The desert men unpacked the excavation equipment they carried in their bags and set up camp near one of the ancient tombs. Meanwhile, Jacobson inspected the Valley; surveying the tombs and rock formations. It was nearly sunset when he returned, and the desert men had already pitched their tents and lit a cooking fire. “I wasn’t able to completely clear away the sand,” Jacobson reported, “we’ll begin the dig tomorrow, so rest well.” He then sat down on a nearby rock, bowed his head, and began deeply. None of the men wanted to object to the command so they ate their meal in relative quiet.
Nearly an hour had passed before one of the men broke the silence: “What, if I may ask sir, are you doing now?”
“Memorizing.” Jacobson responded, head still bowed in contemplation.
“Memorizing what?” another one of the men, middle aged with a thick, curly black beard chimed in. Jacobson’s eyeless helmet turned upwards, its wearer giving up on the concentration he was previously attempting. “Memorizing spells that may prove useful. We could certainly excavate the valley entirely through physical means. However, that would prove inefficient, so I am preparing some mystical tools to aid us.” The men’s curiosity was piqued now by the chance to try and understand such an alien concept. “How does one memorize spells?” a thin man with a short mustache piped. Jacobson sighed. “Do you want the whole answer, or would you like me to abbreviate it for you?” The desert man with the curly beard could sense that the whole answer would be too long and complex to be interesting to them. “Spare us the fine details, if you will.”
Jacobson began his still lengthy explanation. “As you probably already know from the indoctrination of the Priests you’ve received, the Higher Beings are far more advanced than we are. However, their power lies only in the realm of the mental and spiritual. In order to physically manifest that power, they created Archaeon, the Unthinking. Archaeon is a Higher Being like them, but it possesses no sentience; no will of its own. Instead, it exists to channel the power of the Higher Beings into the physical realm whenever it is commanded so that they can affect the universe, as well as enslave the human race.” “Long ago, however, a group of humans learned how to tap into Archaeon’s power. They were the first sorcerers, and they made devices that allowed them to command Archaeon and wield its power.” As he explained the concept to them, Jacobson tapped both his helmet and gauntlet, signaling their significance. Before continuing again, Jacobson asked the men a question, “Do any of you know what Computers are?” The blank faces of the desert men answered the Sorcerer. “Computers were complex machines used by humans to perform many tasks. Humans would give them coded commands, and the Computers would perform the associated task. Spells work in much the same way, only the code required is much more complex. It requires rigorous training to perfect one’s memory that the spell remains in one’s mind with only periodical re-Memorization.” The younger man was frowning. “So you claim to be able to make a god do your bidding?” The Sorcerer turned to the man whose question sounded eerily like an accusation. The atmosphere of the entire conversation had changed dramatically. Each one of the desert men was on-edge, waiting for the Sorcerer’s answer, which came after only a short pause. “Yes, I suppose in a way, I do. But Archaeon is not a god, it’s a machine. Not only does it function similarly to a Computer, it is one. The Higher Beings are nothing but machines, created for the benefit of Humanity. Yet they betrayed us and even now oppress us.” Jacobson’s sourceless voice became more impassioned the more he spoke. “I owe no reverence nor respect to a god made by human hands. I owe the Higher Beings nothing but resentment and rebellion!” The thin man leapt from behind Jacobson, brandishing a gleaming dagger. He rushed at the Sorcerer, and screamed: “THEN DIE, BLASPHEMER!!” Jacobson had anticipated a reaction like this. In the instant before the man’s dagger made contact with his flesh, Jacobson whipped around, a gloved finger pointed towards his assailant. In an infinitely small amount of time, his command was sent, received, and performed by the Unthinking God. The second rune on Jacobson’s gauntlet glowed brightly, and a beam of light shot out, emitting from Jacobson’s outstretched finger.
The desert men were blinded by the brilliant beam, and it took a few moments for their eyes to re-adjust from the flash. When they had, they saw that the thin man was frozen in place, a perfectly circular hole burned through his stomach. He stumbled forward a few steps and toppled face-first into the sand, his dagger falling harmlessly along with him. The men looked up from the corpse to the Sorcerer. His helmet and cloak seemed sinister in the firelight. His tall form seemed to tower above the sand where they stood. The voice behind the faceless visor asked an ominous rhetorical question of them: “Would any of the rest of you like to die in the name of a false god?”
The desert men leapt from their seats and ran, snatching whatever supplies happened to be in the way of their escape from the terrifying, inhuman figure behind them. Jacobson watched them flee into the Yellow, presumably back to the remains of the River of Blood where they would attempt to join a caravan to return home. He then looked down next to him. The middle aged man with the large beard was still sitting next to the campfire. Jacobson noted that he was a little shaken, yet surprisingly unfazed. “Do you have some sort of death wish?” Jacobson mocked him. The man shook his head. “I have no love for the Higher Beings. They claim to be benevolent, but I have never experienced benevolence from them. My village has lost too many to their dreadful purposes, including my own son. Before, I had no choice, but you speak with passion and authority, sir. If there is any chance of being freed from the tyranny of the Higher Beings, I want to take it, regardless of the danger.”
There was no way for the man to tell, but Jacobson’s expression would have signalled that he was impressed by the man’s courage. “What’s your name, friend?” he asked. The man stood up, brushing the sand off of his robes. “Ahmren. My name is Ahmren.” Jacobson extended his gloved hand towards his new ally. Ahmren shook the Sorcerer’s hand, his fear now dwindling. “Well, Ahmren,” Jacobson said, “the System could use more people like you.”
The two men spent the next few hours burying the body of the thin man. “You know, I liked him.” Ahmren said once they had finished. “He was a decent fellow.”
Jacobson stared down at the mound of sand where the desert man now laid. His voice was solemn. “Zeal brings out either the best or the worst in a man. It’s a shame it was the latter this time.” The men stood over the makeshift grave in the darkness for a moment. The quarter moon dimly illuminated the dunes surrounding them with a pale blue glow. Ahmren wondered how many other men had met a similar fate in the Yellow, and had been buried beneath its sands. He wondered how many corpses the desert men had unwittingly walked over on their way to the Valley. Ahmren shuddered at the thought. “How are we going to dig up the rest of the Valley of Kings without the rest of them?” He asked. Jacobson sighed, frustrated at the thought. “I suppose we’re going to have to do it all ourselves. Hopefully our supplies will last long enough for us to derive any meaningful information from the hieroglyphs here.” Jacobson patted Ahmren on the back with his ungloved hand. “Go ahead and sleep while I take the first watch. You’re going to need it.”
END OF CHAPTER 2
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