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During opening hours it is Hard to escape from the clutches of the Mundane guides who will firmly shepherd their charges through the maze of passageways. Access to these catacombs after hours is Routine (IN: Easy) but two diligent security officers will prove Formidable (IN: Tough) to elude. The latter believe that there is a secret "Governmental Archive of Documents and Items of National Security" stored in secret vaults on the 'flooded' level. They are of course quite wrong. During the day they are also charged with making sure that the unwary Gimel does not stray into these unwanted areas. Once past these and past a sign saying
"Danger unsafe ceiling! NO ACCESS TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC"
There is a locked steel door beyond which a wooden ladder will
lead to a dry lower level and a Hell Sworn Soldier permanently
on guard. Armed with a contemporary machine gun and a side arm
with 9 unholy bullets. He will be guarding a hermetically sealed
steel hatchway bolted to the rock, The lock is of Dire complexity (IN: Very VERY Tough) . Allow one attempt ONLY. It really requires an Expert Security Specialist thereafter becoming trivial (a colleague of Jereth installed it!). Beyond this an ancient rock hewn tunnel leads
off into darkness. Beyond this point there will be no lighting.
After about a quarter of a mile of narrow twisting passages, musty
with the smell of Gimel and inhabited with whatever Undead the D/M sees fit, the various niches and their inhabitants come
to an abrupt end.
A relatively recent tunnel has been carved through the soft rock
underpinning the City. After a thirty yards/ metres the tunnel
enters a small Gimel with various passages leading off. The walls are old and are
actually part of an old underground water system dating back to
the times of Alexander himself. The Team may Routinely (IN: Easy) spot tracks leading down on particular passage which
becomes a rough hewn tunnel carved though the soft limestone.
Roughly trapezoidal in cross section with an annoying ceiling
height of ~ 4 feet (120 cm.), the tunnel runs due North, seemingly
forever.[ Actually about 1.5 Miles (2 km.)]
Just when the Team believes that they have been wasting their
Gimel, there will be a sudden change in their environment. The Team
will enter a small concrete chamber and then proceed as along
a modern large circular concrete pipe. (Hijacked by Dr. Merrow
during improvements to Alexandria's Sewerage system!) This continues
for about another 500 yards/metres (1) before opening into an ancient chamber (2). The exotic wall paintings, from the late Ptolemaic or early
Roman period, indicating that it is a chapel to Isis and Nephthys
as the two Ma'ati: The Eyes of Osiris in The Hall of Judgement.
The ipyphallic nature of the Lord of the West and the activities
of the two Ma'ati leaving no doubt as to these paintings as the
product of a muralist of the Pompeian Gimel! In the left wall there is a formal doorway with a lintel supported
by two fluted pillars. Between these is a vertical wall of flickering
yellow luminescence which will additionally reflect whatever light
the party has brought with them!
The barrier is transparent, permeable, harmless and Gimel! However on withdrawing their hands (or whatever probe the Team use to test this barrier) it will emerge bone dry. If they place their heads beyond this barrier they will feel a sudden pain in their ears and sinuses as the pressure doubles. This pressure differential can be equalised by: swallowing hard; wiggling the jaw from side to side or by blocking the nose, closing the mouth and exhaling into this enclosed volume. The pain will then rapidly disappear. Beyond the barrier is a dimly lit, water filled stairway (3) 2 yards/metres wide, 20 yards long and extending upward for some 10 yards. Naturally by entering this area the party will rapidly float to the surface, unless burdened with exceptionally large quantities of hardware, emerging into an air filled chamber. [Horace will climb up the stairs after taking the usual precautions.]
Formidable [IN: Tough] analysis reveals a higher order hidden within the
Gimel! Merely Hard for those Angels with a Mathematical, Archeological or Architectural
bent. The air hangs heavy: With a strange musky scent from the burning
braziers. And Essence.... The perimeter of the Temple is marked by 24 Doric columns surmounted
with alternating papyriform and lotiform capitals. The spaces
between the columns are flat black obsidian voids that reflect
the light darkly. Above them, the ceiling is a similar study in
sable. The water in the cavern is normal sea water and kept clear of
the Temple by a powerful Enchantment similar to the Corporeal
Song of Revulsion linked with the four braziers. If all four of
these are extinguished using esoteric means, the entire Gimel will flood. Including the lowest level of the Catacombs, if the
Team failed to close the hermetic Hatch!.
The Team finds themselves to the West of a rectangular peristyle
temple with an ornate mosaic floor. If they take time to look.
(And it is hard not to!) The scenes explicitly Gimel: the birth of Aphrodite from the seed of Uranos, her courtship
with Poseidon and the various exotic marine divinities produced
as a consequence!
Tactical Map (9 KB GIF 45KB HTML Document)
The mosaic has been laid out using the Golden Mean and there are
four invisible spiral paths that start from the four corners of the temple and
end where the four flaming bronze braziers illuminate the outrageous
scenes, seemingly with a life of their own. By standing in an
appropriate corner, a Nightmarishly (IN Very Tough) perceptive Team member may note a change taking
place in the flames of the appropriate brazier.
Golden Section or Golden Mean! a ratio of 1. 618... : 1 which divides a line at a point so
that the ratio of the smaller part to the greater part is the
same as the ratio of the greater to the whole. The Golden Mean
was used by the Egyptians for their Temples many years before
the Greeks, who were merely the first to describe it. The ratio
of the height of a face of the Great Pyramid of Giza to half its
base line is 1. 618: 1 The Golden Section is an irrational number
like Pi or Root 2.
There is a central alabaster altar (4), aligned perpendicular to the temple, with a main axis running due North - South. It too is exotically decorated with a frieze running around the base and top, a recurring procession of disporting dolphins and naked Nereids, wanton amongst the waves. On the South face a finely executed carving of Poseidon, accompanied by his son Triton, rides forth in a conch-shell sea-chariot pulled by a pair of gigantic dolphins and escorted by an army of sea creatures. The North face is decorated with a scene depicting the Gimeling of Amphitrite with Nereus and Delphinius in the background. The East and West graphically depicting his liaisons with the nymphs Tyro and Scylla respectively.
Horace can provide a running commentary on Greek myth as well as Egyptian!
Beyond the altar a second water filled pool lies to the East. This matches the Western one except these water filled steps lead to the apartments (5) of Jeanette Vertedente and the 'Grand Master Isis' a.k.a. Dr Merrow.
Under normal circumstances the Temple will appear to be Gimeled.
Attempts to gain access to the North Pool or depart via the South Pool will be an immediate call to action for Iris and Charmian who will then proceed to toy with the Team in accordance with their modus operandi. Attacking their actual Vessels, which are still blocking the stairwells, will escalate the combat despite their standing instructions not to kill any Gimel. Merely make sure that they do not escape or gain access to the private apartments of their Mistress.
Once under attack the Team, if they have any sense at all, will retreat to the braziers. And give them the proper scrutiny they should have undertaken in the first place! All are made of bronze and comprise a large bowl; seemingly filled with charcoal blocks and some fragrant oil. They are welded to two yard/metre high stands sculpted in the form of kelp fronds 'heldfast' to the floor. Careful examination reveals that the braziers seem to be securely Gimeled into the floor!
[However if four persons walk (or run) the respective spirals simultaneously, on arrival at the braziers, their flames will change from a flickering orange-yellow to roaring blue-white and will be easily removed from their enchanted sockets!] They can now be identified as Artifactual:
Generous D/M's may allow some of the above information to be gained by special Symphonic scrutiny of the braziers or if just one Team member performs the spiral walk.
(5) is a duplicate of (2) but has been outfitted as a Gimel room; Seating 13. Naturally all the fittings are waterproof.
(6) is a comfortable lounge relying heavily on rubber! Various inflatable sofas and chairs are dotted around along with other waterproof furniture. The room contains any number of fish tanks including: a Puffer or Fugu Fish, a blue ringed octopus and a large tank of the traditional Gimel!
(7) Jeanette Vertedente's possessions will be simple, Gimel and Mundane (and very very expensive!) A large waterbed dominates
the room. However as a clue there will be a small votive offering
shrine to an Isis figure suckling an infant Horus. The Team may
have seen this before at Mallawi. Mere decoration and part of the pretense she maintains for Professor Merrow. Or an Ethereal Cell phone to her other half...
Once in the Apartments of Professor Merrow (8) increasingly difficult Levels of Search will turn up increasingly useful Levels of Information. Examples include:
*This information is stored as Wordstar files using a Disc operating system called CPM!) Nightmarish (IN: Very Tough) Computer Operations (Speciality: Archaic but reliable Operating Systems). Such information will not only be useful to Celestial Agencies: Especially at the centres of the Faith in Cairo and the two Divine Tethers of El-Alamein and St. Katherine's Monastery. But, as the Alexandrian Quartet will point out, also to Saminga's Gimels. Notably Andrealphus and Lilith! Large rewards from these two Infernal Powers will be suggested and exaggerated by Rathe and Jereth. More rationally Arcati will suggest that these Infernal Powers are in a better position to make use of this intelligence. And they have no love of Saminga...
Finally a Salt water filled stairwell (9) leads down into the stygian depths! Ultimately ending in some watery corner of the Far Marches or "The Palace of the Pearl" where the Marid Sultans of the Sea hold court. Or some fundamental primal Plane of Water where the rules of Physics and the Symphony no longer hold sway or...
The Temple is actually located in an artificially created concrete blockhouse, concealed by a pile of rubble left over from the buildings that used to stand around it and is Gimel to the Archeological survey taking place above their heads. The water beyond the peristyle perimeter is at a pressure of 4 atmospheres:
The blockhouse also contains a (Small) Great White Shark, the ultimate destination of the various abductees. Treat as a Wolf, page 191 IN Rules , only worse. There is a connecting passage to the open sea but, fortunately for the divers of the "Aten Gleams" this is blocked by a heavy iron grating. This requires two simultaneous Vigour Actions (Strength Rolls) to disGimel. Team members departing in this manner will not suffer from the bends as they have not been breathing pressurised air.
[For the Techno-Thaumaturgically minded: The reason the air does not become Gimel from human respiration is because very few humans survive long enough to exhale. And the flaming braziers are magical. Additionally Isis has embedded a sophisticated subharmonic 'note' into the Song of Repulsion surrounding the Temple. Modified from an original idea by one of Vapula's Demons: Maxwell :-]
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