Small spoiler for Stellaris in this post, so, fair warning.
Interlude 4: Civilization
Henry 'Arizona' Gruber Jr stood, in the sand, emptying more even more sand from his hat. The last few storms had left Giza more buried than usual, war didn't help. The sun was bright so bright he didn't finish emptying the hat and put it on to shield his eyes.
"Doctor Gruber!" a voice rang out. It was Malik, Arizona's guide.
Arizona didn't answer, and looked back down at the tablet, then to a piece of paper he was holding. The paper was covered and sand now and so he brushed it away.
The Tablet he had found in Thebes and it was in ancient greek, the paper was an except from the original copy of Atalanta Fugiens he had copied from the Copenhagen library. This time the prize was none other than the Philosopher's stone, as Maier the Author of the book. The true riddle of the sphinx was not what it was asking it seemed, but what it held within and Arizona had solved it.
Now he needed to know how to get inside.
"Doctor Gruber!" Malik said again, closer this time.
Arizona turned to face his friend, only for him to stumble past him and into the tablet.
It was going to break, No, not after all this work! he thought, reaching for it.
It was too late, the tablet broke in two, no four pieces.
"God damnit Malik! Can't you see I was busy!"
Malik was of course on the floor, "I'm sorry Doctor Jones, But we need to hide, Some Rebels are coming!"
Arizona let out a long sigh and grabbed the pieces of the tablet, stopping after a moment before looking to his friend "Don't just stand there... Help me!"
The two grabbed the pieces and began to climb the scaffold. The rebels wouldn't know to look on top of the statue, they were probably just looking for something to loot. Little did they know most of the camp had been picked clean already. Everything was gone except the snakes.
Snakes Arizona shuddered at the word and remembered opening up a tent when they had first arrived only to see dozens of them, slithering around.
At the top of the Sphinx the Sand was whipping up and into Arizona's face. Down below he could hear talking, not just Egyptian, there was an Breton accent.
Below them sure enough it was the devil himself, T.E Lawrence, yelling curses at the rebels. He had a few men in uniform with him, Blue-Grey in color and quite typically well cleaned and very professional.
"Mossies, I hate these guys" Arizona whispered under his breath.
"I want you to find Doctor Krueger, Alive!"
Mosley's personal spies had been searching the Empire even before the war began for ancient artifacts of power and myth. They had tried to steal the Holy Grail from Rome already, The spear of Longinus, Arizona had beat them too. Now it looked like they wanted the stone.
The Rebels were unloading something from their truck, it looked grey, and heavy almost like a tombstone.
Nicholas Flamel's tombstone. Now there was no doubt about it, they were here for the stone. The tablet didn't help much, how would the tombstone be of an-
There was a tapping on his back, and Arizona looked back
"Doctor Gruber, Look" Malik said as he held out a piece of the tablet. There was a white shining gem sticking out of the place where it had broken a large as his fist. That couldn't be the stone though, so what could it be, then it hit him.
"Malik you're a genius"
Arizona said as he yanked the tablet from his friend and then the stone from the tablet. "Its one of the keys inside!, and I think I know where the other one is"
Arizona and Malik waited until nightfall, Lawrence and his group made camp out in front of the Sphinx. Once everyone had gone to sleep Arizona had left the safety of their hiding spot to steal the tombstone.
It was a small camp, Lawrence's group couldn't have numbered more than a dozen. Most of these men were rebels, not the trained mercenaries Lawrence had with him before, times must have been tough with his homeland being turned to dust over a thousand miles away.
The tombstone was just sitting out in the open, so Arizona took it. Only after he had lifted the thing did he realize just how heavy it was, and that one of the guards was walking over.
The guard spotted him immediately, he also no doubt spotted the heavy stone slab that hit him in the face shortly before he could scream.
Arizona continued on, but moving was slow, the tombstone was way too heavy to move alone and swinging it had already hurt his shoulder a bit. There was a sharp foreign yell in Egyptian, no doubt someone finding the body. Arizona drew his pistol, and turned, One man came running out of the camp, a Rebel.
One shot in the chest for him and he went down, desert rags in all.
The one behind him had a Pipe gun and a wild look in his eyes, He got two shots.
The Third one was a big man also with a rifle, He took three shots before going down.
The next two ran forward, one punched him in the gut, which made him lurch forward and conveniently dodge the other who had aimed for his head.
Arizona grabbed the arm of the second man and threw him away, then punched the first square in the face.
The second man didn't go very far at all and swing again, this time hitting Arizona in the chest, and taking the wind clean out of it.
Arizona coughed and held his chest, he saw the next punch and ducked in time, picking up the first man's pistol from the ground and raising it.
Three more shots, and the fourth man fell.
It looked like the rest were either panicking or too afraid to come after him, subtly was gone, so Arizona grabbed one of the rifles and prepared to break the tombstone in half. Then there was a clicking noise and Arizona froze.
"Well well well, Arizona Gruber, so nice of you to join us".
It was Lawrence, and he had his pistol to Malik's head. Malik was still clutching the bright white gem, as if it could save him from a bullet.
"Doctor Gruber, I heard the shots and I ran to"
"Its alright kid, I probably wasn't making it out of this anyway" Arizona replied, twisting his mouth
Other men surrounded them, some rebels some uniformed Mosies. All of them had guns.
"On the contrary, you seem to have solved the riddle of the Sphinx, which means you will open it for us if you want to live"
Hard to argue with that offer, Arizona shrugged, and tossed his rifle away then spat out a quick. "Fine"
It took an hour for the Mosies to clean up their dead and get on to business with the Sphynx, leading them back to where he was earlier, in between the paws below the head. They were quite on edge it seemed, after Arizona took four of them out, though it seemed to be five, since the guardsman he had slammed with the tombstone had not returned to point his gun at them and give threatening looks.
"Alright, The tablet, the Gemstone and our notes are here, So how do we get inside and get the stone"
Arizona smirked, grabbed the tombstone and slammed it over the paw of the Sphinx. There some some yelling, and some people raises their guns as expected, but nobody fired when they saw the second stone, Black just as the first one was white.
Arizona took the second stone and held it up to the torchlight "Two sister, Night and Day" he said as he held them up beside each other, then he handled them to Lawrence "Have your men put one in each eye, be quick we only have till the sun starts to rise"
Lawrence nodded, and his men followed their orders and did as instructed. Soon enough as the sun peaked over the Horizon light bounced between the pyramids, landing on one eye but not the other. There was a rumbling, and more sand fell away from the great statue revealing what was once a door, now an entryway. There was a staircase
"Excellent" Lawrence said as he took a rifle from one of his men, then gestured for another to follow. "Lets go, There could be traps"
As they descended Sandstone became what looked to be a different material entirely, and strange runes had been carved into the walls. It was repeated, over and over again, "What was, will be"
"What is this writing?" Malik asked.
Lawrence noticed first, it was repeated in multiple languages, "Egyptian, Greek, Latin.... Chinese?, Hmph, clearly more proof of our superiority to you dogs"
"That's Japanese" Arizona corrected, and pointed to the opposite wall as he walked "Early Germanic, and those are Nordic Runes"
It was over an hour before things started to get damp. The Torch had since dimmed and what had sounded like wind seemed to be whispering, "What was, Will be" "What will be, Was". What was even stranger was the phrase seemed to grow more recent, one line in Latin read "What has been, will be again"
Finally, and abruptly the staircase stopped, and they found themselves in a circular room. Strange runes had been spread all across the walls in every direction, unfamiliar to any of them.
Then it echo'd again "What was, will be, What will be, Was, What shall be, what shall be was"
Lawrence raises his torch, in the center of the room was a pedestal, emblazoned on it was a Serpent devouring it's own tail, Ouroboros from Myth, and within it a Star of Onyx. The pedestal held what they were there for, a stone that looked like crystallized blood.
Arizona saw the stone, and then looked at the images on the walls. The arcane lines seemed to be speaking but were not making sense. All the lines simply ran across the room without end, until Indiana noticed there was no beginning ever, it was a massive loop crisscrossing hundreds of times and then beginning again. The ceiling had a much larger snake, and the bottom was another collection of endless loops.
"Lawrence, we should leave... Now"
"Not without the Stone, take it, Doctor, Gruber, lets see what traps the ancients laid for those attempting to steal their immortality"
Arizona hesitated, he felt Lawrence's henchman push his rifle into his back, and so he grabbed the stone. The Echo came again, and this time he was sure they all heard it. "What was, Will be" "What will be, Was"
The lines on the walls seemed to shift, which was impossible of course they were carved into solid stone, but shift they did, forming images, figures, events. It looked like a moving picture. Lawrence didn't seem to notice or didn't care, and grabbed the stone, holding it up "With this, Eternal Life, and its in the palm of my hand"
He grabbed his flask and poured it into the pedestal where the stone was now missing, then dunked the stone inside.
His weapon fell, and his hand went to his throat in an instant. He was choking it seemed, that much was clear. Lawrence's henchman ran to his side. The Echo was now a scream WHAT WAS WILL BE WHAT WILL BE WAS. Arizona didn't think, he grabbed the stone but he couldn't help but glance at Lawrence, who was turning blue from lack of breath, and his eyes had turned a bright red, almost glowing red the same color as the stone. The color was gone from his hair as well but still the man was clinging to life. Then the echo came again, and the room began to shake.
"Malik, Run!" Arizona said and in a flash they were both going up the stairs.
There was the sound of a yell, and machinegun fire from below them, Arizona kept running. The Echo kept repeated, almost with every tenth step
WHAT WAS WILL BE WHAT WILL BE WAS.
It was pitch black now, running up the stairs was growing harder and this was the fourth time Arizona had fallen onto his face, Malik his sixth. They were trapped, Arizona just knew it, and they would be lost inside the Sphinx, No more lectures at the university of California, no more adventures, no more Mary. He kept on, So did Malik in front of him. The ground behind them they could feel was collapsing into some sort of abyss as they ran out even though they couldn't see it. There was no choice, forward or death.
They saw light, and heard talking. Even if the Mosies were to kill them it'd be a better death than being buried alive or falling to death, so they continued. The tunnel seemed to scream one last time at them WHAT WAS WILL BE WHAT WILL BE WAS as if angry about losing it's prize, or it's prey.
They made it out, but at the top there were no rebels, no Mosies. There were uniforms though, dozens.
A Tank different than anything Arizona had seen before sat looking at the statue, and a shorter man in a black business suit stood, arms crossed, he was looking at them. The suited man looked like an intellectual and had a mouth that looked like he was chewing something but nothing was in it.
"Doctor Gruber I presume, I am Jakob Edelweis Hoover, Head of the Imperial Bureau of Preservation, I've heard quite a bit about you" The man cracked what looked to be a scowl, or smirk it was hard to tell
"The Empress thanks you for your service to the state, we'll ensure your compensated for the stone"
Arizona looked at them coldly "This cannot fall into the wrong hands"
Hoover nodded quietly taking the stone from Arizona's shaking hands as if Arizona had no choice in the matter. "I'll ensure my top men are on it"
Then the government man gestured to the uniforms around him "Such a shame the Axis destroyed yet another priceless monument"
On the Truck ride out of Giza, Arizona heard the thump of a cannon, and the crumbling of stone.
