Event:1925/07/01 Day in Cairo
Victor and Saleem go on a quick shopping trip before breakfast and have no problem acquiring the items on Victor's list - 3 gas masks, a fire extinguisher, and the ingredients for molotov cocktails.
Gunter stays in Cairo to organize the permit and tools for the evening activities, while Charles, Victor, and Quinn take Saleem and head to the village of El Wasta up the Nile to look for Nuri.
The trip to El Wasta takes a couple hours, covering over 100km by road to get us there. We arrive in the small, quiet, dusty town, and it takes Saleem about 3 hours to track down the Nuri we are looking for. We come to a small hovel, and outside is a man who's right arm, shoulder, and side of his face have been gouged away. His wounds are healed, but still gruesome to look at. The man is Nuri's son, Ubaid. Victor recognizes the wounds as scars from the attack of a Hunting Horror[1]. He seems very uncomfortable with us around and is reluctant to speak with us judging from his tone of voice[2]. Ubaid says that his mother is not well and sometimes gets confused. Quinn reassures him, saying that he is used to speaking with troubled souls[3], and he agrees to let us see her.
Inside, we find that Nuri has injuries even worse than her son. She is missing both legs, has a mangled arm, and many claw marks on her face. It's difficult to tell how old she is even through all the wounds. Upon seeing us, she breaks out into an awful and disturbing gurgling and points with her less injured arm towards the corner. Charles goes to check it out and sees a blanket with a red symbol on it, but does not recognize it. He kneels down and sketches the symbol while Quinn and Victor attempt to make Nuri more comfortable. Quinn asks Charles to bring the item from the corner, so Charles pulls off the blanket and sees a pinkish piece of stone which looks to be broken in half. It is very similar to the other piece of stone we got from Jack Brady and likely matches the piece of the broken Eye of Light and Darkness he gave us. Nuri reacts badly as the stone is brought close to her, so Charles wraps blanket around the stone again, hands Ubaid a dollar, and goes outside with his bundle. Quinn and Victor continue trying to speak with Ubaid and Nuri, and Ubaid confirms that the stone came from up north in Dashur years ago. With this business conducted, both Nuri and Ubaid are quite upset and want us to leave, so we do. Outside, we all look at the symbol on the blanket covering the stone, which is different from the symbol on the stone, but none of us recognize it.
We start heading back towards Cairo and stop off in Dashur to see what the Clive Expedition is up to in the area. We find they have the entire area around the pinkish Bent Pyramid patrolled, and the encampment for the Expedition is in between the main road and the Pyramid itself. After gathering some intel, we get back in the car and continue north towards Cairo.
While we were gone, Gunter procured tools and decided that getting a permit would take too long. He's planning to bribe our way out of any uncomfortable situation should it be necessary.
Meeting up with Gunter, we show him the symbol on the blanket. He says the symbol is Egyptian for protection from bad luck. He also agrees that the rock and symbol are likely from the Bent Pyramid with its distinctive pinkish stone[4].
We gather the tools and head We head back to Mykerinos' Pyramid. It takes us about 2 hours to excavate the wall, but it's not terribly difficult. We enter another chamber with a winding passageway. As we make our way, Quinn notices that we enter into a lush garden of black roses. No one else sees this though, and Quinn begins to believe he's hallucinating. Then Gunter believes that he's in the throat of something with the walls undulating and air moving over us in rhythm. Charles thinks he hears the sound of dripping water, but no one else does. We don our gas masks (except for Victor who doesn't seem to need to breathe), and Gunter pulls out rope and suggests that we tie ourselves together. As we do, Victor disappears briefly, then reappears holding an ornate, ancient-looking dagger. He says Nodens called him and said to call him Thoth here. Thoth reached into Victor's chest, removed his heart, formed it into a dagger, and said he could use it to strike his enemies once. He no longer feels the pull he did either. We finish tying ourselves to one another and start proceeding again, when suddenly the hallucinations suddenly end and we all believe we're back in the passageway again. We come to a U bend in the passage and continue. We begin to realize that the walls are covered in a purple or putrid green fungus, both back the direction we came from as far as we can see and ahead of us as well. We also see an offshoot that is more finely carved that does not contain fungus. Along the main tunnel, loathsome images panel the walls among the fungus, depicting men with the heads of animals, animals with human limbs, and unidentifiable entities performing cruel, disgusting, and obscene activities. Gunter says that the people with animal heads are common among Egyptian hieroglyphics[4]. Victor says they're known as Children of the Sphinx[1]. We attempt to escape the fungus and follow the offshoot, though it has odd twists and turns and continues to narrow until we have difficulty standing. We crawl forward a bit until that becomes impossible as well. Gunter attempts to back down the passage, but that doesn't work, indicating that it's either not a hallucination or it's a really good one. We return to the main tunnel. Continuing down the main passage, we come to a black onyx stele. Carved into it is the text of the Necronomicon, which Quinn recognizes immediately. Victor checks out the bio-luminescent fungus which is not normally found in Egypt and is full of Luciferin instead of chlorophyll like most bio-luminescent fungi.
We move forward, and realize there is a large room ahead. We creep forward and look around, seeing before the light dies at the edge of the darkness are two pillars that extend upward toward the soaring ceiling and the floor is shiny, slick black marble with the occasional fleck of white. Seeing nothing moving in the darkness, we turn on our carbide lanterns and cast them around. The scope of the room is huge, the hall extending at least 300 ft up and nearly 500-600 feet outward. Along the wall are unlit torches that appear somewhat recently used. In the center is a square hole in the floor with a red glowing mist over it. Charles pulls out a pair of binoculars and examines the room, becoming dizzy as he and Quinn look up at the ceiling and see the pillars gradually turn into trees that move in an unseen wind. Victor moves over to one of the walls and lights a torch before examining some carved hieroglyphs. The images show several beings communicating with humans, and then the human is lying on an alter with a priest standing over them in garments similar to those Makunga was wearing, and then the human is again standing with a crown and lines of majesty radiating from them. Gunter swaps watch duties with Charles who pulls out his gun and heads over to look at the hieroglyphics.
You get a sense of the primary subject matter everything appears to be related to Queen Nitocris More description and information that already we have on the Brotherhood of the Black Pharoh
describes a variety of rituals London - slaughter and sex based Egypt - all slaughter based - sacrifices into pits filled with wriggling leeches people beating others with clubs heart pierced with a spiked club
priests being ordained during a solstice
3 items to return Queen Nitocris Necklace Girdle Crown
There is a lot of history, that seems to reach up to our modern (1920s) era.
There is a large dark figure that appears occasionally to be referred to as the faceless god or the beast and it has no eyes, ears or nose, but many asymmetrical mouths all over its oval head and it's body looks similar to the Sphinx body outside. There are more sacrificial rites and feasting described that are associated with the beast.
As we move around the room, we come across a second, even larger pit filled with water and with a boat on it, that has many wriggling creatures
Continuing on to the opposite , we see an alter. Behind the alter which is unremarkable, we find a hideous double throne of vile green sweating stone carved with numerous humans and mythical looking creatures, some of them like hunting horrors, deep ones that we've seen before. Gunter recognizes the hieroglyphics proclaiming it to be the throne of Queen Nitocris despite it's double nature.
Behind the throne, is a large dark hole leading into the wall. Despite bringing up our lanterns, the light does not penetrate the darkness of the hole. Even putting a lit torch inside does nothing to illuminate it.
We continue along the next wall, there is a raised balcony with stairs heading up to it. Charles and Victor head up the stairs, while Gunter and Father Quinn pace along below them
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