The Pyramids of Egypt were silhouetted in the far distance, lit by the fiery explosions from Napoleon's cannons from his ships on the Nile River. It was the only light that the Savants could see on that cold, moonless night. Their eyes had adjusted to the darkness. They could make out murky shapes over the desert as it transitioned into the Giza Plateau. As their meager caravan began to their approach to their destination, the Great Sphinx, they dared not spark a torch fire or even to make a noise, for fear of drawing the attention of the nearby Mamluk mercenary detachments. Their mission had been centuries in the making. They were ready for a fight and ready for the unknown, but one small slip from their critical mission would seal the fate of all life on the surface of the Earth.
The complaints of discomfort were long gone from the academic contingent, most of whom were used to spending their days in comfort where ever each came from. They all knew how important each of their roles would be in the coming days. Generation after generation, their secrets would be passed down, and none knew the full scope of their mission until they all finally met in Tunis those month ago. They dared not meet in any area governed by either France or its enemies. They had no idea who in any modern government might know of their ancient protective cabal, nor if any were agents of the Unter Velt.
But the Tunis Rendezvous was not the first time Mackenzie and Geoff Hub would be meeting the members of the party. They had both been traveling with their father since each was old enough to know not to walk too close to the guardrail on a ship. They were more familiar with the sailors on the trading ship that was their home for most of their lives than any children their own age.
A life surrounded by water wouldn’t normally prepare anyone for venturing through a harsh desert, but this was not the first harsh environment they had been exposed to. All of the locations critically the Unter Velt Cabal, has been built into the trading routes of the UVC companies. The various companies shifted their routes regularly, so only the most detailed investigation would even begin to understand which international ports were near which critical ancient location and to find the pattern that would connect them all.
The Savants travelled from around the world with vast riches from their varied locals. Each treasure unique and each serving it’s own purpose.
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Outline:
* The caravan has chests of materials gathered by the various Savants from around the world
* The Mamluk's have been ordered by the Ottomans to keep the invaders from the ancient Egyptian structures.
* The warriors and the savants fight past the mercenaries to get to the Sphinx. The ranks of the mercenary guards are thin due their engagement miles away against the main Napoleonic forces on the Nile. The remnants flee when they are overwhelmed by the international invaders.
* The Savants use oils applied to carvings on the base of the Sphinx, which activate an ancient mechanism that brings the Sphinx to life. The Sphinx provides a riddle challenge to give access to the hidden chamber whose entrance is covered by it's stone front paws.
* With the riddle solved, the paws open and access to the sub-chambers is granted.
* The group hears reinforcements closing in and split their warriors into one group to escort the Savants and one to fortify the entrance. They convince the Sphinx to cover the entrance and return to it's previous position.
* The Savants have to battle past the defenses of the Labyrinth of the Sphinx. Stone Sentinels begin to come alive, but the Savants are able to decipher the controls and deactivate them.
* The remaining Napoleonic Guard fights off the mamluks. The hordes are deterred by the French cannons. The Mamluks return with their own cannons and begin firing on the French. In the ensuing vollies, the nose of the Sphinx is destroyed, but the French soliders, are able to keep the tunnel safe from above.
* The Savants eventually make it to the deepest chamber and begin to place the contents of the chests into receiving vessels. Nanobots infused in the chamber's sand floor begin to flow into the filled vessels and alter the components. They consolidate all of the materials into the center of the room, and the floor begins to open. The combined components disappear into a seamingly bottomless pit. The nanosand begins to coalesce into a dinosapean biped who thanks them for meeting their needs and assures them that the truce will remain in place until the next cycle in about 250 years, the next being in 2050. Since the fall of Atlantis, the surface world has secretly been in a tenuous truce with an ancient underground dwelling civilization that ruled the surface 10,000 years earlier. Their underground civilization was all that remained of a society descended from the survivors of the near-extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
* The remaining Savants return to the surface and the remaining French battalion escorts them back to the rendezvous point north of the invasion force on the Nile awaiting pick-up. History will have no record of the missing members of the party, and will see their disappearance as an unsolved mystery.
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[WORK IN PROGRESS]
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