The Sunken City

Khepera had once been a home for the sun. Where priests and scholars sought divine knowledge written in its rays. But the gods had turned their faces away. The city fell to war, to ruin, to time. Its temples crumbled. Its people scattered. Only one thing remained untouched--the tomb.

Deep beneath the ruins, the stone door trembled. Faintly, the gold carvings along its surface shimmered. The sigils of Ra had vibrated. But something was changing. The sands above shifted, as if they were restless. Outside the tomb, the world seemed unaware. The temples were filled with prayers, yet the gods remained silent. Prophets saw signs in the sky, blood-red sunsets and circling carrion crows, but none truly understood.

The tomb did not open to outsiders. If they came looking, they'd only been eaten by the sand.

It only opened for them.

Whether they were scattered across Egypt, across deserts and riverbanks, from Thebes to Memphis, those who held Ra's divine favor were summoned. They didn't know it yet, but their fates had already been written-- next to the ancient kings of the old.

Somewhere, far above under the blood red sky, the chosen ones began to dream. This is the story of the infamous Children of Ra-- also known as, The Circle of the Red Sun.

Moswen coughed the dust out of her lungs and blinked it out of her eyes. A crack of metal and stone cleaved the air from somewhere far in whatever place she had found herself in, and she stumbled back into another body, a muffled yelp catching in her throat. She closed her eyes and took a deep inhale through her nostrils, letting the air fill her lungs.

Calm down. Think.

Moswen opened her eyes and scanned the dimly lit tomb. "Everybody stop moving," she said in a low voice, the words sounding logical and commanding despite the fact that she only said it in one breath. She moved to the walls and squinted, her fingers hovering over the hieroglyphics. She was, admittedly, slightly scared to actually touch the wall. What if it had a mechanism or enchantment that released something harmful? Moswen pursed her lips and eyed the wall, blinking thrice rapidly to move into that magical shift that allowed her to see the connections between things.

Nothing. No connections. No threads. Except... Moswen's gaze trailed to the torches stuck in the walls. She ran another stare over the wall, adding the details to memory before murmuring to no one in particular, "I'm going to grab a torch."

"I don't think we should be touching anything," a tall girl with long thick curls spoke, her eyes lined with thick charcoal eyeliner. She sat up on her slab of stone, "Something's wrong. I can feel it--"

Moswen pursed her lips and ignored the girl's words. She walked forward and her fingers closed around the torch, and the distant rumbling echoing throughout the chamber came to a halt. Maybe it was just her imagination, but Moswen could have sworn the flame upon the torch flared brighter.

Moswen's lips curled up into a small smirk and she huffed a soft laugh. "That wasn't too bad," she said, arrogance and amusement lining her voice.

The rumbling intensified, returning abruptly and with extreme force.

Maybe she had celebrated too soon.

Moswen's eyes widened. "You there, what's your name?" she asked the tall girl.

"Amaia," she said abrubtly, jumping to her feet, "Call me Maia. Now, unless we all plan on dying under a pile of rubble, I suggest we find a way out of here."

Moswen moved the torch to get a better view of the others. First, she studied the albino, who was still on his slab, looking around at everyone, just as confused. He didn't quite look like the type to talk. The first thing Moswen noticed about the girl sitting beside him was her strong features-- the strong cheekbones and jawline. She didn't look like the type to speak either. She quickly skipped over the man who was already up and moving-- he seemed more interested in stealing the offerings that were left at the bottom of the statue against the wall. Her eyes narrowed at him. Best to keep an eye on that one. The next two girls were up and moving as well-- a brown-haired girl wearing a white linen tunic who looked lost in the hieroglyphs. The other studied everyone-- she looked a lot more muscular than the rest of the group. Lastly, Moswen noticed the girl with braided black hair, also already up and moving. She was dressed nicely in garments that Moswen knew most likely belonged to royalty.

"So," Maia spoke again, feeling around on the walls for some type of exit, "Anyone have any ideas? Can anyone read these symbols? I've... never seen these before. We need to find a way out, we don't have much time!" Just as Amaia spoke, another platform shifted above them, causing dusty debris to rain down on them momentarily.

Moswen muttered a Greek curse under her breath at the debris, her fingers tightening around the torch. "I can read them," she said loud enough for everyone to hear. She stepped close to the symbols and ran her gaze over them, her lips soundlessly creating the words as she translated them. "It says-"

Another crash of debris interrupted her and her eyes widened. "We need to get out. I've memorized the symbols, if we don't get out soon, we'll be crushed. Look around for a way out. I'll look for any written instructions."

"What, like we're gonna find instructions in a cave, because that'd be sooo convenient." The girl with the fancy robe moaned.

Moswen's eyes narrowed at her. What would be convenient was a whiny lass such as herself shutting up to let them focus.

The girl with the sharp features didn't wait for a second word; she was already searching for some way out or another. She almost looked like a wild animal that had been trapped with the determined and quick way she hurried around the tomb for anything that could serve as an exit. Moswen gave her an approving look before turning back to examine her surroundings.

Maia shook her head, "We don't have time!"

Moswen ignored her and walked towards another wall. Dust and sand filled the engravements, but with a soft blow of air from her mouth, they flew away, allowing Moswen to read the engravements.

"Turn to the Sun
and submit yourself fully.
There's no need to run
when you're blessed and holy."

Moswen blinked and squinted at the engravement, bringing the torch in her hand closer to it and reading it again. "Does anyone see an engravement of the sun or Ra?" she asked the group. As she turned to look at them, her foot caught on the edge of a stone and she lost her balance, falling against the wall (luckily on the side that wasn't holding the torch). Something shifted in the wall, and when she took her elbow out of the wall, a rectangular chunk of the wall came with it. Something on her wrist caught her eye. A tattoo of the sun. Her eyes flicked to where the part of the wall that had become fond of her arm was crumbling off, and she saw the same sun that was on her wrist there before she blinked and it disappeared.

She definitely hadn't had that tattoo before. An eerie feeling began to creep over her bones before she shook it off. Now was certainly not the time to be frightened over something as simple as a tattoo. Tattoos were merely ink, after all. Nothing important. Even if there were multiple stories that said otherwise-

Focus.

Moswen peered at the hole in the wall she'd accidentally created, bringing the torch closer to it. What she saw made her heart flutter.

A scroll. A thick scroll, full of knowledge and wisdom. She reached out hesitantly with the hand that wasn't holding the torch, and when her fingers closed around the parchment, she could have cried.

Another rumble echoed through the cave, and she snapped back to attention. Focus.

Moswen tucked the scroll into the bag she always had slung around her shoulder (filled with a chisel, a single sheet of papyrus paper, a reed pen, and an emergency loaf of bread) and rolled her shoulders back.

"What's that?" Maia asked, moving next to Moswen, "Is that... a scroll?"

"Yes," Moswen answered bluntly. "If we just leave it here, who knows the knowledge we'd be wasting?" Moswen shook her head at the terror of leaving the knowledge to rot. "No, if we see anything, we're taking it."

"It might tell us why we're here!" Maia exclaimed, "Does it say anything about how to get out of here?"

Moswen blinked at not being yelled at for taking the scroll. "I don't know yet. I can look, but I think this hole in the wall might be important. It crumbled too easily, and there was a symbol of the sun painted over it before... well, before I crashed into it." Moswen leaned down and rummaged through the rubble, pulling out the piece that had had the sun on it. She blinked, and the magic shifted in her eyes.

Ah.

There was a golden thread going from the sun on the crumbled piece of the wall that she held in her hand to the actual wall, while there was a pulsing golden glow around the sun tattoo on her wrist. Other similar flares of golden light caught her attention in her periphery, and her gaze darted to the same shapes glowing in the darkness. Tattoos. On the other people.

Interesting.

Moswen stored that detail carefully away into her mind, certain it would be important to discuss later. In the meantime, wall. She slid the piece of the wall back into the hole in the wall that was made when her body decided to be unaware of the stones littering the floor.

"Wait! Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Maia asked frantically, playing with her hands. She glanced over at the girl with sharp features who was still searching for another way out, "Don't you think we should all... calm down and figure this out? What if you... unlock something that we weren't supposed to touch?"

Moswen scoffed, then realized that could be perceived as harsh. "I know what I'm doing," she said, trying to make her voice gentle and kind. And with that, she slid the chunk of wall into the hole completely.

A few seconds passed. Nothing happened. Her gaze flicked back to her tattoo. It was glowing much more intensely now, and the thread now ran from the image of the sun on the wall to the image of the sun on her wrist.

Ah. Moswen tilted her head slightly to the side (a feline movement her mother had teased her for ever since she was young) and aligned the images, pressing her wrist against the wall.

Maia covered her eyes, letting out a slight "Eek!" as the others froze completely, watching Moswen intently.

When the walls shuddered, Moswen briefly wondered if she'd made the wrong decision. Then, everything turned black. No threads, no connections, nothing.

And then there was a way out. The wall had vanished, leaving an empty archway.

The girl with sharp features practically darted through the now-empty archway and was the first one out. Apparently, she wasn't sticking around any longer than she had to. Not even a few seconds went by before the first brick from the ceiling fell, and the rumbling intensified.

"RUN!" Maia screamed, darting after the runner.

Moswen's eyes widened and she followed, cursing in Greek under her breath.

The archway seemed to go on forever. No torchlights hung on the walls, so there was absolutely no sense of direction. Behind Moswen, the others followed (a few stumbling in the darkness and cursing like herself), but she didn't dare look back. That would be certain death.

Finally, the archway opened into what looked like a sandy, hollow courtyard. They were in an underground city. And Moswen was thrilled. In front, behind the runner, Maia collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily while holding her chest, "Sweet Ra! What the-- Where are we? What is this?"

The others made the clearing just as the archway sealed shut with rubble.

Moswen glanced back, feeling it was safe to do so now. Her gaze caught on a symbol above the doorway. Despite her breathlessness and the state of things (dust coating her sweaty body and having been placed somewhere new with people she didn't know), a slow grin spread across her face.

"Well, let's think," she said slowly, turning around to face Maia (who was the only one she felt like she really knew at the moment). "A plethora of suns and a buried city. Make a guess."

It took Maia a moment, but it finally clicked. Her eyes widened. "Khepera. We're... in Khepera. I thought... I didn't know this place actually existed. My mom used to sing songs that my...." she trailed off, shaking her head, "No way. There's no way. I heard the city was simply folklore."

The runner made no comment but looked somewhere between surprised and confused and then displeased before her expression was locked behind the hollow emotionless mask that she wore before on her skeletal face.

The man-- the thief-- wearing sand-colored clothing, typical for people who were often out in the sun, just laughed. "Care to serenade us with a few of those songs with your dulcet voice?"

The muscular girl raised an eyebrow, unimpressed, as she folded her arms over her chest. It seemed her silence was a choice-- one it was impossible to guess how long she'd keep making it.

Moswen's grin widened at Maia's words, and she debated saying something unpleasant to the thief before deciding against it and choosing to ignore him and focus on the rest of the group and their uncertainty that Khepera existed. "It exists, alright. Don't believe everything you hear. I mean, look at this place." She waved a hand at their surroundings (the archway specifically). "Plus, did you not see the statues in the tomb?" Moswen had only gotten a glimpse herself, but even after a single glance, she had deduced what they were. Statues of the sun god. Moswen glanced around her, noticing that the city's layout was a maze of interconnected courtyards, temples, and homes, all built from the same pale limestone. Many buildings had flat roofs, some with cracks where roots from the world above had infiltrated. Some of the others had dome ceilings with faded, old paintings. Some structures were even partially collapsed, leaving piles of rubble and broken pillars scattered across the pathways.

Maia looked around, seeming to take Moswen's words to heart as her brain whirred. Moswen waited (albeit impatiently).

Maia wandered over to the closest building, led to by a worn-out stone pathway, and traced her fingers against the faded heiroglyphs on the large double doors. "Prayer site. W-We should... stop here. Talk about this. I don't think I can process this right now. I'm not going in first, though."

Moswen raised a brow at the rest of the group. "Any volunteers?"

Once again without a word, the silent runner went up to the large double doors and tried to pull one of them open, only to fail, as the door wouldn't budge. Frowning, she tried several more times despite having the same result. She glared at the doors slightly and kicked one lightly to see if she could get it unstuck... only for the door to open and move inwards slightly, in which she realized the door was a push, not a pull, and quickly pushed it just enough for her to slip inside.

Maia chuckled and Moswen smartly turned her giggle into a cough. After a sharp look from the runner, Maia covered her mouth and looked away, still grinning. She held the door for Moswen (who mentally noted the good manners of the girl) and the others before following.

Moswen smirked, the thrill of this search of knowledge already taking over. "Excellent," she murmured, and she followed along with the rest of the group, venturing further into the lost city of the sun god.