Copyright J.B. Norman
The members of the Lyte Brigade, along with a party from the University of Porthaven’s Faculty of History consisting of Professor Melisa Grevling and her assistant-slash-goddaughter Annie Darkstone crowd around the pedestal in the great vaulted chamber in the depths of the ancient city of Tirisi.
So far, they’ve had to deal with traps, statues that come life and try to smoosh them and a labyrinthine mess of hallways, courtyards, and rooms that has too many corners and makes no sense. It’s like the ancient builders of the city knew that, thousands of years later, groups of adventurers would be coming into their city, so they went out of their way to make it as confounding for them as possible.
The city makes more sense as an obstacle course than it does as an actual city!
A shaft of sunlight pierces the gloom on the ancient, dusty chamber, falling from a window high up in the wall to land on the book lying on the pedestal in the middle of the room. Despite the room’s gargantuan size, the pedestal and the book are the only things in the entire room.
“The, uh, the book is chained up,” Pela notes. “That’s a bad sign, right?”
“Not necessarily, Miss Pela,” Tancred offers. “It could simply mean that the book is so valuable that it was chained up to keep it safe.”
“Let’s just not get too close until we learn a little more, huh?” Matilda says.
Melisa approaches the pedestal and begins examining the book.
“What did I just say?” Matilda cries.
“She’s a professional. She knows what she’s doing,” Nolan assures his sister.
He frowns and his voice falters.
“I hope…”
“So, what are you thinking, Annie?” Melisa asks the pink-haired prodigy at her side.
“Well, there’s writing all over the floor. We should decipher that first,” Annie says.
The six members of the Lyte Brigade huddle up to listen to Melisa and Annie talking over the ancient writings while trying to both not seem too conspicuous or get too close to the book they’re becoming increasingly certain is cursed.
“I heard them say tome,” Nolan says.
“Well, it is definitely that,” Amara says.
“I heard at your peril,” Matilda says.
“That’s bad,” Pela says.
“I heard Four Calamities,” Tancred says.
“That’s really bad,” Pela says.
“I heard release and then… something unending,” Amara says.
“I believe they either said sandwiches or misfortunes,” Falcata says. “But I did not quite hear.”
“That book is, like, eight thousand years old,” Matilda notes. “Did they even have sandwiches back then.”
“Maybe I am just hungry,” Falcata muses.
“Well,” Melisa says, turning back to the Lyte Brigade. “We’re pretty sure that the book was called the Tome of Four Calamities by the ancient Tirisians, and that it contains powerful magic spells.”
She frowns.
“And also that it’s probably cursed.
“With a name like Tome of Four Calamities,” Amara mutters, rolling her eyes. “Surely not!”
“So, everybody,” Melisa continues, “thoughts?”
“We should be careful with it,” Falcata offers. “The curses of the Ancients are powerful.”
“Leave it,” Nolan says.
“Burn it,” Matilda declares.
Now, while 1999 classic, peak of cinema and human endeavour, and movie that should have won Brendan Fraser an Oscar The Mummy is basically predicated on the cast reading from an ancient magic book that they shouldn’t have, this scene isn’t a specific reference, so much as based on the idea of Ancient, Evil Book that you shouldn’t read in general…
Also, that description of the city only make sense has an obstacle course meant to confound future adventurers is a reference/joke about the fact that a lot of video game and tabletop dungeons that are supposed to be ancient cities or temples or whatever really feel, to me at least, that they don’t really work as what they’re explicitly stated to be, or make functional sense as anything other than video game levels.
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