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From: Amemshehu
Date: 06 Jun 2000
Time: 08:00:29
The Wizard strolled through the seedier section of Dallas that she tended to "haunt", confident that Nothing had returned to Dallas. The memories of her Ba were, as usual, dispassionate and analytical, but they nevertheless conveyed a striking adventure through the Tempest that stirred something primordial within her...a need for adventure. There was so much unknown about the Tempest, so much that was new about it...how many more islands were out there? How many more members of the Boatmen's Society were just wandering around in tiny rowboats like the one she had met? Were there other societies like Amenti? These questions and others stirred in her mind as she strolled through the pitch, refuse-thickened streets of the city.
Durden now had Nothing as his protector again, so Mem was no longer required in that arene. What the young necromancer's relationship to Nothing was still seemed to be a mystery to her...it seemed as if Durden did not even know. Perhaps Nothing did not either.
As she strolled down a sidewalk, she saw several bystanders watching the television display outside a barricaded store in awe. The Egyptian visited here to watch the modern media from time to time, but she had never found a crowd awaiting her before. Peeking over a couple of shoulders, she saw the Fox logo for a special presentation. Must be sports again, she mused. Just before turning away, she heard the word mummies and snapped her attention back to the screen in alarm. Could it be that one of the Shemsu-Heru still in Egypt had been unearthed? If so, what had they done with the body? Or was there even a body there? The mummy would require retrieval, the hieroglyphs and statues would require disposal...it was all a messy situation when one of their tombs was discovered... assuming, of course, that it was not simply a false tomb left by of them when they abandoned the site.
Listening to the descriptions of golden mummies, the Vizier gradually relaxed. Romans. They had to overdo everything. Romans loved to plate their sarcophagi in gold, which was...well...tacky. It was just another way they overamplified the rite of burial, as they overamplified the worship of Mithras, the worship of the Greek pantheon they so eloquently renamed, and the way they overamplified the arts of conquest and slavery. These were respectable institutions, and had been to everyone else until the offspring of Romulus decided to twist it to their extremes of "pleasure". They were the world empire, and so they felt they had to outdo all previous ones...what a waste of time.
"These mummies are amazing...ancient...almost 2000 years old..."
The Mummy could not help but chuckle quietly. "Ancient, indeed," she whispered.
"...filled with riches. I can't believe the--"
"--extremely tacky ostentasiousness of it?" Mem chuckled. She continued to watch in amused silence, feeling the waves of wonder in the small crowd. Perhaps there was some good that had been done from the vulgar excavations of that vulgar gravesite filled with vulgar people. It stirred the living's imaginations...it made them believe in Egypt and its mythos, if only briefly. Perhaps, now, they might read about it, or talk about it, or research something about history and their forebears. As the crowd began to disperse and the program ended, the Seshet watched the credits intently for names she might recognize, but found none.
With a faint shrug, she wondered, vaguely, if she should continue watching the television or make her way to the tavern she had met the wraiths at. The tavern won, this time...after all, too much tv will rot your brain...in a manner of speaking.