One of the devils maneuvered behind Azzaria to aid the man, while a second attacked Kaa. Kaa blasted it with lightning. Sula positioned herself to aid Kaa against the devil. The man backed up and began casting again, but Azzaria followed him and destroyed one of his images. He hurled a ball of fire at his own feat, burning everyone nearby. Two of the workmen had already been slain by his first blast, and now the third cowered behind a pillar, blocked from escaping the chamber by the presence of Nyema.
Azzaria warned the others that the man seemed to be healing rapidly and she suspected he was not human despite his appearance. Hutt send more force missiles at him, while Azzaria took up a flanking position with Sula. Kaa blasted both the man and a devil with lightning. Sula had entered the chamber in the form of an earth elemental, and she slammed a stony fist into the man, augmenting it with her inate lightning. The man tried to cast a spell but Hutt countered it. After he missed a slash at Sula he threw another ball of fire at his feet. The Azzaria dropped him to the ground, his throat slashed, and turned her attention on one of the devils.
Sula called Nyema to her, allowing the remaining artisan to flee. Seeing that Kaa was about to breathe lightning at a devil, Sula descended into the floor so it would pass over her. One of the devils dropped, but not before it frightened Nyema and caused her to flee into the far corner. Azzaria brought down the second devil.
The fallen man was not quite dead. As Azzaria had seen, he was healing quickly and might recover with time. The Scarabs didn't know how to overcome his regenerative power, so they decided to bind him, sever his head, and put him in one of the empty sarcophagi. As they went about this gruesome task, they heard sounds coming from beyond the doorway through which he had entered, that sounded like a party taking place. They healed their own injuries before exiting through the doorway to seek the cause of the noise.
The space beyond the workshop was a large arena with tiered stone seats set well above the sandy floor. As they entered they saw two wretched slaves equipped only with staves fighting a hideous large creature made of bones and sinews without skin. Above the arena a man wearing a headress sat on a throne-like chair, with a woman adorned with fine gold jewelry seated beside him. As the Scarabs stared in surprise at this scene, Kaa sent a bolt of lightning at the hideous bone creature. This had no effect. Kaa then flew across the sand to kick it and began to pound it with his fists. Its ribs snapped at him like a pair of vertical jaws.
Sula, still in the form of an earth elemental, began to climb toward the box where the two people sat on their thrones, taking Nyema with her. Other audience members seated on stone benches moved away as they approached. The man stood and began to speak in tones of anger, but Sula didn't understand his words. Kaa sneered and shouted something back at him. Then the woman touched an amulet she wore, which glowed. A portcullis opened at the other end of the arena, and a bronze minotaur appeared in the passage behind it.
Hutt took flight and gestured, and the bronze minotaur floated up into the air until it struck the ceiling. Sula moved toward the man on the throne, and Nyema leaped onto the dais to grab him with her claws. The woman leaped to her feet, screaming, then stamped her feet and touched the man, causing him to pull easily free of Nyema's grip. He picked up a weapon from beside his seat and Nyema bit him. Azzaria also began to fly, charging the woman, while Kaa blasted her with lightning. Then Hutt cast another spell and the woman burst into a cloud of dust.
The man cried out in outrage at her destruction. The minotaur crawled along the celing until it reached the edge of Hutt's magic and fell to the floor. Sula and Nyema both attacked the man and Sula shouted to Azzaria to tell him to make the monsters go. The man called out that he yielded, and Azzaria told him to make the minotaurs yield as well, to which he replied that he couldn't as only the woman could control them. Azzaria picked up the necklace that was all that was left of the woman and tried to use it to command the minotaur, for there were two more of them emerging from the tunnel. The minotaurs retreated, and an instant later the Scarabs all experienced the same nausea and disorienation they had felt outside the workshop. Then suddenly the arena was empty. It seemed older now.
Kaa found a hidden compartment under the man's throne that held a suit of armor, a belt, a spiked chain, and five potion bottles. The woman's throne had a similar compartment containing a cloak, a ring, and a pectoral in the form of an ibis. Uto rendered an opinion that the party had been caught in a repeating loop of time, which they had somehow broken.
There was no exit from the arena except the one they had entered from. The tunnel from which the minotaurs had emerged proved to terminate in a stone wall. The Ruby Scarabs went back into the workshop area to find that the walls and sarcophagi were now fully decorated and clearly much older. The sarcophagus they had imprisoned the man in was now dedicated to him, as they had heard the artisans speak his name before he arrived. They removed his jewelry, including a scarab-shaped amulet that would allow a person to speak with vermin, which was given to Sula.
The Scarabs returned to the tunnel to seek an exit. The gel-coated room still smelled of acid and the acid hadn't damaged the scrawled writing on the floor. The tunnel through which they had entered was gone, or so they thought at first, but then they realized it was only difficult to make out. Now they could see a little light coming through. Kaa and Azzaria took turns burning off more of the red gelatin.
Then the Scarabs moved on, coming into a circular space painted with a blue lotus on the floor. Hutt realized the lotus room could heal those who remained within it for a time. Beyond this room was another round chamber full of ushabti figures, with a recumbent lion painted on the floor. A third round room had nothing in it but a cobra painted on the floor. It held a faint aura of magic, and Kaa detected a mechanical dart trap which he disabled.
To the west of the three circular rooms lay another round room with a figure of a pharaoh painted on the floor. Hutt realized that there was a magical aura in the chamber, and the inscription on the pharaoh's crown told how to bypass the trap, which would teleport a victim to another area. Kaa disabled the trap and the party moved on into a large chamber containing four pillars. At the far end they saw an orange crystal pyramid and another communication pillar. There was also a humanoid figure near the pyramid. Kaa called out to this figure, saying that the party had come to stop the Sky Pharaoh.
The person came forward, revealing itself as an old woman whose skin was covered in burns and scabs. She wore a robe encrusted with gemstones. She spoke to the Scarabs, saying, "Please tell me my suffering hasn't been in vain!" She told them she was a priestess of the god Osiris who had been imprisoned and tormented there by Hakotep. Kaa approached her to offer her a curative potion, which she told him would do no good. Other members of the group noted that the last message on the pillar gave a command to take position over the city of Ipeq.
Azzaria and Kaa began to discuss what message they should send to the other pyramids. While they did this the woman stated she needed to begin a ritual, a prayer to Osiris. But Hutt warned that she wasn't praying, she was summoning a creature. When she completed her spell a gong sounded and a low voice intoned, "Not this day." The woman appeaed angered by this. Suddenly she transformed from a disfigured crone into an attractive form, but when her jeweled skirt fell away it revealed that rather than legs she had numerous tentacles. Nails like knives extended from her fingers. Kaa shouted out that she was a devil. She rose into the air as Kaa breathed a spray of acid at her. Sula transformed herself into a huge dinosaur. Nyema clamped her teeth on the devil. Azzaria also begain to fly, and Hutt granted everyone but the devil greater speed. She swirled around the room, striking out with her tentacles as he Ruby Scarabs attacked her. Then she grabbed hold of Kaa. Sula moved closer and cast a spell to allow him to escape her grasp, then blasted her with a beam of intense sunlight, blinding her. Hutt dispelled some of the magic with which she was empowered. She tried to teleport away but was unable to do so. Azzaria knocked her down and slew her.
When the devil was destroyed, Kaa disabled the orange pyramid. Then the Ruby Scarabs gathered up the devil's jeweled skirt, as well as a headband she had worn, several potions and a scroll, and a magic ring she wore. Now their only task was to find and face the Sky Pharaoh himself.
Next: part 55, The Search for the Sky Pharaoh
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