LXXI. Thutep's Pride

The adventurers turned back toward the hallway through which they had entered the room. To the left of the entrance, barely visible in the dim illumination, stood a hulking figure. It towered over the adventurers. Ancient, weathered funerary windings hid an ancient, desiccated countenance. Ancient symbols like those engraved on the walls of the chamber were inscribed upon the figure as well.

The party knew they were facing a hunefer, a being of terrible power: Thutep, King of Khemri, undead, roused from his tomb, intent on their destruction.

But the adventurers had little time to wonder who, or what, opposed them, for suddenly they all found themselves facing their worst enemies. Lina recognized the effect: the weird spell! Bravely, each one faced down the terror that faced him (or her). It was not enough, though. Green Arrow, Lina and Aloysius all felt a horrible despair at the thought of confronting the huge undead foe. They stood rooted in place, unable to take any effective action.

Edward, thanks to the special ability of his sword, recognized and understood the Old Oeridian language, which he recognized as the same speech used by the mummy guards. He was unaffected by the hunefer’s despair. His slam attack was another matter. The brave paladin took heavy damage from the being, which then sprang back away from his foe. Edward pursued and swung with the full power of Hieroneus, hacking at the hunefer, slicing into its undead, mummified flesh. But Thutep in turn landed an opportune blow on the paladin as it came into range of its long arm.

The paladin was dismayed to witness the wounds he had just inflicted begin to close up on their own. He was further dismayed as the hunefer launched a devastating attack, then sprung back again, out of reach.

And suddenly, Edward felt the irresistible urge to dance. He began to skip and jump in place. His sword and shield were useless.

"Not as simple as a roomful of mere mummies, is it?" gloated Thutep as he maneuvered, readying an attack. "Perhaps you should leave now and cease disturbing my rest." Green Arrow, Lina and Aloysius had no response. Edward could only keep dancing.

"Well?" demanded Thutep, as he continued to regenerate. "I await your answer!" Again, no response. But now, Green Arrow seemed to recover his courage. He drew his bow and fired five arrows–at Edward! The arrows of cure moderate wounds healed much of the damage Thutep had inflicted on the paladin. The elven archer then rushed toward Edward, stopping behind a large brazier. As he reached the brazier, he felt his life-force under attack from some unknown quarter. Fortunately, his scarab absorbed the attack.

Lina likewise regained her composure. She shapechanged into a stone golem, then defensively cast true seeing, hoping to gain a better understanding of the foe they faced. From behind her, Aloysius cast mass conviction on all the adventurers. All felt braver and more able to resist their foe.

Again, Thutep sprang forward to batter Edward, then sprung back out of reach of his sword. Again, Green Arrow’s arrows healed some of the damage to the paladin.

In stone golem form, Lina cast assay spell resistance, seeking to determine how strong Thutep was against her magic. She then pointed a finger at the hunefer, and a meteor swarm sped to a spot behind the being. Incredibly, it had no effect! Meanwhile, Aloysius hid behind her, and from that position of safety, cast freedom of movement on the sorcerer/golem, in the event that the hunefer should somehow attempt to bind his ally.

Swiftly, Edward cast find the gap, hoping to land a blow against Thutep more easily. "Hieroneous, hear my prayer! Smite the monster!" the paladin cried, then advanced and swung with full power. To his astonishment, his patron deity did not hear his prayer, for his blow missed the hunefer.

Now Thutep gestured at the elven archer. Instantly, Green Arrow was blasted by force missiles, taking serious damage. The undead king stepped toward Edward and slammed the paladin twice, severely wounding him, even as he himself continued to regenerate.

Green Arrow held up, awaiting Edward’s next move. Lina directed a polar ray at Thutep, but the icy blast failed to strike its mark. Aloysius sought to assist Green Arrow’s attacks by casting true seeing on the elven archer.

But instead of seeing more clearly, Green Arrow suddenly found that he could not see at all. He was totally blind! A word of power from somewhere–likely Thutep–had deprived him of all sight.

Edward seized his chance to launch a full attack on the hunefer, now within range. Haste and find the gap aided his attacks. Three of his blows landed on the undead king. Or so he thought! None of the blows did any actual damage, only seeming to strike a target that was not actually there! "Displacement?" thought the paladin in dismay. And even worse, he felt his strength under attack from the effects of his assault on the hunefer. He managed to shake off the attacks, but with difficulty.

The undead king gestured toward the adventurers and uttered mystic syllables. Edward’s mass conviction instantly disappeared. Lina’s stone golem form was suppressed, and she reverted to her natural form.

Green Arrow and Aloysius held, one due to blindness, the other for want of an effective action to take. Lina retreated behind Edward, and defensively cast true seeing on the paladin. Now Edward was able to land blows effectively, no longer deceived by magic. Two mighty blows from the paladin’s sword inflicted massive damage on the hunefer!

Heavily wounded, yet still regenerating, Thutep paused, watching Green Arrow. The blinded archer gestured and muttered words of power, and four mirror images appeared around him. Only to disappear as Thutep’s greater dispel magic took effect. Edward found himself deprived of find the gap, as Lina did of her freedom of movement.

And then Lina’s mass conviction was dispelled as well! The adventurers were shocked. How could Thutep possibly cast so many spells and still be able to attack in melee?

Another polar ray from Lina missed its mark. Aloysius managed to replace the dispelled mass conviction with another instance of the spell.

Emboldened, Edward swung at the hunefer again. Two devastating blows slashed Thutep. The hunefer was now evidently in serious danger.

Still blind, Green Arrow quaffed a potion of invisibility, hoping to protect himself from further targeted attacks. He also cast shield on himself. To no avail. A blast of negative energy struck the elven archer. His scarab crumbled into dust, and he felt his life force being drained from him.

Suddenly, the undead king vanished. Lina, who had been preparing a dimensional anchor spell to cast on the hunefer, was left frustrated.

Aloysius saw Green Arrow’s distress. "Negative energy," the elven archer said in a croaking voice. "Took out my scarab." The cleric quickly cast death ward on his fellow adventurer. "This should protect you from another attack," he assured Green Arrow. "I hope you’re right," answered the archer. "I can’t understand how that mummy can cast so many spells." Aloysius was baffled as well; such matters were far beyond his skill.

The cleric’s action prompted Edward to do likewise. Warded, he went to Green Arrow’s side and offered a potion. "Quaff this," he told the archer. "You need to get your sight back." Green Arrow gladly accepted the remove blindness potion and downed it. Immediately, his vision was restored.

"Now to help you regain your life-force," said Aloysius. The cleric began to cast the restoration spell, a lengthy process. While he worked on Green Arrow, Edward retrieved his wand of cure critical wounds, and healed himself of some of the damage he had taken.

The cleric continued his restorative magic. Green Arrow, in the meantime, quaffed a potion of cure critical wounds to help speed his recovery.

Lina was curious about the sarcophagus. She went to the granite block and began to search its interior, looking for anything of value, materially or for information pertinent to her quest. Edward directed his attention to the granite sculpture of the beautiful woman. Something about it seemed to resonate with him. Had he seen this woman before?

He realized with a start that the woman bore a striking resemblance to Neferata! "But that would stand to reason," he thought to himself. "She was Thutep’s queen, after all." Thutep’s queen–Thutep’s pride? "Of course!" That was what the vision had meant about "guarding Thutep’s pride"! The paladin pointed to the statue and told Lina his observation.

Green Arrow waited for Aloysius to complete the casting of the restoration spell. He felt his life-energy level return to normal. "My thanks, my good cleric," he acknowledged. Assuming a defensive stance, the archer awaited further developments. Surely the undead king had not simply abandoned his own inner sanctum?

As the elven archer was restored to full vigor, Lina focused her attention on the sculpture. Acting on a hunch, she cast true seeing. Instantly, she perceived the truth: the "sculpture" was no sculpture at all!

"That’s a woman!" exclaimed Lina. "Or actually, a woman’s mummy!" The woman–the mummy–appeared to be under some spell. "It must be Neferata herself, trapped in the form of a sculpture!" Lina concluded. "Edward! See if she’s under some evil spell!" The paladin quickly detected for evil. "There’s no evil there!" he cried, as puzzled as Lina.

The two adventurers were not given time to ponder the matter further. From the entrance hallway, Thutep burst into the chamber, many of his previous wounds now closed. Edward noticed that there was an emanation of evil coming from the undead king. Strong evil.

The mighty undead king pronounced words of tremendous power, focusing on Green Arrow. The spell’s force began to build. Lina, without hesitation, cast dimensional anchor on Thutep, intending to prevent him from escaping again as he apparently had previously.

Aloysius had been listening to Lina and Edward as they spoke of Neferata, enspelled and trapped as a statue. He thought to free her from her prison. Invoking his patron deity, he cast remove curse on the woman’s mummy.

To no effect. Neferata remained as she appeared.

Green Arrow could sense the build-up of magical forces against him. "If he gets that spell off, it’ll do me in," he realized. Instinctively, he reached for his ring of three wishes, now reduced to two wishes. He thrust his finger into the ring. "I wish to be ethereal when Thutep’s spell goes off!" he declared. Immediately he began to fade.

Not a moment too soon. Just as he vanished into the ethereal plane, Thutep completed his spell. But although the hunefer could see into the ethereal plane, his spell could not reach targets there! He bellowed in frustration as the spell fizzled for want of a target. Green Arrow’s mirror images disappeared as well.

Lina attempted to identify the spell. She was completely baffled: she had never seen a spell like it before. All she could tell was that it was immensely powerful and would do tremendous damage to anything it struck. She then turned to Neferata, determined to identify what was holding the ancient queen in place. But she was astonished at what her analyze dweomer spell revealed: Neferata was actually concealed by a veil spell, crafted to make her appear to be a stone sculpture! And she was heavily buffed with a large number of other spells.

What was going on here?

Edward was not inclined to wait for Lina’s magical analysis. He swung a tremendous blow at Thutep. The undead king shrieked as the epic weapon slashed through his mummified form. He was confident that his next blows would would put an end to his foe, even though it appeared that his attacks were doing much less damage than usual. The mighty paladin raised his weapon, poised to deliver the next slashing attack.

"STOP!" A commanding voice called out in Old Oeridian. "Slay him not! Name your price!"

The adventurers turned their attention to the source of the command. Edward halted his stroke in mid-air.

Neferata rose from her granite throne. No longer veiled, the mummy queen was resplendent in ancient, if tattered, garments over her linen wrappings. One of those garments appeared to be a shirt-like vestment of some kind. Her death mask remained in place, as beautiful as she had been in life. She rushed between Edward and Thutep and raised her hand toward Edward’s weapon in a gesture of forbiddance.

Edward was at a loss for words. He stepped back from the imposing presence of the mummy queen. Turning to Lina, he asked, "Lina, what are we here for again?"

"The vest!" the golem-sorcerer replied, urgently.

The paladin turned back to Neferata. "We have come for the vest of the archmagi," he began. "A vision led us here, through more obstacles than even I expected. The vision referred to "Thutep’s pride". Now I understand what it meant." He nodded slightly to the mummy queen. "Yield up the vest to us, and we will depart."

"Do not do it, my dear!" Thutep urged, battling to remain standing after Edward’s staggering assault. "It is far too powerful for the mortal world!"

Neferata stood in silent thought, pondering her course of action. She stepped back next to Thutep, embracing him. She looked up into his eyes. "I cannot let them destroy you, my beloved," she said. "They seem to be too powerful even for my magic. We might defeat some of them, but I am not assured that we can prevail against them all before we fall. That cannot happen."

"So it was you that cast so many of the spells we thought came from Thutep?" said Edward. "It was," confirmed Neferata.

She then addressed the stone golem in the room. "Golem, reveal yourself!" she commanded. And Lina reverted to her normal form, as if compelled by the queen’s voice without understanding the language she spoke. Neferata then addressed the sorcerer.

"If I yield up what you seek, will you leave, never return, and never reveal this place?" she asked Lina.  Edward translated for her.

"OK," agreed Lina. "But this place was so hard for us to find, nobody else will!"

Having received the adventurers’ promise, Neferata doffed her royal garments. Underneath, the vest of the archmagi was visible. She removed the vest, slowly, gently, then turned the garment over to Lina. Lina bowed to the queen as she accepted the vest, the object of her, and the party’s, long efforts.

"But before we leave," added Edward, "I for one have to hear your story. Will you tell it to us?"

To this request Neferata agreed. As Edward translated, she told the adventurers of the Kingdom of Khemri, ancient even in the days of the old Suel Empire which lay far to the northeast. "During the centuries of my beloved’s reign, Khemri rose to peaks of power and glory that were envied even by the Suel. But that was only to be expected of the rule of a godling in the form of a human," she recounted proudly. "And I grew with him, until my magic powers exceeded all others.

"Alas, towards the end of his reign, the people became defiant, even rebellious," she continued. "The king was able to maintain order while his life lasted. But at length, he ended."

"We have learned that his reign was one of brutality, and evil," Lina pointed out. "His aura is of evil," Edward added. "Evil?" retorted Neferata, displeased with the adventurers’ impudent observations. "He did what was necessary to preserve the rule of law!"

"No offense intended," said Lina, regretting her indiscrete statements. Edward kept further comments to himself.

"As I said," Neferata continued, ignoring Lina’s attempted apology, "my beloved ended. He was laid to rest in this chamber, in the pyramid he had ordered built for himself, greatest of all pyramids, greatest and most securely guarded against the impious. But so mighty was his spirit that it returned to re-animate his body." She released her king and gestured around the chamber, as if trying to embrace the entirety of the pyramid. "I soon followed him, leaving our son and heir to continue our rule. My beloved chose to remain here, slowly to regain the powers he had lost in death, until the world has changed and the time is right for his return. I found my rest in my own chamber."

"But what happened to Khemri?" inquired Lina, fascinated by Neferata’s tale. "The land has been almost entirely forgotten!"

"Sadly, within a century of our reign, the land succumbed to civil strife," Neferata explained, without mentioning how she was aware of events in her former land. "The capitol was reduced to ruins, and the kingdom soon thereafter was lost." She sighed, as if remembering the days of her life and power. "The Invoked Devastation subsequently caused the land of Khemri to sink into a deep depression, destroying many of the cities of the kingdom. Over the following centuries, sand blew into the depression, burying all the land. Except, it seems," she added, "the very tip of this pyramid. Which your vision and your research have led you to discover."

The adventurers stood, raptly attending to the queen’s discourse. She looked inquiringly at the party, awaiting further questioning. "What about your mask?" asked Lina. "It appeared in my vision. Was it special in some way?"

"No, I must disappoint you," said Neferata. "It was merely a death mask, of high quality, but nothing more."

Green Arrow suddenly returned from the ethereal plane, to which he had wished himself, and spoke up. "I felt Thutep’s power building against me. What was the spell he was preparing?"

"That," said Thutep, before Neferata could answer, "is not yours to know." And that was all the answer Green Arrow would get.

With the party standing silently, Neferata concluded, "If you have taken what you sought, and you have no more questions, then you have our leave to depart." The adventurers took the queen’s statement as a dismissal. They bowed to the ancient ones, then withdrew toward the entrance to the chamber.

"Link up!" said Edward. The party joined hands, and Edward teleported them all back to Enterprise headquarters in Greyhawk.

"Well, we’d better report on our recent activities," said Green Arrow.

"Yes, but only as much as we can," replied Edward. "Some things will have to remain, shall we say, ancient history."