The City of the Specter, Atem's Palace

[metagame]

The corpse sinks to the floor
Even the brightest gold, even the sharpest blade
Becomes sand, becomes dust

Comments

[metagame]

Besides the main entrance, there are two other hallways that go in opposite directions.

Can the others slip away from the guards to explore further? Or perhaps find another means of escape? Because it might take a while for court to be in session.

[emptyself]

[ um. he's starting to drift from the group and into one of the hallways. guuuuys.... ]

[finalmix]

[ funnily enough josh probably sees soujuurou drifting away because he's seated on the floor and therefore is not looking at the mural






but he and i are both team cat should escape so he will just note which hallway soujuurou is going down ]

[metagame]

Hey, Soujuurou, where are you going? The guards don't notice him, because somehow that (19) from earlier still makes him unable to be perceived. How about rolling another Will Save? Greater than 15 and we can see if these shenanigans continue as he makes his way down the hall.

[emptyself]

[ the 13 is giving him a baaaad feeling ]

[metagame]

Ah, I wondered who was causing such a ruckus in the village.

[yo]

[emptyself]

[ oh

it’s just atem. ]

Oh, that wasn’t me. [ he shakes his head. ] The guards seemed to ignore me, but my friends were pretending to “overthrow” the… fa…rrow to get into this big temple. What does overthrow even mean?

[ no, he doesn’t know what’s going on. ]

[metagame]

You guys came up with that? That's a terrible plan.

[He snorts.]

Soujuurou, to overthrow someone means to remove them from power.

[His smile is knife-like.]

To remove me from power. I'm the Pharaoh you're looking for.

1/2

[emptyself]

I said the same thing but I think they ignored me too.

[ he SIGHS, looking rather apologetic— ]

[emptyself]

Wait— you’re the pharaoh!?

[ of course, this is his mind! and now he’s talking to the leader of… this? oh, fucking great. amazing. he wants to pass out.

but there’s a sense of desperation as he pleads his friends’ case, unaware that they’re currently duking it out with the guards. ]

Listen, I’m sorry, you must be very busy, but can you please hear us out? I’m afraid that my friends will do something even more stupid if you don’t show up to talk to them. They don’t mean anything bad, I promise. They just… I don’t know, actually. I actually have no idea what went through their heads.

[privatedomicile]

Goddamn lightning snake bitch...

[Jesse speeds down the hallway and happens to at this exact moment show up with his clothes singed with lightning.]

Yo, Soujuurou, we gotta book it! Josh and Shalem picked a fight with those snake guards to give us cover to find Atem--

[He then looks over and sees...]

Oh sweet, you found Atem.

[emptyself]

[ soujuurou feels the equivalent of when alice says that they used his paycheck to buy delivery for dinner. ]

THEY WHAT!?

[ in other words, he is uncharacteristically livid. absolutely fucking fed up with this circus. ]

[privatedomicile]

...damn, you really did learn to put more oomph into it.

[metagame]

[And Atem absolutely delighted with this circus!! He's full blown laughing now. Give him a beat to collect himself, and he even waves to Jesse.]

Yo.

[privatedomicile]

Yo?

[Jesse awkwardly waves.] Major misunderstandings goin' on here, you know how it is.

[emptyself]

[ he’s so grumpy. he trusted you guys!!]

[privatedomicile]

[Well, time for Soujuurou to experience being let down by Jesse Pinkman. It was gonna happen eventually!]

[metagame]

I see...

[He rubs the back of his neck.]

I didn't want to preside over court today anyway... It's so boring, and everyone's just Great Pharaoh this and Great Pharaoh that. So it works out you two found me first!

Are the others down that way?

[He points down the hall where they came.]

[privatedomicile]

That's right, man, court can get bent.

Some of 'em still are probably. Got told to scatter.

[emptyself]

Maybe they shouldn’t have picked that fight. I’m not looking for them.

[ he will. ]

[privatedomicile]

There's only like two halls, they'll wrap around eventually? Unless one of these leads to the basement. Palaces got basements, yeah?

[emptyself]

Maybe. This place is huge.

[metagame]

Yes, there's a basement... You can only access that through the throne room.

[He's not too thrilled about the basement.]

But both hallways loop around to the open courtyard in the back. And the library's down this way! Would you like to see my collection of papyrus?

[townmusician]

[This is a great time for Haruka to pop up, trying to fuss with his hair. The static... at least his hair isn't as long, but it's still annoying.]

...Oh. Hi.

[At least he's in good enough shape he's not visibly out of breath from running down the halls and that fight...]

[prozaic]

[Here is Shalem too, sans tunic-scarf and shirt and much less... soft in the expression than usual. He's gone a bit insane recently, he hasn't come down from it, can't, really.]

Hmm. [He only restrains himself because there's no battle-- yet.]