Prequel - The Egypt Game
This story is background material for the Odyssey stories I've been writing. Circumstances dictated that I should write some of this down to clarify what happened in one of our journeys (see Chapter XVII).
Unlike the other stories, which tell of our actual adventures, this story is just a description of a role playing game session.
In September, 1995, I first played in a role playing game that David Chappell ran. It later turned out that this was not the real David Chappell, who'd I'd never actually met, and that this game was based on real circumstances.
The game took place in Egypt, in 1898, with the players assuming members of an archaeological expedition. I was playing a British army Sergeant, hired on to provide security for the group, since most of them were all twits who would get themselves killed.
The expedition's original intent was to look for the remains of an ancient temple under a present day Mosque. The group was in negotiation with the Islamic officials to dig up their mosque, when they got word that a prince would like to speak to them. They traveled up to his big house on the hill and met with him. He explained that it was his 25th birthday, and it was tradition in his family for the sons, on their 25th birthdays, to follow instructions to go to the Valley of the Kings, perform certain rituals, enter a specific tomb, find a secret door, go to a specific room, and read some scrolls there. The scrolls were to be returned for the next person, and not viewed by anyone else. There was also treasure in this room, which he was on his honor to leave alone.
He said that he was too much of a wuss to do this, and wanted us to go there, perform the rituals, bring the scrolls to him, and take them back when he was done. We took the job, and set about getting supplies, like bullets, explosives, and (using extremely poor judgement, in my opinion) camera equipment to photograph the scrolls. In the midst of this, I was approached by a mysterious stranger, who sold me a gold medallion that he claimed had been blessed by Mohammed himself.
We were ready, headed to the tomb at sunrise, did the rituals, and went in. We poked around, looking at things, and found the secret door we had been told about, by pressing Ra and saying the magic words. We went crawling down the corridor, I got shot by a poisoned dart, and we found the room we wanted. We were supposed to turn right "when it got dark", and when the lamps were blown out next to a door, we turned right. There was a rockslide in this room, but we were able to climb over it, and wound up in a room that started getting misty. I put the gold medallion up against a similar sun icon on the wall, and we were transported somewhere.
We were in the realm of the crocodile headed god Sabboc, who greeted us warmly, and offered us drinks. Apparently everyone else liked theirs, but mine tasted horrible. We chatted some, and he sent us back to the tomb. At this point, the person playing Arthur had to be taken from the room, and was told things that he didn't like very much, and when he came back, Arthur went weird. He went bolting further down the corridor, and everything went black down there. He said that there were horrible monsters down there, so everyone else left except me and David Sakell's character, the lying cheating thieving Arab. We stood ready to shoot whatever came out. Arthur ran out, carrying scrolls, climbed the rockslide, and went back to the Sabboc room. We did not follow. He then came back over the rockslide, with the scrolls, and we went back to the prince.
And thus ended this game.
In the post game wrap-up, David Chappell explained what had actually transpired. It turned out that the scrolls we were going for were an Egyptian account of the biblical exodus, intended as a lesson for the members of this family of royal liniage. There was also a curse on them, so that if anyone besides the proper people read them, a truly nasty curse of biblical proportions would be released oer the earth.
The reason Arthur acted so strange was because he'd been taken over by Sabboc, while my character was protected by the golden medallion (this was when we drank the water Sabboc offered us. Besides the medallion, I made my saving throw anyway.) Arthur swiped the proper scrolls, took them to Sabboc, and replaced them with scrolls proclaiming how great Sabboc was. Therefore, if Sabboc had the original scrolls, and read them, the curse would be released onto his home dimension, and make him very unhappy.
In the followup to this game, which I was unable to play in, the expedition returned to digging up the mosque. Afterwards, David Sakell told me about it, and how he played Arthur Cook, still suffering from Sabboc possession. With truly bad luck, they found that the old temple led them into Sabboc's realm again, which was under the curse of the scrolls. Sabboc was truly pissed off, and cursed Arthur so that water would burn him, and then spit in his eyes.
Now maybe what happens in Odyssey, Chapter XVII makes a little more sense.
David Skaar, Esq., O.T.T., H.o.T.