"Thank you for the warning, friend." Senemheb stops on his tracks on Djedefre's sign. He draws his eyes out from the mirror to verify the Aasimar's observation.
"So something nasty lurks nearby... Keep you weapons ready!" The whispered words make him all the more alert, and he takes a better grip of his weapon. But only tracks so far. And the doors are only slightly ajar, so whatever the creature is - it cannot be very big. Or can it?
Then, his eyes dart back to the mirror. "Something odd about that mirror. Can your magic sights detect anything there?"
"WHOA!"
Like the plodding of a bull elephant among the soft paws of lions, Djedefre's and Senemheb's whispering was interrupted by a sudden cry of alarm from the Taldan. The foreigner whirled around, sword out and torch high. His bright eyes were as startled as they were obviously confused, darting about the empty hall behind in search of something not there.
"The hell...? He was right there. Did anyone else see him? He was standing right behind me. A man, I swear I saw this guy in the mirror, just looking at us..." A bewildered and no less alert Luke slowly turned in place, looking for the apparition he could only assume was a ghost; he trusted his nerves enough not to make fiends out of shadows. This, ironically, only had him more on edge for if the old commander truly was haunting his own tomb, it represented a danger far greater than any trap, desert vermin or enchanted doll. Vengeful spirits were notoriously fearsome foes to all but the holiest of holy men. And Luke wasn't to be counted among those.
The searching gaze abruptly stopped upon reaching the mirror where the figure had first been spied. For said figure - foreboding as a thundercloud - stood there still.
"...Anyone else seeing this bloke?" the young man asked cautiously. "And if you can't, do me the favor of saying yes anyway. I'd rather not think I've been cursed or gone crazy."
What was this all about? Did the grouch only exist in the mirror? Or did the mirror reflect someone the group's eyes couldn't detect? The latter was a concerning thought, even if Luke counted a certain anti-invisibility measure among his repertoire. One hand searched an inner pocket for the pellet.
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"I see him too," Amal informs Luke. Although he has one hand on the handle of his scimitar, he seems a lot less freaked out than the Taldane man. "Either it's a ghost, or it has something to do with the mirror."
It's fortunate that Djedefre is here, or they would have been so absorbed by the mirror that they would have entirely missed the tracks left by rodents of unusual size.
He decides to test whether or not the man is an illusion by addressing him directly, and see if he gets a reaction out of him. "Are you Akhentepi?" he asks in Osiriani. "Do you want to talk to us?"
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Djehuti gapes at the mirror. "I see... it. But Luke, he has your face. I mean, your face. The man's face is on your face!" The elf points at Luke's face but keeps looking in the mirror. "His face is... overlaying your face. In the mirror."
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Djehuti gapes at the mirror. "I see... it. But Luke, he has your face. I mean, your face. The man's face is on your face!" The elf points at Luke's face but keeps looking in the mirror. "His face is... overlaying your face. In the mirror."
"I see the same things Luke. I can call upon Ra to sense for magic but we also have a large vermin somewhere nearby; which do we focus on first?"
Jolánka affirms seeing the seventh man as well, pointing him out in the eastern doorway for her perspective. If anyone casts magic the only other auras in the room - other than the party's gear - is on the mirror itself. As the party gazes upon the mirror ...
"And if no one wants it," Luke concluded in looking up from his foot, "then I'm taking its toothpick, dressing it up in a tiny tutu, and consigning the damn thing to the fate of serving as some girlchild's dollie. Serves it right. That little spear nearly hit a vein... You alright, Dame?"
The query for the similarly struck Jolánka was less courtesy and more practical. After all, the young woman seemed fine. He was ready to move on and did so by joining in one last skim through the trophy room, five chests and diorama included.
"I think we've worked together well enough that you can call me "Jo," Luke," Jolánka replies with a chuckle. "The title I got from my father means next to nothing this far from Ustalav."
She remains silent as they continue to explore and when Luke alerts them to the strange mirror, she starts and holds up her tome.
"THE Akhentepi?!" she wonders aloud.
Her mind races for answers as to whether this was indeed an unquiet spirit or just some trick of the light.
"I think we've worked together well enough that you can call me "Jo," Luke," Jolánka replies with a chuckle. "The title I got from my father means next to nothing this far from Ustalav."
"Oh, I know you've got a name, Dame." The emphasis on the title could be heard even through the breezy drawl. "And should you prove yourself down here, I might even bother remembering it."
""I see... it. But Luke, he has your face. I mean, your face. The man's face is on your face!" The elf points at Luke's face but keeps looking in the mirror. "His face is... overlaying your face. In the mirror."
"Huh." The foreigner's brow made a brief leap in confusion before descending into disapproval almost mirroring that of Akhentepi's reflection itself. He turned to the youth addressing the mirror. "Amal, tell him to knock that off while you're at it. I've heard of the ugly hatin' mirrors, but a mirror spiting the handsome is ridiculous - even if the old guy does have a mug at home on an Asmodean cathedral, with all the other gargoyles."
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Amal nods very seriously. "Please ignore my tall, foreign friend," he translates back succintly to the man in the mirror.
"I... have a... bad feeling about this."
Something is off with the mirror, clearly. Senemheb feels something bad looming about, and the everyone seeing Akhentepi's apparition in different places only confirms his suspicions. Valuable as is seems, Senemheb prepares to smash the mirror if things go worse.
Feel a fierce burning on their foreheads as they see the reflection of Akhentepi go up to your reflections and place his palm on your foreheads. When he removes his hand, you see a brand appear in the shape of an Ancient Orisiani hieroglyph: the word for "thief" resting just above your eyebrows.
Once this occurs, Akhentepi remains in the room's reflection, his expression harsher when perceived by those branded.
Jolánka recalls such items in the tombs of Osiriani of importance around the time of Akhentepi's life. They possess a magic to deter thieves by branding them with their sin where it was hard to hide. She doesn't know if the magical brand will fade or will need assistance in removal.
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"For f##%'s sake," Amal swears in Osiriani, more because of the disgraceful brand than because of the pain. Hopefully this can go away. At least he can hide it with some kind of bandana or a bandage - which he does. "Perhaps we should avoid scramming everything into our bags in the future," he grumbles, clearly displeased at the humiliation.
Still, Amal's gaze keeps coming back to the mirror, not without curiosity. So the man is probably a ghost, not an illusion. Was it their breaking into the tomb that woke it up? Or had it been here the whole time, waiting as centuries passed? What a lonely existence that must have been.
Seeing the brands on his foreheads of his companions, Senemheb raises his hand to touch his own. No brand - was he less of a thief than the others? Unlikely so, as on his other hand he wields a shield acquired from the tomb - very much a visible evidence of his guilt.
"That doesn't look exactly pretty," he remarks, pointing at the brand on Amal. "But there could be worse curses cast on us."
And don't I know it...
"I hope it'll come off somehow."
"Fascinating!" Djehuti hurriedly scribbles down a description of the glyph and effect in their notebook. "Does that hurt? Do you feel sick? What does it feel like?"
"It hurt at first but it doesn't feel like anything. I don't feel sick either. The hazards of tomb exploration eh? Let's not forget we have a large vermin ahead of us."
"Interesting. I have heard of devices like this, an enchanted mirror meant to dissuade thieves. The brands will last 5 days unless removed. Covering up the brands with hats, scarves, or scraps of cloth will conceal them." Djehuti monologues absently while they jot down Djedefre's responses in their notebook.
"The tracks go through both doors. Which way shall we go?"
Looking up, Djehuti shrugs and says "It's much the same. We have to check both doors eventually. Go right."
The door to the west isn't wide enough for the humanoids to slip through, but they are easy enough to push wider. Pillars line the walls of this rectangular chamber, interspersed with stone jackal heads extending from the walls. A stone altar, covered in a layer of dust, sits at the eastern end of the room. To the west, a set of stone double doors stands slightly ajar.
This is a preparation chamber for mummifying the dead. While the altar shares Pharasmin symbology with Anubis, the rest of the room is dominated with the iconography of the jackal-headed god of the dead. Akhentepi seems to be tolerant of the "new gods" but he seems to favor those of the Ancient Orisiani Pantheon.
As the doors are opened, two limb-covered creatures scuttle out from behind the preparation altar. They chitter for a moment before darting forward to attack the intruders.
The spiders scuttle forward, the first taking a bite at Amal while the other swipes with its claws at Djehuti. lands its bite, but Djehuti's mage armor deflects the claws of .
Jolánka grimaces at the result of Ahkentepi's "punishment" on her companions, more out of embarrassment that they aren't really beating the "thief" allegations than the severity of the burns, especially when Djehuti confirms they'll be gone by the end of the week.
"I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky that this the equivalent of a posthumous scolding," she says. "It's pretty much impossible to remove scars from an actual branding iron without incredibly potent restorative magic, short of burning a different mark on top of it to mask it."
She follows the group into the next chamber and raises her rapier in a defensive stance when she hears the chittering.
"Blasted attercops," she mutters as the spiders come into view. "As much of a nuisance on this side of the Inner Sea as in Avistan, it seems."
She creeps up behind Amal and intones "Nib Imnet Hem Maa," "remember what is learned" in Ancient Osiriani, touching them on the shoulder as if she's knighting them from behind.
An arcane symbol briefly flares into being as Djehuti's magical protections save the elf from the spider's claws. "Goodness!" They carefully back away- into the corner, unfortunately, but away was away- and pull a handful of colorful sand out of the pouch at their waist. Chanting a few words, they throw it at the spiders and it explodes into a cone of blinding rainbow light that envelops both creatures for a moment.
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"Fascinating!" Djehuti hurriedly scribbles down a description of the glyph and effect in their notebook. "Does that hurt? Do you feel sick? What does it feel like?"
"Like a hot poker to the face! What do you think it feels like, you weedy waste of immortality?! Sh*t!"
It was a wise, if not holy, man who once claimed that profanity provided a relief denied to even prayer. Luke was neither wise nor holy, but it seemed the occasion for some choice expletives, clutching his burning head and trying to stem the moisture in his eyes. If not when taking what felt like a branding iron to the forehead, then when?
Only when the pain had subsided did he walk up to the mirror to assess the damage. The hieroglyph seared into his flesh was unknown to the foreigner, though not the similarly afflicted Djedefre. "Thief, huh?" Thoroughly miffed at this humiliation that he was, something like laughter slipped through the scowl at this. Was this irony? He'd never quite grasped the meaning of the term, but surely there was some twisted humor in the self-professed tomb raider being very literally labeled a thief.
"Oh, it's on now, old man," he rumbled, meeting frowning Akhentepi's glare still aimed at him in the mirror. "You're going straight to whatever passes for a poorhouse in the afterlife, 'cause this thief is stealing every dime your stupid bones were buried with." Luke had nurtured an irrational, even childish, grudge against the high and mighty of Ancient Osirion ever since his father's demise to a mummy's curse. It was a grudge he deep down knew to be absurd. Yet Wati's old commander had just given him ample cause to indulge. Robbing this grave had merely been a job earlier. Now it would be a pleasure.
Flush with vindication, the Taldan promptly followed the others into the adjoining room. Only to be immediately beset by the god-spawn's aforementioned vermin.
Luke couldn't identify the crawling horrors beyond being giant spiders, but that was plenty information for him. He knew they were dangerous and had entirely too many limbs. What more was there to know? And on that note, he stepped forward sword first to address that excess of appendages. What was a fair number for these beasties? Nil? Luke was thinking nil.
"Pests of the desert.. But larger than any I've seen before!"
Senemheb wades into combat, his new shield raised high. Once he has closed in, he lowers his protection just long enough to swing his mace at the blue spider.
Luke, channeling his frustration and fury, immediately slays the solifugid he approached, his longsword dissecting the massive vermin. Senemheb and Amal work in tandem to bludgeon the second one to death. In seconds the threat is neutralized, the cohesive party barely breaking a sweat.
Investigating the chamber reveals small alcoves carved into the altar's sides, most still containing empty urns and rusty/broken/dusty tools for mummification. Behind the altar are pieces of some giant beetle's carapace, strands of webbing and dried fluids staining the floor and the bits of shell that remain. Otherwise, there appears to be little else of import or value in this chamber.
Djehuti puts their spell components away as the group quickly dispatches the huge spiders. "Excellent work! Great teamwork." The elf shakes their head in amazement and appreciation for the spider-slayers.
The elf nods at Djedefre, agreeing with his comment. Looking at the broken carapace, they say "The shell looks like the remains of a mining beetle, a slightly stronger, burrowing variant of a fire beetle. In addition to the glowing glands they use to see in darkness, mining beetles can burrow through the ground nearly as fast as a person can walk."
The elf pulls out their notebook and begins to catalog the mummification tools and describe the room in their notes.
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The foreigner gave the elf a quizzical look in wiping his sword clean from gunk. "What, are you saying we should expect more creepy crawlies?"
Spiders and beetles, both giant, neither appreciated. He looked over the shoulders of Djedefre and Djehuti as these examined the wetly glistening carapace. The arachnids' last meal, huh? Was there an entire ecosystem of great big bugs feeding on each other down here, Luke wondered? Not a welcome thought, to be sure.
Burrowers, the elf had said. The Taldan held out his torch and walked the perimeter of the space, peering into its dark corners. Was there some tunnel here showing where it had come from? Or should its skittering legs be counted among those tracks they'd seen earlier, the ones from the door leading west?
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Djedefre relays the information to the others, "If the mining beetle were a humanoid I would say the dried fluids are the remains of the camel spider's feasting on it. I would guess the camel spiders lived here and the mining beetle was unlucky enough to trespass into their home. Now the question is was this the only mining beetle? And are there more camel spiders?"
Senemheb tries to shake the spider goo off his mace, but after a couple of rigorous swings the weapon stays as gooey as before. Disappointed and disgusted, he grabs the hem of his robes to wipe the weapon clean.
"There could very well be more. But luckily such creatures do not seem to pose much a danger to us."
Djehuti nods at Luke and Senemheb. "These walls don't seem to have stopped anything that could burrow in. We may need to watch our feet."
Thoroughly searching the preparation room, the party confirms there is nothing else of import. There seem to be no more signs of spiders, but the remains of other beetles are found in extensive states of decay tucked into corners and in some of the eastern alcoves of the altar's base.
Seeing this room was largely a dead-end, Jolánka turns back and looks about to what looks to be another door, cautiously watching for more traps.
"The other room, then," Djehuti says as they close their notebook with satisfaction after completing their notes.
The party, lead by Amal, peer down the western pair of ajar doors. A flight of steps gradually descends to the west down this passage. Halfway down the stairs, small holes and burrowed tunnels riddle what remains of the passage’s southern wall. Earth and sand have spilled over the collapsed masonry, covering the stairs with dirt and rubble. Stone doors engraved with a golden scarab, its wings open beneath a golden sun, stand at either end of the stairs. Having the insectoid tracks pointed out previously, it seems to the party that the beetles and spiders may have originated from this spot to reside in the tomb.