Deathless and Nameless (Mummy: the Curse Quest)

Vote closed.

Your soul knows the answer. "I am the mistress of this house. I laid the stones of its ten-times predecessor when Boudicca walked the Isles. You will serve me."

There is stillness in the moment after your ultimatum, and into that silence you draw a breath - unneeded, either for your desiccated lungs or these words spoken by the soul - and make your Utterance.


As you speak the Utterance into being, power rising from your throat as both flame and flower, you watch the eyes of Hannah and George go wide. She gasps, leaning backwards in her chair, while the tones of George's muttered "God in heaven" mingle with the half-song, half-speech of your sorcery. It takes none of your insight into mortal hearts to see theirs quail and shrink from the thought of opposing you.

Cory, though, is made of sterner stuff. Or, perhaps it is better to say that his soul is insufficiently mortal to quail at the revelation of your own deathless glory. Still, even if your Utterance cannot take full hold of his spirit, he himself is still taken enough aback to stumble from his chair, "Mary mother of God" upon his lips.

His beast, though, has no such hesitation.

Chittering in Twilight, the thing leaps toward you, breaching the veil of the physical as it does. Its wings beat the air, filling the room with a foul stench underlaid with the sharp tang of anise - and then it is on you.

You attempt to ward it off with one arm, but its clicking, gnawing mandibles bite and tear through your heavy clothing, exposing your dead flesh before it savages that in turn.

The taste of your Sekhem-animated flesh seems only to encourage the creature, and its assaults redouble. Your corpse-form is insensible, and for that you are grateful - the monstrous wasp-head has half-swallowed your arm by the time you can shove it away. Sahu-flesh comes away in ribbons, dangling from its fanged mandibles. Were you mortal you would be screaming, doubtless insensate.

But you are not mortal. The weight of Fate empowers you. You have a star in your soul, and a star in your hand. Geldbreca ignites with a roar as you swing it, striking like a meteor from the heavens. One of the beast's bulbous, glassy eyes shatters under the hammer's impact along with one mandible. The force carries on to slam into the creature's collarbone and bear it to the ground, legs buckling beneath it.

Out of the shattered eye socket boils a torrential swarm of biting and crawling insects, chittering and keening around you and shaking the air with the buzzing of their innumerable wings. The screams of the humans pierce that buzzing, the three of them wildly beating at their bodies and the swarm as the bugs descend to bite and tear at flesh. You shake some of the crawling vermin away with a sweep of your arm and leave your hammer in the amkhat's body, releasing the handle and letting Gledbreca's supernatural weight trap it against the floor.

You are already growling in frustration when your ears catch the sound of breaking glass and you spot the sorcerer leaping through the second storey window. Your inhuman ears note the sound of branches and leaves crumpling. The other two humans have fallen and are crawling towards you, shielding their faces with their arms, George trying to protect Hannah more than himself.


The Amkhat writhes, keening beneath your hammer. As the swarm buffets you and prevents you from interceding, with a clearly-herculean effort the beast throws off the hammer. More of its flesh cracks as it rises unsteadily. The flames hiss against the flooring as it casts one glassy eye towards you through the clouds of vermin, then flings itself through the window its master crashed through.

Enough of this.

You pick up your hammer as you stride towards the window, the flames warding away the swarm, which is currently flying out of the hole. Your wounds seal in snapping flickers of Sekhem, flesh reweaving itself out of anise and dust.

It is not hard to spot the Amkhat's twisted form as it flees through the sky once you reach the window. You raise your hammer and sing your Utterance to the stars above.


For a moment, nothing seems to happen. Then the morning star brightens, becoming visible once more in the brightening sky. A bright spear tears a hole in the clouds and for a moment seems to transfix the Amkhat, before the detonation shakes your bones. Shrapnel, trailing smoke, scatters across the earth. Around you, unnatural insects wither and die, falling to the floor like crumpled papers.

"What the fuck…" you hear the woman behind you whisper, as they peer at you around the door. You ignore them. Where is the sorcerer?

You spot him running across the yard, having stumbled and slowed in the wake of your Utterance. On the periphery you also see Danika's car, tearing down the road towards the Hall. You set your booted foot on the window and look back at the mortals. "Stay here. If you run, I will find you," you hiss at the two of them.

The big man shivers and holds Hannah, both of them bearing bleeding bites on their faces and arms. "Yes, okay, we won't", the big man murmurs, arm protectively around Hannah, whose eyes are fixed on your rapidly healing face in terror and compelled awe. Appeased for the moment, you fling yourself out of the window.

You land with grace in the grass beyond the bushes, body bending easily to accept the shock. Cory is still running away from you and you give chase, dashing across the field like a fox after a rabbit. You both are nearly to the tree line when you pounce on him, riding his body to the ground. Rather suddenly things go very strange, as the sorcerer bursts into a scratchy, static filled, half-there shape of something that looks vaguely like a jellyfish depicted through a combination of geometry and splashes of paint suspended in the air. Your hammer strike pulps the skull of the ephemeral image, dispersing it and leaving no sign of the true sorcerer.

Your voice punctuates the sudden end to the chase. "Damn you…," you murmur, nearly crushing Geldbreca's handle in your grip. You stand, bubbling rage in your throat choking off the curses you want to spit. You look around, wondering if your senses are still clouded by a hallucination. Then you hear it, a motorcycle engine, rapidly fading into the distance far faster than you can run. You consider another Utterance…


…but so be it. He cannot hide from you forever, not when you can rip his secrets from the stars themselves. Better to husband what remains of your strength.

"Hey! Hey, what the hell is going on Elisa?!" Danika shouts at you from the parking lot, as she stands beside her little car, its engine idling, staring at your clearly inhuman form and flaming hammer.

What did you say in a situation like this? "I'll tell you, but I'd rather not shout," you shout back.

From here you can see her eyes are strangely clear, like Gracie's, untouched by Sybaris.

Another Witness? You stride across the field towards her, and as the weak sun bathes your exposed arm and face you feel your Sekhem begin to shift. You restrain a grimace at this unwelcome Descent, the weight of it trying to bow your shoulders.

Descent Roll: 7, 5, 2, 7, 7, 4, 3, 4, 6; failure

You remain at Sekhem 9

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

And yet, as you keep walking, holding Danika in place under your gaze, you feel that weight recede. The relief leaves you unsettled and confused.

When you stop you are standing a fair distance from her, and let the fires of Geldbreca fade. Her eyes rise from the hammer to your partially exposed face. You can see the fear in her face, and in how her hand is white knuckled on the top of the car door, ready to duck back in if she needs to. But she's clear eyed and straight backed in confronting you. "Well, it is rather simple. This Hall has been my home for centuries, and I am reclaiming it from the people who stole it."

"English Heritage?" She asks, with an eyebrow climbing her forehead.

You snort. "Technically, yes. But these people were involved with something strange, and their beast was very real, as you suspected."

Her frown deepens and her hand tightens on the doorframe. "Okay… assuming I believe that. Who are you? Really? What is your name?"

"Elisa Morgan is one of my names. But you may call me Helel," you tell her.

Her face twists through an odd expression. "Seriously?"

You laugh. "Do you recognize it, human?"

"I didn't expect to meet a monster who names herself after Satan this week…," she says, sitting back down in her car with a sigh. "Who might actually be Satan," she mutters under her breath. She looks up and gestures between the two of you. "So… are you going to like, kill me. Or is this reasonable conversation thing going to continue?"

You laugh, some of the tension in your gut snapping. "Keep my secrets and it will continue."

"Oh good," she says drily. Then she raises her hands, as you frown. "Alright, okay. I won't say a thing. I promise. I rather like living."

"Most do," you say without judgement. Honestly it was a practical desire, and one of the ones you best understood among mortals. That thought brings you back to the other two humans you have in your Tomb and your lipless teeth grind. Your efforts have returned your Tomb to your hands and yet you are not satisfied.

You cannot trust these scavengers yet, nor will you tell them about Gracie, and yet your original intent to dominate them still survives through the storm of your inner turmoil. Lying comes easy, so you will fill their ears with what they want to hear.

"Come on, human," you say to Danika, turning and gesturing for her to follow. She does, her footsteps crunching warily behind you, while your mind already runs ahead to your approach with the remaining cultists.

[] Appeal to Fear
Their leader has fled, their monster is slain, and they are in your hands. In one, you bear the flail, in the other the crook. You will teach them their situation, and offer them service or the judgement of the Rectifier.

[] Appeal to Desperation
For all their learning, they are ignorant. They do not know the world into which they have stepped, which spawns such things as you - but for their service, you might deign to grant them guidance.

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Authors' Notes: This one took a little longer than usual, as we had to play around with formatting a bit and there was some difficulty with working out exact actions. Nevertheless, it's here now and I have to thank @BungieONI for doing a great deal of the leg-work on getting this out while I dealt with being absolutely fucking exhausted (and possibly a little heat-exhausted?) and @GardenerBriareus for being, as ever, a wonderful ideas guy.