hopes that I might find some tracks… and am rewarded with a new set of human-sized bipedal tracks that lead from the front door of the temple to the library. As I return to the now closed door, I can't help but notice that the traps have returned too. This isn't the same swing blade trap, however… there are now 3 more complicated traps, with some of them even being magical.
"Not that it will help them," I mutter and crack my fingers before going to work on the door.
We enter the library carefully and discover more tracks leading to the sarcophagi… which is also now closed. "This time, don't touch it," I say before I go to check out the scroll cases.
"Sure thing… just be careful you don't set anything on fire," Ef Utan mutters back.
I growl under my breath as I run my fingers along the scroll cases to find the delicate wires attached to vials of alchemist fire along the inside edge of the case. I just manage to disable the wire in my irritation and keep this new set of scrolls from burning to a crisp. Don't let him get to you, Kenari…just do some deep breathing exercises before you do delicate work again.
Once I've managed to disable the rest of the traps, we gather the rest of the scrolls and decide to return to the ship to decipher them all. Perhaps with the help of the magics of Lenata and Aspodel Quickfoot and my skills, we'll be able to decipher these scrolls quickly.
Once we've returned to the ship we separate the scrolls into piles and give Vedis and Aspodel a project while Vedis is recovering. I've found a comfortable spot on deck and am about to start on my pile of scrolls when suddenly I hear a strange whistling sound from above. Instinctively I take a quick step to the left and look up as a strange feather slams down to the deck, it's color turning from white to black.
Ah crap… that's just all we need…
"Really?" I yell in frustration as I stand and run my hand through my hair. "Now of all times…" I mutter.
"What is it?" Ef Utan asks as everyone gathers around the black feather floating just above the deck.
"Ever been summoned to court in Sigil to justify the things you've done?" I ask him. He shrugs and nods. "Consider this a court summons… from Ma'at, the goddess of Justice and Balance."
"All right, then… let's not leave the goddess waiting," Ef Utan replies.
From the journal of Vedis Valentine
Day one of being out of my self-imposed exile and what happens? Kenari's missing gods decide to make an appearance.
We were out on deck, talking about our next jaunt to another planet or the possibility of investigating the other tunnels when right there in the middle of the deck appeared a feather, about half my height, standing on its follicle. It rotated slowly, fading from white to black.
"What is it?" Ef muttered.
"Is it another nightmare?" I wondered aloud as I joined the group that gathered around it.
"It appears to be a real feather…" Word whispered to me.
"Ever been summoned to court in Sigil to justify the things you've done?" Kenari asked Ef, who simply nodded. "Consider this a court summons… from Ma'at, the goddess of Justice and Balance," she finished gesturing at the feather, half-angrily, half-terrified.
"Allright, then… let's not leave the goddess waiting," Ef said, adjusting his armor and smiling strangely.
The temple of Ma'at was much like the rest: hieroglyphs everywhere, all over the walls, and a giant, magical ephigy of the goddess's symbol of the scales wrought in gold. Kenari went to work translating the hieroglyphs while Ef cast his magical sight over the scales. Lenata pitched in here, too, and I just wandered about, watching everyone's butts.
Word voiced something that concerned us all in his floating about, looking for secret doors. The exits were all sealed. We were trapped in the room!
Now we had to figure out what we were supposed to do to make the goddess let us leave. We hemmed and hawed a bit, until Ef thought that we might need to make an offering to pay for the scrolls that were taken from the temple of Thoth, since Ma'at was concerned with justice.
He placed a scroll he himself had made in the offering bowl. It was consumed with a puff of smoke. The exits remained sealed. Kenari put her conspiracy charts in the bowl, (knowledge for knowledge) and it, too went up in a puff of smoke. I didn't see what Word put in there, but there was another puff, and then Lenata stepped up to the plate. She took her knife in hand (I was worried she was going to give a blood sacrifice) and then cut off her braid. I was shocked! She'd been growing her hair since she was a little girl, so she told me, and she just cut it off!
It was a true sacrifice (something that mattered.) I put one of the power crystals I'd found on the Ithillid ship (power for power) into the bowl, and it, too, was taken like the rest.
Still, the doors did not open. We searched high and low for a way out. The only thing that had changed was that the feather appeared on one of the bowls on the giant golden scale. Again, we agonized about what it all meant, until Ef bit the bullet and climbed into the other end of the scale. From what Kenari had told us, Ma'at weighed the hearts of the dead against a feather. Those who were lighter of heart were allowed into the afterlife. Those who weren't would have their heart (and soul) fed to the crocodile god. I worried when the scale showed that Ef weighed more than the feather.
Lenata, also weighed more. Word was up next, and he, too was found wanting. I climbed on, next, wondering if the crystals that laced my body made me heavier than all of them, or if the weight of my deeds were what was counted, here. I've never killed a living person…
The scale balanced perfectly. I was no heavier than the mystical feather. I climbed down with a sigh of relief. Kenari weighed MUCH more, the scale nearly touching the ground beneath her.
Kenari joined us on the floor and after the scale became balanced once again, the feather vanished in a flash of light and three fourteen-foot tall women appeared before us at the altar in the same flash.
Kenari immediately prostrated herself, like she couldn't wait to kiss the floor. The rest of us followed her lead, albeit slowly, but only I got down as low. The three women were obviously goddesses, (I could recognize the cat-headed, bare-breasted visage of Bast from her temple, and Nepthys, as well.) The lady in the middle had a feather sprouting from her headdress at her forehead, and white-feathered wings, so I could presume that this was the Ma'at in which whose temple we stood.
Kenari began to make use of her silver tongue, but with a wave of Bast's hand, was rendered mute.
"HOW SHALL I TASK THE TRANSGRESSORS?" Ma'at boomed out in a voice that sounded like a gavel hitting stone.
"The dreamer is mine," Nepthys replies, claiming me, "and is innocent." I could have kissed her hem at that moment, regardless of whether or not I'd been raised to worship her.
"The loud mouthed one is mine, and on a long path," replied Bast. Kenari looked like she was about to do murder. Or cry.
Word and Lenata launched into a stirring soliloquy about how we were only looking for answers in the case of the sleeping humans and would put the scrolls back when we were done. They'd put two and two together that I was not with them when the scrolls were taken, so that must have been the crime. Ma'at charged us with the task of waking the people. Until we do, we won't be able to leave the sphere. It is to be supposed that with their worship base asleep all this time (and not praying to them) they don't have enough power to affect the circumstance, and they've been using Kenari's faith and prayers, (and maybe a little bit of my own) as a means of manifesting.
Since I can't read the scrolls (either the language, or the magical part) I'm pretty much relegated to organizing what's been read and sending each scroll off to the temple as Lenata, Kenari, and Aspodel do the actual reading and Word and Ef do the legwork. So far it's been a lot of necromancy and not a whole lot about anything relevant. We've broken for lunch, so I've taken the opportunity to write down my experiences.
Hmm… I wonder how Morpheus would feel about Nepthys claiming me as 'hers'. I'd love to watch the god-fight over a single worshiper… doubtless they'd have a dream-off or something. Maybe it'd get hot and heavy.
Eeew. That's like thinking about my parents having sex.