SESSION 7 - CORONATION, AND OTHER JOYOUS EVENTS
Session 6 | Log | Quotes | Session 8

At Fort Geb, things were quieting down as the battlefields were cleaned up, graves dug, and battlements repaired. Harmakhis, Ptah, and Sobek headed up that effort. Along the way, one of Amber's soldiers found a bag containing dozens of human eyelids tucked under a brick in the wall. Once it was removed, sleep was once again possible in the fortress. Back inside, Khnemu added to the Trump gallery there, filling it out to include all living family members.

With the battle won, Keket turned her tactical mind to helping Wadjet with the problems in the Vizier's network of agents, many of whom had been killed in recent weeks. It's unclear how much success she had, but she was apparently given broad access to the people and scenes involved in the most recent attacks.

Shu spent time in Assyria, doing some sneaky things in Nineveh around Mot's temple.

Khonsu was busy with his own projects, as usual. He emerged from a workshop in Memphis with a shiny new khopesh sword, apparently enchanted in some way.

Horus relocated his cult, claiming Osiris's temple as his new home.

Then the time of Horus's coronation as Pharaoh of Amber arrived. The family assembled at Memphis, where security was on high alert. As Wadjet spoke about the symbolism of the crown of Amber just prior to placing it on Horus's head, Anubis turned to Harmakhis, told him to Trump him immediately, and then vanished. Harmakhis left the ceremony and ran to Horus's gallery, followed by Sobek, Shu, Khonsu, Khnemu, Keket, and Unut. Wadjet quickly completed the ceremony, crowned Horus, and then they (and the rest of the family) went to the temple.

Before they arrived, however, Harmakhis had already tried to Trump Anubis and failed. Khnemu then attempted it, and felt a brief connection before a large, rotting hand reached through the Trump and locked around his own hand. That arm was numbed instantly, but a quick swing of Khonsu's new sword severed the hand. A blast of power threw everyone back, and there was a sense of a malevolent presence being cast out. Khnemu, undeterred, tried again to establish contact with Anubis, this time with Sobek, Shu, and Khonsu joining the attempt. He sensed a faint presence at the other end of the call, and pressing hard, saw Anubis's withered body lying on the floor of his Temple. Khnemu took his hand and pulled everyone through, where they were shortly joined by Harmakhis and Unut.

Anubis was alive, but barely. His body was withered, his chest sunken, and his eyes a milky white. Ammet was in two pieces nearby, ripped in half by some great force. They were in the chamber of the gate to the Land of the Dead, and the color of the place was almost non-existent, more closely resembling the other side. Anubis's scales were broken, the feather missing. His staff lay by his side. Khnemu took him to Horus via Trump, who tended to him as much as possible.

Khonsu, Shu, Unut, Harmakhis, Keket, and Sobek then began exploring Anubis's Temple for whomever had attacked. There were signs that something large, with great strength, had come through the main entrance, destroying things on a straight path to the gate chamber. Shu crossed over to the Land of the Dead to look around, and found that crossing back and forth was distressingly easy. There he found the apparent attacker, an undead beast built like a gorilla with a cow's skull in place of a head, and nearly twice the height of a man in its stooped stance. One of its huge hands was missing, severed at the wrist, though it did not appear to bleed. Rotting wrappings covered some of its equally rotting flesh, as if it had once been mummified. Shu stalked it through a few rooms and then attacked, but found that his talons went numb when they touched the thing's body. It also seemed to feel no pain. When he attacked again with a ceremonial spear, he was disarmed and the weapon crumbled to dust in the creature's grasp. Shu fled back to join the others, who were in the Trump gallery.

They were soon set upon by the monster, who had apparently crossed back to the real world without using the gate. An eerie whispering preceded its approach, both when Shu found it and at the gallery. Keket quickly laid out an ambush, and after hearing about how it destroyed weapons, had Sobek borrow Horus's spear. Harmakhis and others swatted wreckage from the Temple at the creature as it approached, causing it to stumble briefly, and then the melee began. Sobek was the first casualty, smashed against the wall by a massive swing, brushing the spear aside. Unut quickly ran to him, and Trumped out with the unconscious god to Horus. Keket took up her father's spear, and managed to put it through the thing's back where she imagined its heart to be, to no apparently effect. Harmakhis tried to keep walls between himself and the huge beast, but it crashed through the walls with little difficulty, blinding Harmakhis with crushed rock and knocking him to the ground.

Khonsu was able to cause some structural damage to the thing with his khopesh, but found it difficult to stay out of range of the creature's long arms. One of them clipped his shoulder, and that side of his body went numb with a pins-and-needles sensation. Keket and Shu then concentrated on bringing the beast down. Keket wrapped a chain around one knee, ripping away some of the flesh there before the chain rusted away to nothingness. Shu retrieved the spear from its back, but found his skill lacking and instead dove at the damaged knee with talons tearing. The beast fell to one knee, but not before getting a fist on Shu, driving him to the ground. Keket pulled him to safety before the thing could crush him, but was clipped on the back of her serpentine neck for her efforts, and was overcome with dizziness.

Harmakhis managed to get the thing's attention, and it limped after him at a surprising rate while Keket and Shu Trumped away. Khonsu went to retrieve Anubis's staff, realizing that only the enchanted weapons seemed to withstand the disintegrating effects of the creature's touch. Harmakhis was able to lead the creature outside, past the edge of the black-and-white effects of the Land of the Dead.

Outside, Harmakhis was confronted by Smenkharet, who appeared far different than the eyeless young woman Khonsu pulled from the Land of the Dead. Her dress was black, and she had dark circles under her eyes. Tendrils of smoke or shadow swirled about her feet. Around her neck was a gold medallion with a large red stone, the Eye of Ra, and the stone pulsed with red light. She held up a hand to the undead beast, calling out, "Shesmu, servant of Sokar! Your master is dead. You serve me now." The creature howled at this, but then submitted and limped towards her. Smenkharet and Harmakhis exchanged a few short words, but then Smenkharet and Shesmu departed, disappearing into the desert through a mirage-like ripple.

Once things settled down, it became clear that everyone was going to live, though Anubis remained comatose and would likely be blind for some time to come. Khnemu took up residence at Anubis's temple to keep an eye on the gate. Keket and Amun went into the Land of the Dead to have a look around, as did Shu. Shu found Thoth in the library at Memphis, where he was reading scrolls regarding Geb's death in Assyria, and they had a brief, though lucid, discussion.

Various people discussed the Eye of Ra, and where it had been recently. Nobody could pin down when it was last seen since the war with Libya, though Osiris had it at that point. It was widely regarded as immensely powerful and very dangerous.

It rapidly became clear to those at Anubis's temple that the Land of the Dead was seeping into Amber more and more.  Humans who spent more than a few hours in Anubis's temple grew weak and dazed, and the influence was beginning to spread beyond the walls of the temple complex.  Ptah was asked to reassemble Anubis's scales, which he did (though he was unsure if there was some sorcery upon them which had been dispelled), and a search was made for a feather of Maat.  Shu produced one, and Horus granted him a future boon in recognition for his donation.  When the feather was placed upon the scales, color began returning to the temple, and within an hour, the balance between Amber and the Land of the Dead appeared to be restored.