The Mummy, jump #70: The Anubis Conspiracy

[The Mummy, jump #70]

Drawbacks: Wrath of the Dragon Emperor, Beyond the Wall, The Mummy Returns, Dark Army, Extended Stay, The Scorpion King, The Animated Series, Dark Universe (2200)

Ancient Akkad

Scholar, age 23

Historian (Free)
"The Bembridge Scholars Never Wrote About This" (Free)
Pulp Fiction Novels (Free)
Egyptian Warehouse Theme (+150, 2300)
Cat (2250)
Religious Symbols (2200)
Canon Companion: Ahmanet (+200, 2200)
Old Flame (1900)
Forgotten Pharoah (1400)
Cursed Monster (1000)
"Egypt Is In My Blood" (700)
Pygmy Mummies (600)
CultX3 (0)

The Mummy lore is my favorite kind of lore where completely unintentionally, there is deepest lore if you take into account the licensed games AND actually think about the metaplot. Let me be clear, you are very obviously not supposed to think about anything except Dwayne Johnson's abs, nubile egyptian women and Brendan Fraser's devillish smile.

"Anon, who are you talking to?" asked Ereshkigal. I blinked. "Nobody" I said, realising I had spent hours scribbling on the ancient Akkadian equivalent of a conspiracy theorist's corkboard, which was just a rock exposed to the noon sun. That and after epochs of struggle in a consensus-sustained reality softcapped by an incompetant planet, feeling my ultra clairvoyance fray at the seams from no-bullshit gods doing things behind the cosmic backdrop.

This was a trend where my other companions, mostly because they were from Fate, but Mathayus himself was pretty accepting of the world's weirdness down to me explaining I was a god of war moonlighting as a sage on his adventures to carry out my investigation. In his defense, the man needed all the divine intervention he could get. We were seeking the Sword of Damocles, because apparently Sargon counts as a Greek-type monster and the Spear of Osiris only kills Egyptian monsters.

Nobody seemed to notice that Damocles shouldn't have been fucking BORN when Akkad was a thing.

(Cont'd)

Which turned out to be some handwaved nonsense about a different warrior who just happened to be CALLED Damocles and a blessing from Zeus. Still, the clues were there if you cared to look. An english girl being used as a cursed sword's host, guarded by a golem called Enkidu. The blonde, blue eyed, warrior princess (again: /Nobody/ from Fate thought this was weird) of an arabian kingdom. Fucking no bullshit ninjas. Oh, and a chinese oracle that Mathayus ended up marrying.

The clues were there, I thought, as I helped Mathayus fight through a temple guarded by two sorcerors. Divine retrotemporal intervention, all the signs of a cosmic conspiracy. When I asked the totally mortal sorceress known as Isis for her opinion she said "Grr! I have no idea what you're talking about, I am evil mortal witch and definitely not a goddess of magic cursed by SOMEBODY to endure mortal form! My brother has NOT been cruelly usurped and sealed away by a traitor and some upstart doorman! By the way, did you know that we gods can possess you-ahem, mortals if you sacrifice yourself in a convoluted way? And for entirely unrelated reasons, you should stand somewhere out of harm's way while we're fighting! Grr!" she said, turning into a giant scorpion lady. I continued scribbling my case notes on stone tablets while Mathayus chopped her head off with the Divine Construct of killing scorpion people I'd given him, something which she seemed almost relieved to happen to her.

By the time Horus showed up as mortal miniboss, Elodie at least was on the same page as me about something being up. After pinning down Apep (yes, that Apep) with Tesla's thunder, we made him admit that no, he wasn't in fact the original gatekeeper of the underworld and was in fact a chaos beast manifesting through a man-like form. He discorporated before revealing who his employer was (Mathayus was too busy stealinf everything that was and wasn't nailed down, because Mathayus is basically Akkadian Conan)

(Cont'd)

Anyway, while this was happening my biggest blessing was keeping his kingdoms up and running. Yet my plan to change the future failed. Years after I'd given Matharus and his bride the herb of immortality as a wedding present, I found out that one stupid interview was right.

Mathayus never became the Scorpion King.

It was /his identical descendant/ that made that deal with Anubis.

By the way, Hela and Ereshkigal up there were some of the few helping me with the mystery. With their underworld authorities, they overheard transactions between the East Semitic underworld and the Egyptian one. Strangely, it was only ever Anubis and Set who came to parlay. Eresh's venturing found a goddess of the underworld who could open portals to Hell called...Astarte. Who had the poor luck to start boasting about how she'd stolen the Underworld from her little sister Ereshkigal while Eresh was hiding.

This led to a fight which was surprisingly even. The local gods had no truck with Authorities or ranked attacks, and poor Eresh took a smiting because in the Underworld Astarte had the power of "you fucking lose". BUT, Astarte ALSO didn't expect Eresh to overwrite her OWN Underworld as a NP, and regeneration or no being hit many times harder than a Nasuverse human fuckin splattered the enemy goddess. By the time my own Ishtar smashed her way through the bedrock they'd worn each other into a time out, and the enemy Astarte warned that there were alliances beyond the usual pantheons who would be angry at all of them for a perceived affront. Yet another clue.

The biggest clue was Magus who, it transpired, tried to trick Matthayus into killing him with the Sword of Osiris which would let him be possesed by and assume Set's powers. With that knowledge, I went to ask Yahweh (who was a dude, all gods are people-shaped apparently) about his role in the Hum-Dai while we watched Aaron's priests prep the bull.

(Cont'd)

"Oh, you mean Anubis' pet project. A while ago my followers and your folks had a nasty property dispute a few generations after they moved in with each other, things got heated, everyone started flexing" He said, chuckling "and let's just say I won the battle but everyone lost their dignity. So we talked it out with the guys in charge, we all got a drink together and then that Anubis fella tells me he wants my input on this Hum-Dai thing he's working on. And everyone's drunker than Sekhmet on a Second Arrival Day so-I lost track ever since I divorced my ex and she got the fertile crescent"

"Wait" I said slowly "You're not aware the Hum-Dai tortures it's target for thousands of years, but there's a spell which, if read, ressurects them with apocalyptic powers, invincibility and causes the 10 Plagues to occur?"

Yahweh started laughing, then stared at me in dawning horror when he realised I wasn't joking. "Oh. Oh no, I've made a terrible mistake"

"Don't worry, it's not due for a few thousand years"

"Oh, so right when the humans are about to forget magic exists? Sweet El's buttocks, I NEVER should have trusted those desert hicks! No offense intended. But that's STUPID!"

"I know right?"

Yahweh stormed off figuratively and literally. "I'll show those fuckers what happens when you piss off the God of the Covenant! I'll give my chosen warriors a brand that twists fate so no matter what, they can win fights against things like that! No magic to dispell, they'll just grab whatever weapon they need! Eventually!"

"Hey, by the way. You know Anubis and Osiris have these cosmic swords and bracelets lying around, and I was thinking-"

"-say no more. You're a pretty good blacksmith for a war deity aren't you? Come on by the mountain later and let's show those animal faced barbarians what real craftsmanship looks like. Ha! A war god! That's quite a step up, finally decided to actually fight for that crown eh?"

Okay, THAT part confused me. "What are you talking about?". And Yahweh just winked and nudged me, saying "Never you mind, I really thought you were pulling one over me just now. But if that's how it is, take all the time you need"

And so, I helped Yahweh forge his own weapon and jewelry line of macguffins, after which He founded the Medjai order, a decision He did not regret until an unfortunate mixup that started in Bethlehem. But that is another story.

(Cont'd)

Fun fact: Princess Ahmanet was born about 1800 years before Imhotep (so, about 2500ish years before Emperor Han since he oversaw the Great Wall). The trail for the temporal anomalies had gone cold and I'd started having to fend off mysterious armies of jackel-men and also time-warped oasises, which were way more of an issue. Anyway, I solved the succession crisis simply by unveiling my godhood and proposing to the Pharoah's daughter; thanks to Matthayus spreading and civilising Akkadian culture the role of the divine consort was seen equal as that of the Pharoah. Nevertheless, she'd always had a power hungry streak and one muggy night she showed me a forbidden ritual she could have used to summon Set (paying attention? I was. Another one for the detective tablets) modified to get magical powers from him AND leash them with some of my shared Divinity in one mystic care package.

Maybe it was the constant damn sun in those days. Maybe it was the divine beer we drank to stave it off. Maybe it was that thing she did with the body oil and her toes earlier. But I figured hey, might learn some new facts for the case and what's the worst that go wrong? And then time fucking imploded.

Imagine the part in The Mummy 2 where the oasis implodes, but in reverse. The air shimmered as if through a veil of heat through which alternate timeline could be seen, my terrified newlywed wife swearing in ancient Egyptian, as through images and rushing wind poured as if reality was trying to cram dozens of fabulous pyramids and lush jungles and palaces in the same space-time coordinates. There were midgets flying through the air. Tiny mummy midgets. And air shook with the howling of a cheated god; far, far above the sky flickered from bright azure, to stormy grey, to a dim evening, but always with a faint sheen of scales as the true Apep slithered resentfully in the chaos beyond reality.

When the sand settled, there was a very big and schizophrenically landscaped oasis surrounding what looked like the Dreg Heap from Dark Souls 3 if it was Egyptian themed. And complaining in the ruins were what appeared to be a modern day Ahmanet, a half-snake Ahmanet, a thicc pharoah Ahmanet in a black sleeveless dress cut at the hip and about 600 women who shared an uncanny familial resemblance to them. Oddly, both ancient era Ahmanets had a distinct set of scars on their faces.

Oh, and a hundred mummy midgets bowing before me. Now THIS was real power.

"Okay, what just happened?" demanded my Ahmanet. "Why are all of you here, me and my husband were just trying to summon a dark god for magical powers! What did I ever do to deserve this?"

"Summon a dark god? That's what we were trying to do!" retorted the Ahmanets. "Okay, on three everyone name their dark god!"

"Set!" said my Ahmanet.

"The serpent god!" said the Pharoah Ahmanet, looking down her nose imperiously.

"The sssserpent god!" said the snakegirl Ahmanet, fumbling her tongue.

"The serpent god, Apep" said the modern Ahmanet, nervously staring into the corners as if expecting something to jump out and pin her down any moment.

"Wait, hold on" said Pharoah Ahmanet "the snake god actually has a name?"

"Yes! Yes, he does, you were around when his High Priestess of the Jadeite Order was taking over Colussia weren't you?"

"Well yes, but nobody ever said he had a name" said Pharoah Ahmanet coldly while snakegirl Ahmanet nodded sagely to avoid another social faus pax. My Ahmanet just looked bewildered. "What is...Colussia?"

"It'sss that foreign country with that bothersssssome adventurer and the minotaur, don't you remember?" demanded snakegirl Ahmanet. "You know, before that unfortunate busssiness with the alternate worldssss"

"THERE ARE ALTERNATE WORLDS?! What a load of tripe! Everyone knows that Geb and Nut don't leave enough room between them to-" ranted the Ahmanet I was thinking of as Ahmanet Prime as my hyper-thought partitioning sifted through my mental case notes.

After I'd brought out more beer around a table, things started to make more sense. The other Ahmanets had attempted to make a dark pact with the serpent god ("APEP. APEP, how do you people not know this" modern Ahmanet was saying as my Ahmanet and I nodded sagely) because, and I quote, "our whore sister knows so little about rulership she has poisoned our beloved father with her stupidity, our whore mother treats the seat of power as one big pole she would have us all service, and our brother is literally a horse". At the exact moment the pact was about to be made (at varying points of each Ahmanet's ascent to the throne), the ritual had failed and a mysterious timestream had whisked them away.

In hindsight, I realised, if a fragment Ishtar could pull the Bull of Heaven from another universe then I should have been more cautious about tampering my Divinity with magic I had already SEEN restore an entire temple complex from the mists of time intact. But there was a clear breakthrough here. The anachronisms, the dark pact-it all pointed towards Anubis being the ringleader of Set and Astarte's machinations throughout the ages. Incidentally the other Ahmanets had another name which my Ahmanet thought sounded ridiculous and blasphemous, and it was at that point they found out the powers they would have gained from the ritual along-they all seemed mercifully relieved to realise-with the price to be paid.

Everything was coming together, which was exactly when it started coming apart. Now occasional mortality-inducing sigils began to litter the royal hallways, which were always a hassle to evade or tank. Never ones to give up, the Ahmanets promptly looked/started bugging me for for another deity to sacrifice-bind into themselves this time around so they could support me in fending off divine intervention-and after a few years of my metamagic, found Isis almost suspiciously easy to. While all this was happening I confirmed that the Books of Life and Death that controlled the passage of souls also made reference to Anubis.

Then, when we conquered China in an attempt to prevent a rival power from emerging in the future, we found a scar in time none of us could breach; behind it's fierce glow, a man could already be seen preserved in terracotta. It was extremely suspicious we never found the Chinese pantheon, who would have objected to an immortal all-conquering undead warlord on multiple grounds, and despite the frequency of divine intervention bombarding Egypt an equal number of miracles attributed to Egyptian gods not named Anubis or Set were also seen. Unravelling the secrets of magic and distributing them through the priestesshood was scarce compensation for one simple fact: We couldn't find the deities smiting at us for long.

Even stranger, Imhotep's fate remained ironclad despite how much circumstances had changed. Seti I was just an administrator for the west Nile region. Imhotep himself was but one of many priest-engineers the 600 mysteriously royal blooded priesstesses had appointed ever since we'd unraveled the mysteries of magic with Yahweh's blessing. Anck-Su-Namun was just a visiting combat instructor for the princess he happened to be dating.

There was no. Logical. Basis for Imhotep to have slapped with the Hum-Dai while Anck lay dead on the floor. Not until we later learned his assailants had jackal-heads who had knocked out Neferiti during the act, and Seti I was later found driven mad by divine inspiration. Wary of any further temporal disturbances, the safest course of action we agreed on was to keep the loverbirds secured in an enchanted sarcophagus that would at least take away the curse's pain and await the most likely resolution.

"I'm sorry to break this to you" I told the couple thousands of years ago, across a coffee table in Egypt, on the grandest floating pyramid the beast-slaves had commissioned in my anniversary. "but I'm pretty sure the forbidden god Anubis has, after the rebellious powers of Europe were disciplined by Ahmanet Serpentis their conspiracy for global warfare, destined you to bring the end of the world and rule it with an iron fist"

"What? That's terrible, my lord! I don't want to do that!" cried Imhotep, shamefully trying to cover his dessicated and withered corpse. "How are my fellow priests? Has young Ptolemy finally gotten enchanted necklaces right? I can't bring the end of the world, I'm too busy!" Anck helplessly pat his shoulder, herself cursed with the consistency of dirty paper mache. All around us, the skies darkened and locusts swarmed the streets.

"There, there. If we are as blasphemies unto the other gods, we should take solace one has not abandoned us. Is there nothing that can be done to lift the curse?" asked Anck, helplessly tugging at her bandages.

"Well, the course of destiny is inevitably tilting towards armageddon anyway so. I guess there's no harm doing this" I said, shrugging. With an effort of faith, the Light suddenly coursed through Imhotep and Anck, restoring their flesh and powers in seconds. I'd observed the Light had only smote undead associated with actual necromantic disciplines like the Litch King's rather than divinely sanctioned souls imprisoned in bodies.

"You probably should still take over the world" said Modern Ahmanet, trying to sweep away the insects in a sandstorm. At Imhotep's puzzlement, she continued "Our god intends to bring many more worlds under his rule, and we of course will follow. His other goddesses aside, with your powers you stand the greatest chance against that damnable Chinaman's army. And your victory would rally those western states which do not care for our rule or the Akkadian's"

"Army? Army?! I'm a priest! I've sparred, yes, but I know nothing of the ways of war! I have no army, only fellow priests! What would you have me do, send helpless acolytes to their doom?" Imhotep cried in protest "Stop volunteering to be sent to your doom for me!" he added to the horde of mildly brainwashed pedestrians chanting below our pyramid. Suddenly, to the shouting of slaves a giant scorpion man slammed his way through the stone doors to where we were sitting.

With a single smooth motion Anck unstrapped the god-spear at her thigh and threw it cleanly through the man. "You do now" she said, tossing the spear to him.

"No! No, I should not!" he argued.

"Imhotep, this is a chance for real social mobility in our fair yet rigid theocracy! Praise be unto Khenti-Amentiu, ruler of the utmost west" she added quickly to me. "But while I would never question the gods' decrees, you know I've always thought we should take every opportunity that comes our way. It's what our current gods did when our old pantheon went missing after all! Will you do this, Imhotep! Will you do this with me? For me?"

Bowing his head, he smiled. "Oh, very well then. You know I can't say no to you. Well, I suppose I should practice being a dark lord of terror. I'll need a cloak, won't I? That is what the harbingers of chaos wear, yes?"

AND SO, in less than a week the Army of Anubis clashed with the Dragon Emperor's terracotta army! Bounding, leaping creatures from the dread abyss of the afterlife raked and battered an unstoppable tide of screaming clay! It was actually pretty onesided. The Army could already fall to decapitation or take precious seconds to recover from dismemberment, which was more than could be said for the invincible terracotta warriors. Oh, and the enemy general-while an absolutely terrible sorceror by Egyptian standards, having been literally chewed up and spat out by Imhotep's storm-projection while trying to throw a ball of fire-could turn into a dragon. But then on the OTHER hand, when Imhotep's priest's descendants showed up they had magic on their side. And Mathayus. Mathayus wasn't going to be left out of the biggest immortal war of the millennium.

I didn't stop to see the outcome of that battle. I had a feeling someone would be showing up to gloat, and I was correct. In the gloom of a temple on the edge of the afterlife, Anubis awaited me smugly. Girded with all kinds of bling taken from the bodies of dead gods.

"You set this up. All of it, didn't you? The mummies and the medjai. The rise and fall of empires. All of this weird time shit" I asked him, forcing my way through the howling gales of the afterlife trying to make me mortal. My flesh being a mere projection of my soul helped, but it still felt like freezing gales would to a human. "Tricking your own pantheon into human hosts. Butchering the divinities of China with your stolen power, and tricking Yahweh into aiding and abetting your rigged game".

And right as I finished, I opened fire with a concealed sawn off shotgun. Hey, all's fair in love and theomachy.

"And why shouldn't I have?" He grunted, drawing a khopesh of unearthly power with a snarl as the soulfire-etched shot burned at his flesh. "All those years of judging mortal souls in the dark, while Hathor gets a slap on the wrist and a free beer float for her insanity and Thoth gets to play teacher. A thankless, joyless monotony with no reprieve, not when YOUR family drama took away ANY attention that might have gone to good old Anubis' quarter!" He didn't lunge, he simply swept out with deathly oblivion and tried to send my soul to the afterlife. I spat blood and staggered, but remained standing. Around me, the very ground cracked and rotted.

"You could have asked for an appeal. You could have done many things differently, Anubis"

"Crimes? Differently?" He laughed, the room shimmering with scorpion-like shadows before erupting into portals that threatened to pull me down into all the hells that ever were. Even as I flew to reach him, the jackal god's power pushed my very soul towards oblivion.  "I did no worse than Ra-than any of our family-did! I remade the world in my image, every nation, creed and people awarded across time and space in proportion to their dedication to death! And if it'll take a vile curse to bring the sting of death, the horror of slaughter to the whole world? That's just the price the world pays to know the mercy, the magnanimity of the great judge of the dead!"

Dropping the gun, I fired a rocket launcher instead, artfully curving it around the shifting portals to strike Anubis across the head. Without moving, his own chariot caught him and he raced for me-but I had braced myself with Avalon in hand and he passed through leaving me only winded. Pillar demons raining lasery death around us, we wrestled god to god for an advantage. I felt even my divine life force rush into a howling abyss, while Anubis struggled under the howling of a Marble Phantasm.

"You didn't even put up a fight against Set" he spat. "Some golden boy you turned out to be. Just because you're the reincarnation of Osiris, doesn't mean you can muster what little he was ever good for!"

"You've never even been in a fight" I retorted, headbutting him in the snout.

"Why bother? I've never needed to, with my allies. Did you ever wonder why old Set and Anubis put aside their differences to share the world with me? Neither ever had half the due from mortals YOU ever did-"

("This wand of yours kills gods?" "Yes. Yes, and worse". And at that moment, a ritual circle was glowing. Tapping into the chaotic energies of the battlefield, girded by much chanting and incense, with a flash of light the triumphant deities Set and Apep appeared in the circle. And found they couldn't move beyond it. The last thing they saw was Amanhet Prime pulling the Black Barrel's trigger as a curious Sion watched her while taking notes. As his strange bedfellow fell to the ground almost confused, a horrified Apep realised he wouldn't be nearly as lucky when the other Amanhets advanced on him menacingly, the air trembling with divine might-)

"-and with Astarte, your Yahweh isn't coming to save you! She was an average fighter, but an EXCELLENT seductress!"

("Come along, Mathayus" chided Astarte, the god killing sword dropping from slack fingers as the man who distantly fathered the Scorpion king struggled against soft hands. "I said I'd see your soul cast aside before it's time for your impudence, and I'm a goddess of my word". "Yes, yes you are" he groaned. "but there's one thing that you forget. You're not the only one". And the last thing Astarte knew was the the pain of a virtual planet falling upon her right as the ground rent apart into another world's underwould)

"The empires of the faithful will fall before me! Your temples will be as mausoleums when DEATH rules the living world! And...and...wait, why aren't you dead yet?" asked Anubis, slowly realising the rushing of my soul into the afterlife was inexhaustible.

"Starnge aeons, son" I retorted. I'd finished spotting the lines of death on him, and reached out for my secret weapon.

Eyes wide and uncomprehending, Anubis could only feel a sudden burst of strength breaking his grip and repelling him towards where the ceiling once was. He must have told himself it was laughable to see him downed by such dramatic irony, and yet some gutwrenching horror shook him on an instinctive level. And then, a pygmy mummy launched over miles in seconds rammed him in the crotch hard enough to crumple bone through Anubis' points of death. He screamed the scream of gods suffering a bane they should never have experienced in a just world, while what was left of the midget mummy tried to stab his kidneys. It was too late for Anubis. Impossibly, his body caved in on itself from his long years of existence knowing decay at last, his soul flickering and collapsing in on itself, his withered self falling into the very gateway to hell he'd created and dragged away by the damned. And to add insult to injury, by my power the midget was wrenched out of Anubis' ruined body again past the damned's arms, and back to the world of the living.

A few minutes later, I came back to check on the battlefield where Imhotep's forces had figured out a quick stalemate to an immortal, indestructible army: Drowning them all in molten metal and magically cooling it to watch then seathe for another eternity.

So yes, in the end the Mummy did break out and preside over a dark reign of terror upon the world. But it wasn't that dark a reign, because he was far more interested in spiritual welfare and applied theology than eating souls like someon who'd been tortured for thousands of years would have been. But only because I'd retired in anticipation of arriving at yet another world, and decided to open up a museum to put my stuff in instead.

>FIN