Temple of Ailuros

[Peregrine Daniels]

((Just for fun... not really open, unless you can PM me with a really good reason to be there))

1 Year ago - Egypt – Nubia – Temple of Ailuros

Thick Sand churned into the air, spitting a fresh torrent of the fine pale grit swarming around Peregrine, attacking like a swarm of bees; he shielded his eyes and managed to take a peek behind his shoulder, the cost was clear. Egypt was not necessarily safe anymore, especially for a man like Peregrine. It wouldn’t be long before his discovery was swarming with grave robbers, archeologist and ‘officials’, you wouldn’t think Grave robbers still existed, but they did. Even though it was believed most of ancient Egypt had been discovered already.

Perry pulled the cable tight, and strapped the harness tight around his chest and crouch. He was dressed in loose grey and black camouflage pants and a thin black turtleneck. Yellow tinted goggles were fastened safely around his face and his black hair hung over his goggles, his fringe was brushed to the side. With thick metal toed laced army boots Perry kicked viciously at a small pyramid that protruded from the thick desert sand. Exterior preservation was not his main concern at the moment; Perry strapped a light black backpack around his shoulders and hastily placed some rolled up parchment safely in the hard cased backpack. He kicked at the small pyramid once again; it sprung loose crumbling ever so slightly. Perry reached passed his heavy studded leather belt and pulled out a thick, short curved Katana blade with a black and silver hilt; it had no guard but was surprisingly thick. Silver Japanese characters ran down the side of the blade, glinting in the sunlight with an almost blue glow. Perry made another hasty look around himself; he could see a slight dust cloud in the distance, camels? Jeeps, he frowned and slammed the blade into the sandy golden construct. He dropped his weight on the blade, any other would snap under the pressure, but the golden pyramid crumbled further lifting off the rest of the hidden pyramid. The scrolls had been spot on, Perry grinned.

He opened his backpack again and pulled out twin silver handguns, he safely placed them in his belt holsters. The Dust cloud was getting bigger; he could hear the roar of engines. He fumbled around near the entrance of the crumbled pyramid top, he silently, leapt into the sand, vanishing in the small hole in the sand that was previously the top of a pyramid.

Peregrine fell through total darkness, he could feel stale cool air whip passed his face, Peregrine grabbed hold of his thick silver belt buckle, the black elastic cord pulled tight and Perry’s speed reduced, the zip line made a soft buzz like a swarm of locust, a sound he had unfortunately heard in Egypt. As Peregrine speed dropped, he shifted forward, he fiddled around on one of his backpack straps and pressed a button, a bright white light switched, Peregrine pressed several buttons on his goggled, the lends switched from yellow to green, night vision turned on, illuminating the pyramid somewhat. His vision was good, but still slightly grainy, a surface was fast approaching, he couldn’t see past it. Peregrine slowed his dissent further until he was able to gracefully land on the stone surface. He unattached his zip cord and let it hang, slowly swinging from above.

Peregrine was left standing in a hall, the three stone walls that made up the inside of a pyramid was expansive and disappointingly bare. Peregrine sighed deeply, this was obviously the first layer of the pyramid... or the last depending how you looked at it, but he couldn’t see any way of making if further down.... or up. If the scrolls were correct and so far they had been, this pyramid was known as the temple of Ailuros, or the first garden of Bast. It had been lost since 2750BC, buried in the great sandstorm of Isis; Apparently Bast was forced to seal a large group of Ifrit in her temple to die. Peregrine wasn’t sure what Ifrit were exactly, he had read far too information on the subject, most sources listed them as human embodiments of fire. Forever young and beautiful with super strength, they went by several different names, Jinn, Marid or Djinn. The Source Peregrine was most interested in however was the scroll of Maahes, which described the Bast Temple legend in detail as well as the Jinn, Creatures of incredible beauty who possessed amazing strength and would only venture out in the shadows. To keep their ‘gods given gifts’ however, they would have to consume human blood regularly. It was one of the first accounts of Vampires in civilization Peregrine had heard of. Peregrine scanned the large area; the walls looked like they were made from a mix of sandstone and chunks of gray stone, unheard of so far. They were bare and free of artwork. Peregrine’s torchlight caught a glint of reflection on something shinny. Perry made his way towards it, it looked like a small golden serpent head, wedged between two chunks of stone. Peregrine knew better, but he grabbed hold of the serpent and pulled. Nothing happened. Then there was a great rumble Peregrine was sure people on the surface would be able to hear. He felt the ground tremble under him, from the corner of his eye he could see stone falling away at the edged of the walls.

Peregrine ran.

- To be continued

[Peregrine Daniels]

The Pyramid rumbled angrily, in protest to an outsider being stepping foot inside the sacred place, or at least it would seem. Peregrine grimaced and leaped through the air with all the strength he could muster, his gloved fingers stretched out painfully, wrapping around his zip line. He held on as tight as possible, he felt the stone under his feet crumble and give way, falling into the darkness even his night vision goggles couldn’t penetrate yet.

Peregrine swung lazily, dangling from his zip line, with strength that he had been honing since he was a child, Peregrine grunted loudly and managed to lift himself enough to strap his zip line cord to his belt where it belonged, he heard the mechanical sound of the zip line feeling into the mechanism, telling him it had worked. He slipped a small button on his zip line and began to slowly descend into the pyramid, touching the gold was mistake, but at least he had somewhere to go from there. Peregrine fiddled with the light attached to his backpack strap, he increased the brightness and the pyramid illuminated slightly, he could see beautiful gleaming objects attached to the walls, each of the goddess Bast, Peregrine couldn’t help feel a certain affinity towards the goddess, she had a woman’s body but the head of a cat, sometimes a lioness, one thing that was constant was her power, ferocity, she was loyal to a fault, it was something he could identify with being the leader of the Enemy. The goddess held in her claws long gleaming lances, hieroglyphics were scribed along her robes and arms, in the form of tattoos. Peregrine stopped his decent and read carefully.

‘The Garden of Bast, Priestess of the mother, protected forever’

Peregrine frowned against his goggles, until Vampires got involved of course, the legend spoke of Bast herself closing the tomb and with the help if Isis enclosing it in sand. He didn’t know who closed the tomb if it was indeed sealed shut, but he found it hard to believe a goddess once walked alongside men and if she did why couldn’t she kill the Ifrit herself. Peregrine lifted his legs again and began the slow dissent. The Zip cord stopped suddenly, Peregrine Jerked forward and with nothing to hang on to, simply spun on the spot for several seconds, he managed to slow himself down and try and release the switch, but he was out of cord, he had underestimated the height of the pyramid. Peregrine swung his legs forwards until he was swinging towards one of the statues of Bast; he managed to grab hold of her lance. Unwilling to allow the Zip cord to swing freely in the middle of the Pyramid Peregrine fastened the end of it against the lance and released himself. He jerked suddenly and scrambled against the statue, he managed to wrap his hands around the lance, and pull himself forward, he released the grip around his les and for a split second flew in mid air. His body connected with the statues hand, knocking the wind out of him.

The material the statue was made from was unusual to the touch, it was soft and slippery, Peregrine gasped and took another look, surely all the statues weren’t ma from solid gold, and they had be at least 30ft tall... there were three of them, each stood in a corner of the pyramid walls, each was exactly the same as the next. Accept for one... The Face of the statue was hardly recognizable, long deep gashes were littered through the gold, deep gashed defaced the goddess, chunks of gold and stone were missing. Her once beautiful cat face was now a chunk of stone and gold... apparently the statues weren’t made from solid gold, but most of the husk was. Peregrine pulled out a small camera and began to hastily take photos of the defaced statue as well as the hieroglyphics.

It took several hours for Perry to safely scale down the statues, on the way he passed at least six different flours, one had artifacts he had never seen before, several were now safely in his backpack. He was getting closer to the bottom, he could make out a row of sarcophagus, he roughly counted at least 30. The Closer he got the louder was the sound.

Peregrine could distantly hear the now unfortunately familiar growl of a Vampire.