Rushing to the third floor, Percy couldn’t help but lament the monotonous environment of the pyramid.
‘It would have been a lot easier to keep myself awake if I didn’t have to stare at the same red stone all the time…’
Sighing, he examined the walls along the perimeter of the hall, soon confirming it was another library like the ones before. Sure enough, it seemed to follow the time period directly after that of the second level, though he had yet to learn what the event was, that had transformed the very way in which the Amenthei had kept track of time.
Searching for the first column in chronological order, Percy wondered why the architects of the pyramid hadn’t just placed it right by the entrance. It seemed like the structure had been put together rather hastily, the ones responsible not having the time nor the mental capacity to spare on matters of practicality.
It was probably for the same reason that one had to traverse dozens of corridors just to descend to the bottom of the pyramid, where a single staircase could have sufficed. It was almost like all the connections between the various rooms had been installed as an afterthought, with no expectation that somebody would have to use them one day.
In any case, Percy soon found the column he was looking for, though its heading was a little strange. Rather than a numerical age, it was titled ‘Emergence of the first cloud’. At first, he had to do a double-take, unsure if this was truly the section corresponding to the year 0. But it was sandwiched between the sections ’13,327 AC’ and ‘200 AC’, so it had to be it.
‘So, this period is much shorter than their golden age… The sections only jump by 200 years each time too, rather than 5000…’
Obviously, that didn’t necessarily mean that the year 13,327 AC was the present. Unless the pyramid possessed some magical enchantment that updated the entries in real time, it could have been thousands or even millions of years since the most recent section.
Then again, Percy was confident that wasn’t the case.
The mortal souls sleeping inside the Sanctuary were degrading relatively quickly, so he guessed it couldn’t have been more than a few centuries since they were placed here. Sure, the goddess might have found a way to preserve them as long as possible, but there was still a limit to how long a soul could survive without a proper body – even when shoved inside some functional alternative and forced into deep sleep.
Shrugging, he placed his hand on the entry, causing the text on the ceiling and floor to shift.
‘A well-known saying among the Amenthei since time immemorial is that “treasures are paid for by blood, sweat, or tears, never handed away for free”. Perhaps, then, we should have known that our hundreds of thousands of years of prosperity would have come at a price… And what a steep one it was…’
‘It was a day like any other, when the first of the dark clouds emerged over the city of Nejubtah. Its inhabitants didn’t realize what it meant, thinking it was just a raincloud, like any other. And they weren’t entirely wrong about that. They rejoiced as the cloud shielded them from the scorching sunlight, and once the first droplets washed the ground. But it didn’t take them long to realize the black liquid pouring down wasn’t water at all…’
The next few paragraphs just talked about the first weeks and months of the black rain, while the Amenthei still struggled to wrap their heads around the strange phenomenon. Percy naturally skipped ahead in search of answers.
‘The insects were the first to fall asleep, about a decade later. Not all of them either. Our people didn’t immediately draw the connection, since it had been so long since the rain started, and there hadn’t been any other adverse effects. At the time, they naively assumed it was some unrelated disease that had befallen the pests…’
‘…by the end of the century, no Brown creature was left alive, every last one having long been crushed or devoured in its sleep. All the species relying on them for sustenance started going extinct one after the other, as an unprecedented famine overcame Amenthes…’
Percy had to skip a few columns again, as the onset of the disaster had been quite gradual. People had argued over food, but things had still remained fairly calm for decades, since their goddess had kept the peace, and they had found many ways to deal with the famine.
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Not every species had gone extinct, so the people had been able to adapt, mainly by cultivating crops and cattle that weren’t as reliant on the insects for survival. It hadn’t taken long for the natives to get used to the changes and return to some level of normalcy. Yet, that hadn’t been the end of the disaster. In hindsight, it could be argued that it had barely begun…
‘Throughout this time, the clouds never disappeared. If anything, they only grew more numerous, their dark rain continuing to curse our lands as the filthy liquid formed rivers and lakes, spreading its infernal influence over Amenthes.’
‘The Daughter tried to destroy them of course, but nothing she did worked. When she forcefully dispersed the clouds, more of them formed elsewhere. When she removed the liquid from the surface of our world, regular lakes darkened instead, their water being replaced by the filth. It seemed that even the emissary of the Heavens was powerless to stop what was to come.’
‘At some point, our people started to fall asleep too. It was easy to wake them up at first. A gentle whisper in their ears was enough… for a while. But it wasn’t long before it took a painful slap on their cheeks, or a bucketful of water… Eventually, that didn’t work either.’
Percy’s knees suddenly gave out. He barely caught himself by leaning against the wall. He was still interested in this section, but he moved on anyway, knowing he was running out of time.
‘…the curse didn’t have anything to do with one’s age or grade – it appeared capable of infecting anyone at random. It only affected a small fraction of our population at first, but their numbers kept climbing at a frightening rate…’
‘…our potion-makers worked tirelessly in search of a cure. Or multiple cures, really, each more potent than the last. Eventually, no mundane means could wake the infected, so we had to resort to magic to save them. Once more, our efforts had succeeded, but we had seen enough by that point to tell we had merely bought ourselves more time…’
Percy’s vision began to blur as he neared his limit. If it hadn’t been for his frightened heart racing at a hundred miles an hour because of what he was reading, he would have probably fallen asleep too. As things stood, he was fully cognizant of the fact that succumbing to the slumber would spell his doom.
Not having any other choice, he walked to the opposite side of the room, skipping a full seven thousand years at once.
‘…differentiating regular sleep from that induced by the curse was all but impossible, so we lived in constant fear. Every night, many slept, and every morning, fewer woke up. All the intricate remedies we invented fell short one after the other, as our population declined. Some resisted the disease a little better, for reasons we never quite managed to piece together, but that didn’t mean much…’
Percy practically stumbled around the room, switching to one column after another. He mostly did this to keep himself awake, jumping to another section whenever his eyes drooped. At this point, he wasn’t even hoping for a coherent picture of the events – he just wanted an answer to what this place was.
‘…the sky was pitch-black already, the hellish clouds plunging our world into darkness. Most of the surface was covered by a dark ocean, forcing the last survivors to flee to the tallest peaks. If that hadn’t been enough, insidious shapes crawled out of the abyss, invading our homes and dragging the ones still awake back into the cold depths of the hellish sea…’
‘…barely any of us left. We fought to hold the monsters back. They weren’t people, nor were they beasts. We didn’t even know what they were, nor did we care. We just killed however many we managed, trying to buy the Daughter a little more time…’
‘…the Daughter spent most of her time immersed in the dark waters, fighting against the monsters. She slaughtered them by the thousands, yet nobody could tell if that even helped…’
Struggling to remain upright, Percy made his way to the final column. He had yet to find the answer he was looking for, but he couldn’t stand around reading this stuff either. He’d only fall asleep faster that way. Whether or not he learned how this sanctuary had come about in the next couple of minutes, he’d have to leave this hall and make his way to the apex of the pyramid.
‘If I don’t find an exit there either, I’ll have to self-destruct…’
As scared as he was of losing his life and even failing to bring the new alchemic principle back to Remior, it was better than losing one of his new cords over nothing…
As luck would have it, however, the final section did offer a couple of answers. Most notably, it was a lot shorter than the ones before, barely covering a fraction of the ceiling, the text not even spreading to the floor at all. Furthermore, it was written in a vastly different tone from the previous entries.
‘I don’t know if anybody will ever read this, but this is my last shot at preserving our legacy for a little longer. I am the one the Amenthei have called the Daughter of the Heavens.’
‘I used to find pride in that title, and in all the things I have accomplished for our world, but these days I only feel shame at my failures. Most recently, I have come to appreciate my original name – the one that my mother gave me, all those years ago.’
‘On the off-chance that somebody thinks of me in the future, I implore them to remember me as Nephthys.’