Beyond the door lay a circular room, its walls covered in white plaster. A statue of a proud pharaoh occupied the room, holding a model of a city in its hands. In front of this statue sat a large woman whose lower limbs were replaced by a whirlwind of sand. She appeared to be meditating when the door opened, but as soon as the Ruby Scarabs saw her she charged at Azzaria.
Kaa sprayed the djinni with a line of acid. She leaped at him and then sprang back. He punched her, connecting despite the cloud of sand and dust that partly obscured her. Sula sank into the floor and glided into the room, peeking out to see what was happening. Azzaria moved in to slash the djinni. Kaa stunned her and she dropped the falchion she wielded. Kaa shouted, "Someone grab her sword!" and Sula responded by reaching out with an earthen hand to grasp the falchion and pull it into the floor with her. Kaa continued to hammer the djinni, and Uto used the pharaoh's mask to cast a spell on her. She turned to ash, and an instant later her whirlwind ceased and a heap of black sand fell to the floor, along with a ring and the jeweled pectoral she had worn.
While Hutt detected that the ring was magical, Uto gathered up some of the djinni's sand. Sula emerged from the floor and handed over the falchion, which was enchanted to conduct lightning. Then the party turned their attention to the miniature city in the statue's hands. Kaa realized that it was actually a puzzle chest. When he opened it he found in the interior compartment an ornate scroll tube and a device similar to an orrery. Hutt revealed that the orrery was a very potent magical artifact. There were also two potion vials in the compartment that contained oils capable of restoring life to the dead.
Kaa heard heavy steps outside, and Nyema growled. Three clay statues with heads in the form of a hawk head, a cat head, and a scarab beetle appeared. Hutt cast a spell on his companions to grant them alacrity again. Kaa ran foward and was met by the scarab. Sula recognized that the "statues" were actually golems and warned her friends. Azzaria used her enchanted kopesh to rush at one of the golems, striking it with both the kopesh and her mace. The hawk golem charged her, while Kaa smashed the scarab. The cat moved in just before Azzaria destroyed the hawk, its head unexpectedly transforming from cat to scarab beetle. Uto's hair reached out to touch it and it began to show signs of decay. Azzaria smashed it with her mace.
When the golems were gone the Ruby Scarabs decided to check the area they had come from. An angled hallway led them to a door, which Kaa determined was not trapped. Beyond it was an oddly shaped room with colorful reliefs and and hieroglyphs inscribed on the walls. Hutt recognized it as a kind of ritual magic with a continuous effect. Some of the reliefs showed people with animal heads like the golems.
Uto moved into the room to get a closer look. As he did so three more golems appeared, this time with heads of a vulture, the god Set, and another scarab beetle. Sula entered the room and struck at one golem. The vulture charged her, and then the Set golem also attacked her. Once more Hutt used his wand to give everyone in the party hasty movement. Sula slammed her earthen fist into the Set golem repeatedly. Kaa destroyed the scarab and Azzaria smashed the vulture. Azzaria then noticed three glowing nodules on the wall, between humanoid forms that seemed to be made of sand. She realized that this indicated there would be more golems. Kaa reacted by destroying the nodules, assuring that no more golems would appear.
After the Scarabs left the golem chamber, they went on to explore the other halls surrounding it. Kaa unlocked another door, disabling a magical trap. When the door was opened it revealed a very small space and another door. After Kaa opened the next door it revealed yet another tiny space and a third door, identical to the first two. At that point Sula suggested that she could pass through the walls to find out if there were more such doors ahead and what lay beyond them.
Beyond the next door Sula found that there were a total of ten doors ahead, each separated by another tiny room . After she passed the last door she saw a hallway with several doors leading off it. Each of these doors was carved with relief forms of people who resembled the ghost statues the Scarabs had encountered earlier. She also saw two figures that seemed to be made of living sand standing guard.
After observing the sand men, Sula returned to the others to report what she had seen. When Kaa heard of the 'sand men' he said they were living sandstorms, and Uto added that they could cause harm with their swirling clouds of sand.
When Sula had shared what she'd seen, she decided to return and look inside one of the rooms with the reliefs on the doors to see if there was anything inside that would be of use to the Scarabs so they could decide whether it was worthwhile for them to pass through the ten tiny rooms to get to them. She found that the rooms with the carved doors were empty of anything save sarcophagi carved with likenesses of their occupants. The walls were covered in images that seemed to feature the occupants of the sarcophagi demonstrating their prowess at various activities, though in one room she noticed that the person was almost hidden in other imagery, as if that person had wanted to be remembered as a spy.
The Scarabs decided based on Sula's observations that making their way through the ten doors was not worth the time it would require. They passed by the passageway of doors and tiny rooms and proceeded on to another area. There they encountered a very unusual door. It was made of cold iron that had been not just locked but sealed. On the door was inscribed some ancient Osiriani text that referred to a traitor. Because the door was sealed, the Scarabs left it alone.
Next they came to another sealed door, less elaborate than the cold iron door and sealed only with magic. When Kaa had unlocked it, it opened into a small, barren room where the undecorated walls shimmered with a green energy. Hutt declared that this energy represented a trap meant to confine anyone attempting to teleport in or out. A badly decayed skeleton lay on the floor. Though most of the skeleton's clothing and other equipment had disintegrated, it wore a cape still in good condition, an indication that the cloak was enchanted. When examined the cape proved to be what had trapped the long-ago explorer, for it was capable of teleporting the wearer over a short distance. The Ruby Scarabs speculated that the person had teleported into the room and become trapped there, unable to overcome the magical lock on the door to escape. Though the cape couldn't be used inside the area they were currently exploring, the Scarabs though it might be useful later, or valuable enough to sell, so they took it with them when they left the skeleton's prison.
After they left the skeleton behind, the Scarabs chose to return to the sun disk to seek out Tef-Naju and ask him about the sealed room with cold iron doors. Aiveria met them there. While they waited for her to return with Tef-Naju, Uto created a banquet for them to dine on.
When Tef-Naju arrived, Uto asked him about the "traitor" who had apparently been confined in the sealed chamber. Tef-Naju then told the Scarabs the story of a Shory woman named Jeshura, nicknamed the "Plague Queen of Kho", who had sought asylum with Hakotep after betraying her own people. She had devised a plan that had eventually led to the capture of her sister, who was one of the Shory engineers. But after the arrival of her sister Hakotep had lost interest in the Plague Queen and favored her sister. Jeshura had attempted to assassinate Hakotep with a disease of her own devising, but instead the disease had consumed her, transforming her into an unliving creature. She had been imprisoned to prevent her from spreading her curse.
Relieved that they hadn't chosen to break the seal on Jeshura's prison, the Scarabs turned their attention back to activating the Sekrepheres and summoning Hakotep's flying pyramid. Tef-Naju told them that they could charge the Sekrepheres this day and use the key on the following day. They decided they would bypass the sand-counting earth elemental by having Kaa open a passageway through the earth for them.
Kaa made an opening near the sandfall, outside the elemental's area. After he'd opened the way, Sula descended to scout for the chamber they sought. Some sixty feet directly below the sandfall, the Scarabs found a dark corridor. At the start of this corridor alcoves carved into its walls depicted winged scarabs within a circular border, a symbol of magic and creation. This corridor bent to their right and descended gradually. Eventually they came to an opening in the floor. It dropped away into darkness, leaving them unable to determine how deep the shaft was. Hutt sensed magic in this space and determined that it was an enchantment to reverse the natural flow of gravity here, so someone who tried to jump across the pit or throw a rope over it would suddenly be slammed into the ceiling. Then after a time the gravity would reverse again and they would be dropped into the bottomless pit.
Hutt took the chance to fly across the pit and see what would happen, but he suffered no ill effect because he expected the gravity reversal and was able to accommodate for it. Sula could use her enlarged size as an earth elemental to pass the rest of the group across the gap, aided by Uto inside the bronze sentinel. By the time all of the Scarabs had crossed the gravity had altered just as Hutt had predicted.
A little farther down the spiraling passage the party came to a huge slab of stone blocking their way. Uto utilized a wand that allowed him to make a small tunnel through the stone so he could see what lay beyond it. He saw that the passage continued onward and turned to their right. He then used his wand to make the tunnel bigger so the other Scarabs could crawl through, except for Sula who could glide through the rock using her elemental power. Uto's wand couldn't make a large enough opening for the bronze sentinel to walk through, so he reluctantly left the construct behind. Sula also decided to transform Nyema into a figurine since persuading the lioness to crawl through a tunnel of solid stone would be a diffciult task even for her. Azzaria marveled at how many traps the designers of this place had installed, since anyone else who came here would likely be one of Hakotep's followers.
On the opposite side of the stone slab the Scarabs found a door, and saw that the tunnel continued after a slight bump in its otherwise straight trajectory. The door wasn't locked. It led into a circular room filled with statues of people with the heads of animals, that at first seemed to be depictions of the ancient Osirian gods. A circular dais hummed with magical power. The room appeared to be a sculptor's workshop. It showed no sign of recent occupation. But Kaa noticed something odd about the dais. There was a piece of parchment lying in the center, and Kaa stopped Hutt just before he was about to step onto the dais to pick it up. Hutt looked closer at the dais and realized that had he stepped on it he would have become paralyzed.
The Scarabs left the workshop and entered another area, where they were promptly attacked by a golem that didn't stand against them long before it was destroyed. There were more statues in this space, but nothing else of interest. They went back to the workshop and Hutt was able to remove the scrolls from the dais without setting foot on it. After that they exited again into a long corridor with several doors leading off it. Inside one oblong chamber they saw numerous shelves of jars, which exuded auras of divination and necromancy. One of the other rooms off this hallway held a bewildering portrait of people in scholarly apparel consuming a feast of insects.
The party moved on to check the other rooms leading off the hallway. The next room held alchemical supplies, some of them spoiled when the seals on the jars had failed during the millennia they had been stored there. Uto noticed on examining one of the jars that it seemed to hold something like a spirit within. He theorized that the people in the strange portrait were eating the kind of creature held in this jar.
As they continued their exploration, Kaa discovered a hidden panel. The compartment inside held several ibis feathers, a bone wand, and a leather sack full of sand that had a mild magical aura. The feathers were also magical, but the wand proved to carry a curse: it would summon a creature, but that creature would immediately attack the wielder of the wand instead of attacking the summoner's chosen enemy.
The next room they looked into was shaped like a bottle, wider at the far end with the 'neck' close to the door. It too was full of jars, which Uto said had a necromantic aura. Something in the room made the Ruby Scarabs all feel frightened, though none of them fled. They left that room, but after they had shut the door they heard a crash from within, followed by the sound of wailing voices. Uto immediately wanted to go back and find out what was going on in the room.
Next: part 47, Return of the Sky Pharaoh
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