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A TALE OF GREED AND GLORY
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P R O L O G U E
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P R O L O G U E
The furthest reaches of Mesa Roja’s disk were a harsh land baked by a cruel sun and swaddled by scarves made of countless dry rolling sand dunes. To say the outer edges were a barren windswept wasteland would be an understatement to most who had any real experience with it. The shifting sands were an incomprehensible beast that was nothing shy of a sheer force of nature when its ephemeral maw opened to swallow villages and derelict ruins alike whole. This desert expressed no mercy and answered to the name of no known gods, and it was due a certain primordial air of respect.
In fact, many ruins and temples and tombs were supposedly any mix of haunted and cursed. Howls and lamentful wailing could be heard during the long cold nights when the wind carried the sound dangerously close to camps, and hallucinations of shadowy figures during the sweltering days taunted explorers into making grave mistakes. Rarely, if ever, did anyone return from the gilded tomb of Jalald Khishum. It was under the effects of some ancient and malign curse set upon it by an envious party- perhaps an ex-lover scorned or an old rival returned- after Jalald had been laid to rest.
At least, that was what the gaggle of superstitious yokudans living on the border between the deplorably rural and the utterly inhospitable had exhorted to the most recent pair of adventurers to arrive at their tiny desert oasis. Zhir, a balding middle aged man whose appearance could only be summed up as ‘rough’, rolled his dark eyes and grumbled under his breath. He stood perched on the crest of a sand dune a few minutes’ walk from the circle of tents the yokudans considered a village, scanning the endless silica sea while he waited for Shiffiay, and raised a hand to his brow to keep the bastard sun glare out of his face.
Bumbling sand-billies always warned of creepy folklore to keep treasure hunters like him and his entrepreneurially-minded partners away from their prized trinkets, and quite frankly he wasn’t in the business of being cut out of good business- and what was better business than pickpocketing the dead? Who cared if some uneducated nomads got scared and shaken when they heard the hostile winds making odd sounds at night when they got up to piss. This tomb had a trail of rumors behind it that made the description of ‘gilded’ sound paltry by comparison: walls covered in gold, bountiful treasures sealed inside burial vaults, and possibly hundreds of lovely artifacts that the Plaineview corpos and Karim Underground would want to get their hands on, and all of it they could charge a premium on... If they could only get their hands on it, that was.
Shiffiay approached from behind, hands full with leading two ornery one-humped camels, and called out in greeting. Her voice was light, unburdened by the wear and tear of cigarette smoke and hard liquor.
The older man cast a look over his shoulder, bitch-face unyielding as he stared at the rough robed woman. “What?” He croaked. “If yer done humpin’ and fuckin’ back there, then let’s get us a move on. We’re burning the supplies and daylight waitin’ around to find this payday while sittin’ ‘ere on our asses.”
Shiffiay chuckled lightly, unbothered by all of the man’s hostile bristles. "Is it really wasting time if I'm gathering important information?"
"If yer intent on pissin' away the day listening to fairytales and bullshit, then yes! Now come on." Zhir jerked his chin towards a rocky formation far off in the distance, its shape partially obfuscated by the warbled mirage that shimmered over the landscape, and snatched his reins from the young woman's hands. He was sick and tired of all this waiting, especially when he could practically smell the stale air of the crypts already. The treasure hunter climbed up and adjusted himself in the saddle and, once comfortable, spurred the belly of his mount with a muted ’hut-tut’.
The duo rode in silence for several minutes before Zhir finally spoke. "B'sides a map and a head full o' superstition, what else did ya figure out from the locals?"
Shiffiay giggled, apparently amused by his begrudged curiosity. "What? Now you wanna know?"
Zhir huffed, once more grumbling under his breath. His muttering was totally incomprehensible, even with the distance between them being less than five meters.
"What?? I caaaaan't hear yoooou~" The young woman teased impishly, playing the fine line of his temper.
"Fer the love of the Arbiters, just tell me whatever else non-spooky shit you learnt, girl. I aint got the patience in this hot fuckin' sun to be humoring yer dipshit antics."
Shiffiay rolled her dark eyes and smacked her lips at his retort, arms crossed over her chest even as she still held the reins. "You could stand to loosen up some, uncle."
"I could stand to loosen up some once you tell me what I asked! This job ain't no vacation, Shiffi."
"What are you so worried about? You said it yourself, 'ain't no ghosts', so..."
"So what? You ain't never been in no damn tombs, but I have." He jabbed a thumb into the middle of his chest. "I'm the one with all the experience, and I say tombs are dangerous even without ghosts and curses and all that shit. I agreed to take ya on this little college funded expedition fer the sake of yer enrichment, so if yer wanting to work with me and get a slice you need to get serious."
"Fine, fine." Shiffi groaned, utterly exasperated by all his rambling as she rifled through one of her saddle bags, eventually locating her journal amongst her supplies. She brushed her fingers across the warm leather cover before thumbing through to the back of the book. “Supposedly this tomb was built centuries ago for some ancient ruler called Jalald Khishum: a warlord or some divinely guided yokudan warrior that united several of the nomadic tribes under one banner and founded a small kingdom. See in the seventh century...”
As Zhir listened, his gaze fixed itself out towards their goal. A kingdom meant settlements and a proper capital, right? Yet all his keen eyes saw before them was sand. Sand, sand and more fuckin’ sand. Not a single trace of this supposed prosperous little nation was left out here in the barren wastes, save the isolated and tucked away entrance to the tomb. “... And what about traps?”
“It was that way until-- Huh?” Shiffi paused. He had interrupted her mid sentence, and had that far-away look on his face again. She figured he had to be formulating something in that stern old brain of his. “I’ll get to that in a second. As I was saying: Jalald was a legend among men, said to have the ability to peer right into your soul and see your heart. Pretty crazy, right? It’s wild how often our historic leaders become mythologized.” She chewed idly on the end of her blue pen. “But... The legends about him kind of get lost after this, since the nomads pass stories down orally. Did he have a long rule? Marry and have heirs who squabbled? I can’t help but wonder how he died.”
She glanced over to her uncle, who cocked a dark bushy brow at her and batted his hand. “The fuck you lookin’ at me like I would know?”
Shiffiay frowned slightly, her tone wistful. Some days it was terribly hard to believe that they were a part of the same family. “Yeah... I forget that the only historics you enjoy is grave robbing.”
“And I oft’ forget that the only sense you have is in sentiments! Now, traps, girl.” He reminded her with an obvious undertone of impatient urgency. The rocky outcropping they’d been directed to was coming up fast, the wind-blasted red cliffs an ancient, monolithic titan looming tall overhead.
“Uhm. Well.” Shiffi scanned through her notes, struggling to find something more than the various mentions of ghosts, specters and the fact that no other adventurers had ever returned. “Other explorers have tried getting in there before, so we should be prepared for any manner of things; wildlife, bandits using it as a hideout, and then the standard array of booby traps for the inattentive to uh... booby right into.”
“Like what?” Zhir continued to quiz the depths of her knowledge.
“Hmm. Like pressure plates, poison darts and spike floors? I just hope we don’t have to dig too much sand out of there. Last time we went spelunking I was coughing up sand for half a month...” Shiffiay trailed off, craning her head back as they drew up to the massive entrance. Gigantic statues stood vigil in sets of two to either side of the door, which was a near equally impressive height and equally weathered by the sands of time. The stonework was downright ancient, cracks in the once-exquisite carvings were filled with boughs of sand and small bits of rubble. Etching of words in a forgotten language had been effaced, leaving only small bits and pieces to be deciphered- if there even was anyone around that could still decipher them.
“Welp.” Zhir sighed, tossing his leg over the side of his camel and climbing down to groan and stretch. The saddle always made his ass hurt when it came to camels and their side to side gait and today was hardly an exception. He slung his pack over his shoulder and peered through the gap in the doors before lighting his torch. “Looks like the bastards picked the outside clean, and dependin’ on how long this entry door’s been open, probably the easier rooms to get to as well... Well, what are we waiting fer? Come on.”
They both drew their khopesh blades, prepared and cautious to deal with whatever lay inside. The first few rooms were stripped bare of anything with meaningful value and utterly abandoned, piles of sand blown in from outside covered the crackled marble tiling and left pottery half-choked, hissing and shifting under foot as if unhappy over being disturbed. Decorative murals lined the walls, celebrating the life of Jalald and his heroic feats of combat. He was shown battling wyverns, striking agreements with those awful, freakish insectoids called the Ahn'qiraj for peace, and leading his army into glorious victories.
Shiffi traced her fingers over the curious symbols. The flickering light of her torch caused their shapes to dance to the rhythm of the winds and caught her imagination in its snare. She retrieved her journal, rushing to jot down her findings. How amazingly ancient every inch of this tomb was... How marvelous that it had been graced with such an extensive passage of time and yet still stood hardly worse for wear considering that. Everything about this place made her feel tiny and insignificantly ephemeral amongst the whole of Mesa Roja’s history. She was merely a woman of twenty years, only two years into her studies at the University of New Abraxis. Every single person who had ever lived to see this crypt at the height of its splendor was long, looong dead before her great-greats were even a distant wish of their own great-greats.
’Shiffiay...’
The young woman jolted, a shiver shooting up the ladder that was her spine. Had someone just said her name...? Her brows furrowed as she swiveled her head around to locate her uncle. “Hey, Uncle Zhir-- Did you.. call for... me...”
Shiffi’s words crawled to a stop as she realized her guardian had wandered off from the room and was nowhere to be seen. She must have caught an echo of him deeper into the crypt. Maybe he’d finally found something worth his attention and he could quit his cynical attitude about trusting her leads. She shook her head, a small smile hanging on her lips. At least he would have a souvenir to remember this trip with her by, when all was said and done.
’Shiffiay...’
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming, uncle!” Shiffiay shut her journal and tucked it away in her satchel, then trekked deeper into the tomb in search of Zhir. She passed from room to room, calling out for him yet coming up empty. Surely she hadn’t been distracted that long, a few moments only, nowhere near long enough for him to wander so far into the crypt- especially without telling her. Sure, she had only really gotten to know her gruff uncle on this trip, but if there was one thing she picked up on it was the fact that he took taking care of her very seriously.
Yet another empty room had her heart climbing up into her throat. What if he had gotten hurt or fallen into some crack in the ground? Who knew what all this crypt had in store, how it had all been rigged to protect the eternally slumbering ruler interred within? It had been her job to suss out what to expect from this place in terms of defenses, and the building guilt at the thought of catastrophically failing in that regard twisted her stomach up into tight knots.
Her fears were abated when she rounded a corner and spotted her uncle standing at the end of the passageway with his back to her. He was peering through a hole in the wall that led to another section of the tomb with his torch held by his side. A hollow and anxious chuckle escaped Shiffiay as she rubbed at the back of her head in relief. Worried for no reason, like normal. “Stars bless... Did you find anything good, Uncle Zhir?”
Zhir remained silent, unflinching and unreactive to her words and approach. Instead he simply lifted his leg and stepped over the shin-high rubble and ducked through the hole to leave her alone in the hallway. Shiffi squawked, fumbling and staggering through her words in surprise and confusion. “Hey--!! Wait! Uncle!!!!”
She huffed a panicked growl and rushed through the ruined wall after him. What in the name of the gods above and below had gotten into him? Had he seen something or... even someone down here in these arid passages? How could he just leave her behind like that? He was supposed to protect her. “Hey!! What is wrong with you!? Why are you being so cryptic??!”
No answer, no response. She reached forward and grasped a handful of her uncle’s robes, tugging harshly at him in her fear. He did not stop nor slow his pace, and Shiffiay found herself being helplessly dragged along. She pulled at his arm again and dug her heels into the sand, her feet leaving long trenches on the floor behind them.
“Are you even listening to me?? Uncle please you’re scaring me! Uncle!!” Hot tears streamed down her face as her voice cracked and she began to plead with him. This wasn’t like him. She saw no binding runes or marks on him to suggest any of the magics she was familiar with, nor had she come across anything blatantly cursed-- and besides, her Uncle was wise when it came to crawling through old crypts! Certainly he wouldn’t pick up just any old treasure without checking it first! He was the one that drilled that idea into her head after all.
Now they were deep in the tomb, various burial chambers splitting off from the main hall to display opulent amounts of wealth. Gold and silver trinkets and bobbles decorated finely carved stone tables, gilded chests stood open and overflowing with ancient coins and precious gemstones, and all along the walls stood jaw-droppingly massive shelves stuffed with countless scrolls and books. Gold-leafed braziers stood stalwart, dashing all the treasures with glints of warm light. The Gilded Tomb really did live up to its name and all the myths and legends... So much so that in her distraction Shiffiay had let go of her uncle’s arm and simply stood there, gawking like a slack-jawed fool.
It was real. All those myths and legends were real. In all honesty she had expected the tomb to be picked mostly clean and for them to find fragments of broken pottery and some archaic engravings... But this? This was a discovery of a lifetime, the real start of her serious academic career... Even Professor Jones, with all of his own wild adventure stories, would envy her in this moment, she thought. Shiffi glanced at her uncle, who was slowly shambling deeper into the treasure room, and shook her head. She only needed to jot down a quick note or two, then she'd tie him up and sit him down until he came out of whatever this nasty trance was... yeah. Just a few quick notes and then they would get this ordeal all sorted out.
She trailed behind Zhir, keeping a close eye on him as her blue bic pen scratched relentlessly across the unlined pages of her field journal. The sound brought her mind into focus and away from the ever building well of anxiety that flooded her chest and stomach, if only for a moment at a time. Any and every clue could matter with undoing whatever trance her uncle was in. The locals had called this place cursed, and if she was smart about it she hoped that she could piece some of that context together and figure it out... for Uncle Zhir's sake at least. Whatever had befallen him, he was counting on her to save him now.
"Shiffi..." Zhir wheezed as if the air was being sucked from his lungs. The wretched noise jolted her from her thoughts, and her dark eyes found him slouched up against a bookshelf at the far end of the chamber looking dazed and exhausted. The young archaeologist scrambled over to him quickly, desperate and keen to claw her precious remaining family back to her side. Zhir was lethargic as he pulled his sleeve up to reveal that the belly of his forearm was covered by arcane, foreign symbols that filled her body with terror and dread. The lettering was frankly indecipherable and seemed to crawl and scroll across the deep tan parchment of his skin like some sort of demented army of profane eldritch ants.
“How in the world...” Shiffiay’s voice trailed off, tears springing to her eyes. She had no clue where this damn curse started or ended. She had never in all of her studies and classes seen anything like this, something not quite eldritch...
An audible snap echoed out as Zhir began to slowly dig into his satchel before carefully withdrawing a large book bound in rough black-stained leather. Pressed into the front was a large circular insignia featuring some awful many-eyed monster sporting countless claws and tendrils. As she stared, subtle whispering tickled at the back of her mind, urging her to move in time with that scant flicker of morbid curiosity and just touch the book. A sudden flash of bitter cold panic seized at Shiffi’s heart, screaming at her to stop. This book was bound in... in something foul, and marked with a touch of madness! And where was that awful scratching yearn in the back of her brain coming from?? She froze, unable to commit to touching that thing.
“What. Is that.” She managed to choke out, her eyes wide with terror. “Why would you touch it??”
“Weren’t... tryin’ ta, girl...” Zhir breathed hard, and squeezed his eyes shut. “Laid eyes on it... then suddenly... I ain’t myself no more. Someone else... Someone else...”
“Someone else?? What?? What do you mean?" Shiffiay grasped at any answers she could get from the wheezing man. "You became someone else?”
“In my head, girl--” He groaned before writhing in discomfort. It was a brutally long moment before he calmed enough to continue, his breathing was labored and harsh. “In my head... Like a puppet master. Couldn’t stop my hands from touching that... that damn book- aaugh!-- I--” Zhir’s face twitched sharply, his eyes rolling back. “Shiffiay, I--”
Zhir jolted to his feet in a single unnatural movement, as if yanked up by his throat. His limbs twisted awkwardly on themselves as he struggled against the compulsion. He had to return to the Master. A gut-wrenching series of snaps and crunches sounded as he was forced to contort. Resistance was futile, he understood that now. His grunts and snarls of agony were nothing shy of utterly inhuman. Shiffiay stumbled back with an expression of complete horror, falling on her ass in shock before scooting away from him as fast as she could. Vile green tendrils erupted from his flesh and tore through his robes, wriggling across his body in a weave of corruption that smothered any semblance of humanity. In a single, final desperate attempt to save his niece, he howled out a blood-curdling warning.
In fact, many ruins and temples and tombs were supposedly any mix of haunted and cursed. Howls and lamentful wailing could be heard during the long cold nights when the wind carried the sound dangerously close to camps, and hallucinations of shadowy figures during the sweltering days taunted explorers into making grave mistakes. Rarely, if ever, did anyone return from the gilded tomb of Jalald Khishum. It was under the effects of some ancient and malign curse set upon it by an envious party- perhaps an ex-lover scorned or an old rival returned- after Jalald had been laid to rest.
At least, that was what the gaggle of superstitious yokudans living on the border between the deplorably rural and the utterly inhospitable had exhorted to the most recent pair of adventurers to arrive at their tiny desert oasis. Zhir, a balding middle aged man whose appearance could only be summed up as ‘rough’, rolled his dark eyes and grumbled under his breath. He stood perched on the crest of a sand dune a few minutes’ walk from the circle of tents the yokudans considered a village, scanning the endless silica sea while he waited for Shiffiay, and raised a hand to his brow to keep the bastard sun glare out of his face.
Bumbling sand-billies always warned of creepy folklore to keep treasure hunters like him and his entrepreneurially-minded partners away from their prized trinkets, and quite frankly he wasn’t in the business of being cut out of good business- and what was better business than pickpocketing the dead? Who cared if some uneducated nomads got scared and shaken when they heard the hostile winds making odd sounds at night when they got up to piss. This tomb had a trail of rumors behind it that made the description of ‘gilded’ sound paltry by comparison: walls covered in gold, bountiful treasures sealed inside burial vaults, and possibly hundreds of lovely artifacts that the Plaineview corpos and Karim Underground would want to get their hands on, and all of it they could charge a premium on... If they could only get their hands on it, that was.
Shiffiay approached from behind, hands full with leading two ornery one-humped camels, and called out in greeting. Her voice was light, unburdened by the wear and tear of cigarette smoke and hard liquor.
The older man cast a look over his shoulder, bitch-face unyielding as he stared at the rough robed woman. “What?” He croaked. “If yer done humpin’ and fuckin’ back there, then let’s get us a move on. We’re burning the supplies and daylight waitin’ around to find this payday while sittin’ ‘ere on our asses.”
Shiffiay chuckled lightly, unbothered by all of the man’s hostile bristles. "Is it really wasting time if I'm gathering important information?"
"If yer intent on pissin' away the day listening to fairytales and bullshit, then yes! Now come on." Zhir jerked his chin towards a rocky formation far off in the distance, its shape partially obfuscated by the warbled mirage that shimmered over the landscape, and snatched his reins from the young woman's hands. He was sick and tired of all this waiting, especially when he could practically smell the stale air of the crypts already. The treasure hunter climbed up and adjusted himself in the saddle and, once comfortable, spurred the belly of his mount with a muted ’hut-tut’.
The duo rode in silence for several minutes before Zhir finally spoke. "B'sides a map and a head full o' superstition, what else did ya figure out from the locals?"
Shiffiay giggled, apparently amused by his begrudged curiosity. "What? Now you wanna know?"
Zhir huffed, once more grumbling under his breath. His muttering was totally incomprehensible, even with the distance between them being less than five meters.
"What?? I caaaaan't hear yoooou~" The young woman teased impishly, playing the fine line of his temper.
"Fer the love of the Arbiters, just tell me whatever else non-spooky shit you learnt, girl. I aint got the patience in this hot fuckin' sun to be humoring yer dipshit antics."
Shiffiay rolled her dark eyes and smacked her lips at his retort, arms crossed over her chest even as she still held the reins. "You could stand to loosen up some, uncle."
"I could stand to loosen up some once you tell me what I asked! This job ain't no vacation, Shiffi."
"What are you so worried about? You said it yourself, 'ain't no ghosts', so..."
"So what? You ain't never been in no damn tombs, but I have." He jabbed a thumb into the middle of his chest. "I'm the one with all the experience, and I say tombs are dangerous even without ghosts and curses and all that shit. I agreed to take ya on this little college funded expedition fer the sake of yer enrichment, so if yer wanting to work with me and get a slice you need to get serious."
"Fine, fine." Shiffi groaned, utterly exasperated by all his rambling as she rifled through one of her saddle bags, eventually locating her journal amongst her supplies. She brushed her fingers across the warm leather cover before thumbing through to the back of the book. “Supposedly this tomb was built centuries ago for some ancient ruler called Jalald Khishum: a warlord or some divinely guided yokudan warrior that united several of the nomadic tribes under one banner and founded a small kingdom. See in the seventh century...”
As Zhir listened, his gaze fixed itself out towards their goal. A kingdom meant settlements and a proper capital, right? Yet all his keen eyes saw before them was sand. Sand, sand and more fuckin’ sand. Not a single trace of this supposed prosperous little nation was left out here in the barren wastes, save the isolated and tucked away entrance to the tomb. “... And what about traps?”
“It was that way until-- Huh?” Shiffi paused. He had interrupted her mid sentence, and had that far-away look on his face again. She figured he had to be formulating something in that stern old brain of his. “I’ll get to that in a second. As I was saying: Jalald was a legend among men, said to have the ability to peer right into your soul and see your heart. Pretty crazy, right? It’s wild how often our historic leaders become mythologized.” She chewed idly on the end of her blue pen. “But... The legends about him kind of get lost after this, since the nomads pass stories down orally. Did he have a long rule? Marry and have heirs who squabbled? I can’t help but wonder how he died.”
She glanced over to her uncle, who cocked a dark bushy brow at her and batted his hand. “The fuck you lookin’ at me like I would know?”
Shiffiay frowned slightly, her tone wistful. Some days it was terribly hard to believe that they were a part of the same family. “Yeah... I forget that the only historics you enjoy is grave robbing.”
“And I oft’ forget that the only sense you have is in sentiments! Now, traps, girl.” He reminded her with an obvious undertone of impatient urgency. The rocky outcropping they’d been directed to was coming up fast, the wind-blasted red cliffs an ancient, monolithic titan looming tall overhead.
“Uhm. Well.” Shiffi scanned through her notes, struggling to find something more than the various mentions of ghosts, specters and the fact that no other adventurers had ever returned. “Other explorers have tried getting in there before, so we should be prepared for any manner of things; wildlife, bandits using it as a hideout, and then the standard array of booby traps for the inattentive to uh... booby right into.”
“Like what?” Zhir continued to quiz the depths of her knowledge.
“Hmm. Like pressure plates, poison darts and spike floors? I just hope we don’t have to dig too much sand out of there. Last time we went spelunking I was coughing up sand for half a month...” Shiffiay trailed off, craning her head back as they drew up to the massive entrance. Gigantic statues stood vigil in sets of two to either side of the door, which was a near equally impressive height and equally weathered by the sands of time. The stonework was downright ancient, cracks in the once-exquisite carvings were filled with boughs of sand and small bits of rubble. Etching of words in a forgotten language had been effaced, leaving only small bits and pieces to be deciphered- if there even was anyone around that could still decipher them.
“Welp.” Zhir sighed, tossing his leg over the side of his camel and climbing down to groan and stretch. The saddle always made his ass hurt when it came to camels and their side to side gait and today was hardly an exception. He slung his pack over his shoulder and peered through the gap in the doors before lighting his torch. “Looks like the bastards picked the outside clean, and dependin’ on how long this entry door’s been open, probably the easier rooms to get to as well... Well, what are we waiting fer? Come on.”
They both drew their khopesh blades, prepared and cautious to deal with whatever lay inside. The first few rooms were stripped bare of anything with meaningful value and utterly abandoned, piles of sand blown in from outside covered the crackled marble tiling and left pottery half-choked, hissing and shifting under foot as if unhappy over being disturbed. Decorative murals lined the walls, celebrating the life of Jalald and his heroic feats of combat. He was shown battling wyverns, striking agreements with those awful, freakish insectoids called the Ahn'qiraj for peace, and leading his army into glorious victories.
Shiffi traced her fingers over the curious symbols. The flickering light of her torch caused their shapes to dance to the rhythm of the winds and caught her imagination in its snare. She retrieved her journal, rushing to jot down her findings. How amazingly ancient every inch of this tomb was... How marvelous that it had been graced with such an extensive passage of time and yet still stood hardly worse for wear considering that. Everything about this place made her feel tiny and insignificantly ephemeral amongst the whole of Mesa Roja’s history. She was merely a woman of twenty years, only two years into her studies at the University of New Abraxis. Every single person who had ever lived to see this crypt at the height of its splendor was long, looong dead before her great-greats were even a distant wish of their own great-greats.
’Shiffiay...’
The young woman jolted, a shiver shooting up the ladder that was her spine. Had someone just said her name...? Her brows furrowed as she swiveled her head around to locate her uncle. “Hey, Uncle Zhir-- Did you.. call for... me...”
Shiffi’s words crawled to a stop as she realized her guardian had wandered off from the room and was nowhere to be seen. She must have caught an echo of him deeper into the crypt. Maybe he’d finally found something worth his attention and he could quit his cynical attitude about trusting her leads. She shook her head, a small smile hanging on her lips. At least he would have a souvenir to remember this trip with her by, when all was said and done.
’Shiffiay...’
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming, uncle!” Shiffiay shut her journal and tucked it away in her satchel, then trekked deeper into the tomb in search of Zhir. She passed from room to room, calling out for him yet coming up empty. Surely she hadn’t been distracted that long, a few moments only, nowhere near long enough for him to wander so far into the crypt- especially without telling her. Sure, she had only really gotten to know her gruff uncle on this trip, but if there was one thing she picked up on it was the fact that he took taking care of her very seriously.
Yet another empty room had her heart climbing up into her throat. What if he had gotten hurt or fallen into some crack in the ground? Who knew what all this crypt had in store, how it had all been rigged to protect the eternally slumbering ruler interred within? It had been her job to suss out what to expect from this place in terms of defenses, and the building guilt at the thought of catastrophically failing in that regard twisted her stomach up into tight knots.
Her fears were abated when she rounded a corner and spotted her uncle standing at the end of the passageway with his back to her. He was peering through a hole in the wall that led to another section of the tomb with his torch held by his side. A hollow and anxious chuckle escaped Shiffiay as she rubbed at the back of her head in relief. Worried for no reason, like normal. “Stars bless... Did you find anything good, Uncle Zhir?”
Zhir remained silent, unflinching and unreactive to her words and approach. Instead he simply lifted his leg and stepped over the shin-high rubble and ducked through the hole to leave her alone in the hallway. Shiffi squawked, fumbling and staggering through her words in surprise and confusion. “Hey--!! Wait! Uncle!!!!”
She huffed a panicked growl and rushed through the ruined wall after him. What in the name of the gods above and below had gotten into him? Had he seen something or... even someone down here in these arid passages? How could he just leave her behind like that? He was supposed to protect her. “Hey!! What is wrong with you!? Why are you being so cryptic??!”
No answer, no response. She reached forward and grasped a handful of her uncle’s robes, tugging harshly at him in her fear. He did not stop nor slow his pace, and Shiffiay found herself being helplessly dragged along. She pulled at his arm again and dug her heels into the sand, her feet leaving long trenches on the floor behind them.
“Are you even listening to me?? Uncle please you’re scaring me! Uncle!!” Hot tears streamed down her face as her voice cracked and she began to plead with him. This wasn’t like him. She saw no binding runes or marks on him to suggest any of the magics she was familiar with, nor had she come across anything blatantly cursed-- and besides, her Uncle was wise when it came to crawling through old crypts! Certainly he wouldn’t pick up just any old treasure without checking it first! He was the one that drilled that idea into her head after all.
Now they were deep in the tomb, various burial chambers splitting off from the main hall to display opulent amounts of wealth. Gold and silver trinkets and bobbles decorated finely carved stone tables, gilded chests stood open and overflowing with ancient coins and precious gemstones, and all along the walls stood jaw-droppingly massive shelves stuffed with countless scrolls and books. Gold-leafed braziers stood stalwart, dashing all the treasures with glints of warm light. The Gilded Tomb really did live up to its name and all the myths and legends... So much so that in her distraction Shiffiay had let go of her uncle’s arm and simply stood there, gawking like a slack-jawed fool.
It was real. All those myths and legends were real. In all honesty she had expected the tomb to be picked mostly clean and for them to find fragments of broken pottery and some archaic engravings... But this? This was a discovery of a lifetime, the real start of her serious academic career... Even Professor Jones, with all of his own wild adventure stories, would envy her in this moment, she thought. Shiffi glanced at her uncle, who was slowly shambling deeper into the treasure room, and shook her head. She only needed to jot down a quick note or two, then she'd tie him up and sit him down until he came out of whatever this nasty trance was... yeah. Just a few quick notes and then they would get this ordeal all sorted out.
She trailed behind Zhir, keeping a close eye on him as her blue bic pen scratched relentlessly across the unlined pages of her field journal. The sound brought her mind into focus and away from the ever building well of anxiety that flooded her chest and stomach, if only for a moment at a time. Any and every clue could matter with undoing whatever trance her uncle was in. The locals had called this place cursed, and if she was smart about it she hoped that she could piece some of that context together and figure it out... for Uncle Zhir's sake at least. Whatever had befallen him, he was counting on her to save him now.
"Shiffi..." Zhir wheezed as if the air was being sucked from his lungs. The wretched noise jolted her from her thoughts, and her dark eyes found him slouched up against a bookshelf at the far end of the chamber looking dazed and exhausted. The young archaeologist scrambled over to him quickly, desperate and keen to claw her precious remaining family back to her side. Zhir was lethargic as he pulled his sleeve up to reveal that the belly of his forearm was covered by arcane, foreign symbols that filled her body with terror and dread. The lettering was frankly indecipherable and seemed to crawl and scroll across the deep tan parchment of his skin like some sort of demented army of profane eldritch ants.
“How in the world...” Shiffiay’s voice trailed off, tears springing to her eyes. She had no clue where this damn curse started or ended. She had never in all of her studies and classes seen anything like this, something not quite eldritch...
An audible snap echoed out as Zhir began to slowly dig into his satchel before carefully withdrawing a large book bound in rough black-stained leather. Pressed into the front was a large circular insignia featuring some awful many-eyed monster sporting countless claws and tendrils. As she stared, subtle whispering tickled at the back of her mind, urging her to move in time with that scant flicker of morbid curiosity and just touch the book. A sudden flash of bitter cold panic seized at Shiffi’s heart, screaming at her to stop. This book was bound in... in something foul, and marked with a touch of madness! And where was that awful scratching yearn in the back of her brain coming from?? She froze, unable to commit to touching that thing.
“What. Is that.” She managed to choke out, her eyes wide with terror. “Why would you touch it??”
“Weren’t... tryin’ ta, girl...” Zhir breathed hard, and squeezed his eyes shut. “Laid eyes on it... then suddenly... I ain’t myself no more. Someone else... Someone else...”
“Someone else?? What?? What do you mean?" Shiffiay grasped at any answers she could get from the wheezing man. "You became someone else?”
“In my head, girl--” He groaned before writhing in discomfort. It was a brutally long moment before he calmed enough to continue, his breathing was labored and harsh. “In my head... Like a puppet master. Couldn’t stop my hands from touching that... that damn book- aaugh!-- I--” Zhir’s face twitched sharply, his eyes rolling back. “Shiffiay, I--”
Zhir jolted to his feet in a single unnatural movement, as if yanked up by his throat. His limbs twisted awkwardly on themselves as he struggled against the compulsion. He had to return to the Master. A gut-wrenching series of snaps and crunches sounded as he was forced to contort. Resistance was futile, he understood that now. His grunts and snarls of agony were nothing shy of utterly inhuman. Shiffiay stumbled back with an expression of complete horror, falling on her ass in shock before scooting away from him as fast as she could. Vile green tendrils erupted from his flesh and tore through his robes, wriggling across his body in a weave of corruption that smothered any semblance of humanity. In a single, final desperate attempt to save his niece, he howled out a blood-curdling warning.
“RUUUN!!!!”