April 18, 2026
As told by a wandering bard at the Inn of the Desert Winds, Tephu
Gather close, friends, and fill your cups, for I have just come down the River Sphinx from the Half-Dead City of Wati, and the tale I carry is worth every copper you might press into my palm.
You have heard, perhaps, of the undead plague that swept Wati like a hot khamsin wind? Of the necromancer Nebta-Khufre and his stolen Mask of the Forgotten Pharaoh? Well, hear now what became of those who stood against him.
There were six of them. Six souls brave enough, or perhaps foolish enough, to descend into the rotting heart of Wati’s necropolis when all sensible people had bolted their shutters and prayed.
There was Blade, a Bloodrager whose veins ran hot with savage power — the kind of man you want standing between you and a buffed mummy, and indeed that is precisely where he stood. Behind him came Shavrak Asha, a Summoner whose Eidolon, the fearsome Striaka Fandar, had learned through painful experience not to volunteer as a test subject for unidentified wands. The cleric Iverson, devoted servant of the Monkey King Sun Wukong, kept the party breathing through sheer force of divine will and a very healthy respect for diamond dust. The druid Rochelle Martham of Erastil fought with her heart as much as her blade — though her heart ached, as you shall hear. And then there was Lishka, a character of quiet resolve who had recently suffered the most devastating loss a druid can know.
And finally, there was Xander Zeltz, the sorcerer — though on this particular evening, Xander was less a sorcerer and more a bewildered man with the intelligence of a very confused cabbage, having had his mind stolen by a particularly rude feeblemind spell.
That was the state of our heroes as they emerged, blinking and battered, from the depths of the necropolis into the pale morning light of Wati.
They had done it. Against all odds, they had slain the necromancer, recovered the Mask of the Forgotten Pharaoh, and ended the Ka pulse that had been raising the dead across the city. The high priestess Sebti the Crocodile and the priest Ptemenib received the news with weary relief, and the great work of laying the dead back to rest began. But victory had its costs.
Smashy Smashy was dead.
Lishka’s beloved dinosaur companion — medium-sized but fierce of heart, a creature that had headbutted its way through the necropolis with reckless enthusiasm — lay cold and still in the Sepulchre of the Servant. A creature that weighed, as was carefully debated, somewhere between two hundred fifty and several thousand pounds depending on who was estimating and how recently they had seen an actual dinosaur.
And Xander, brilliant Xander, master of arcane fire and lightning, could not string together a sentence without help.
The party did what all wise adventurers do in such circumstances: they made a list and got on a boat.
Sebti and Ptemenib, bless them, drafted letters of introduction. Ptemenib, rubbing that goatee of his thoughtfully, suggested the city of Tephu across the River Sphinx — a larger city, a city with a great library, a city perhaps capable of healing one wizard’s scrambled mind. A wagon was arranged to recover the remains of Smashy Smashy from the necropolis. Iverson cast Gentle Repose to forestall the inevitable unpleasantness of transporting a dead dinosaur on a river ferry in the heat of an Osirian afternoon.
The ferry ride itself, I am told, was everything one might expect. Five silver per person. Two gold for the wagon and the dinosaur, which the ferryman regarded with the expression of a man reconsidering his career choices. Chickens. Camels. The smell of livestock and the River Sphinx mingling in the noon heat. Blade calculating carrying capacities. Taz the thrush circling overhead at fifty feet, which was precisely far enough away to avoid commenting on anything.
And Xander sat in the boat with the expression of a man who knows he used to be clever but cannot quite recall why.
Tephu welcomed them like it welcomes everyone: with hawkers, peddlers, dancing girls, offers of mint tea and magic carpets, and the aggressive hospitality of a city that has been selling things to visitors for several thousand years. The papyrus fields along the riverbank swayed in the breeze. The great blue dome of the Grand Library rose above the old city walls. The Gate of the Sun was guarded by soldiers keeping the chaos of New City from spilling into the dignity of Old City.
First stop: the Sanctuary of Nethys, that imposing marble and sandstone temple where every inch was carved with the miracles of the All-Seeing Eye, and the welcome desk was staffed by a man who had never once in his professional life smiled at a stranger.
He found them a scroll of Heal. He charged them a hundred and sixty-five platinum for it. He declined to offer them a quiet room in which to use it, right up until the moment he noticed that Blade, Shavrak, and Iverson were all wearing the holy symbol of Nethys. At which point he underwent a remarkable transformation and led them down a long hallway to a small room with chairs, a table, papyrus, ink, and a little bell.
Iverson cast Guidance on himself. He read the scroll. He failed the caster level check. He did not mishap. He tried again. He succeeded. And just like that, behind the sandstone walls of Nethys’s own temple, Xander Zeltz remembered who he was.
“That is very disorienting,” the sorcerer announced to the room. “Welcome back. We are not in the dungeon.”
They were not in the dungeon. They were in Tephu, which has inns and markets and, as it turned out, considerably more warmth toward adventurers than the Sanctuary of Nethys had initially suggested.
The Houses of Order and Wisdom proved to be an entirely different sort of institution. The House of Thoth, god of wisdom, was staffed by a woman named Natukaret, a high priest of genuine warmth and, crucially, a genuine competitive dislike of the Sanctuary of Nethys that bordered on the theological.
When she heard what had befallen Smashy Smashy, she rolled up her sleeves.
“Bring the body in,” she said. “We will perform the rite this evening. And there is no charge.”
No charge, she said, because anything that displeased the Nethesians was, by definition, a pleasure.
The party pledged their services in return, which is the sort of thing that sounds very fine and noble in a warm room with padded chairs and almost always leads to interesting adventures later. Lishka stayed at the temple to be with Smashy Smashy through the long night of the ritual.
The rest of the party went shopping.
This is not the least heroic thing I have ever reported. They had, after all, just survived an undead uprising, dragged a dead dinosaur down a river, healed a wizard’s shattered mind, and navigated the icy hospitality of the Sanctuary of Nethys. They had earned the right to spend an afternoon in the Medina, that glorious labyrinth of brass lamps, spices, copper pots, and suspiciously priced rugs.
Xander, perhaps feeling the particular joy of a man who has just gotten his brain back, introduced the party to his new companion: Sly, a fairy dragon, approximately one foot long, solid red in color, and possessing an attitude roughly equivalent to a tenured professor who happens to be able to turn invisible. Sly declared himself to be a fantastic flyer, an excellent swimmer, possessed of telepathy, dark vision, and a breath weapon called Euphoria that causes its targets to be briefly staggered and immune to fear. He also noted that he had a very long and complicated name in Draconic, which he did not use, preferring Sly, and that Xander had quite a few things to learn.
He sipped a glass of elven wine and looked around at the party with the expression of a man who had known exactly what he was signing up for and was already composing the memoir.
Blade, meanwhile, had located a Circlet of Persuasion and was delighted. Shavrak acquired an Amulet of Mighty Fists for his Eidolon. An assortment of spellbooks, rings, rods, wands, scrolls, and trade goods changed hands. Xander, fresh from his brush with intellectual oblivion, rolled spectacularly to sell the party’s accumulated treasures and achieved a sixty-five percent exchange rate, which is the kind of number that makes merchants weep into their ledgers afterward.
They set aside three thousand gold in diamond dust, because they are the sort of adventurers who have learned that the universe will require diamond dust from them sooner rather than later.
And then, the morning after, the doors of the House of Thoth opened, and Smashy Smashy walked out.
Or perhaps lumbered. Or possibly towered. Because Lishka had reached seventh level over the course of this long and eventful journey, and a seventh-level druid’s animal companion becomes Large.
The dinosaur who had fallen in the necropolis of Wati as a medium-sized creature of enthusiasm and moderate carrying capacity was raised from death into a body that was, by all accounts, substantially larger than the one it had departed.
I like to imagine the look on Natukaret’s face. I like to imagine the look on everyone’s face.
So ends this chapter of their tale. The Mask of the Forgotten Pharaoh rests in the party’s keeping, carved from gold and inlaid with cobalt, lapis lazuli, and onyx, radiating strong auras of necromancy and transmutation, and absolutely not to be activated blindly. Somewhere in the whispers of Wati, the names of the Sky Pharaoh and the Cult of the Forgotten Pharaoh are beginning to circulate. Sebti has urged them to seek out the great library of Tephu for answers. And Xander Zeltz, sorcerer, once and future wielder of arcane fire, now accompanied by a one-foot dragon of extraordinary self-regard, has his mind back.
They are seventh level now, all of them.
Osirion had better be ready.
The bard sets down her lute, takes a long drink, and adds:
It is said among the faithful of Thoth that wisdom is its own reward. But the look on the face of the Sanctuary of Nethys when they heard that their rivals had raised a dinosaur for free? That, my friends, is simply priceless.