<blockquote><div><cite>Kruft wrote:</cite>Chris's head sunk when she started crying. The pub was deserted, the bartender off somewhere else, so he quickly slunk around to sit next to her and hugged her tightly against himself, nuzzling her gently. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I feel terrible now, I shouldn't have brought it up." </div></blockquote><br/><br/>"No... you have a right to know, you've told me your secrets. And it's not like avoiding it will make it hurt any less. Survivor's guilt. The killer for any long lived creature. Nowadays I avoid it by not having any close relations, not for long. In fact, you're probably the person I've been closest to in a century, that's the only reason I'm telling you this much. So if one day, I have to... resign my responsibilities as your bodyguard, you'll understand why. But don't worry, whatever happens, I won't leave until you're safe from the Purgers."<br/><br/><blockquote><div><cite>Kruft wrote:</cite>His desperate curiosity was still there, though, and despite an adapted adage of "Curiosity will get you killed by the cat" screaming in his brain, once she'd stopped crying, he slowly released his hug, and shuffled back a bit. "...um...if you don't mind telling me, how did you manage to escape the tomb? Did you fight out, or did they let you out?" He stammered nervously. "...um, of course, if you don't wanna say, we can move onto happier times. Like, after you left Egypt." His voice was quiet, nervous but still with the endearing tones to show he was trying his best not to offend her at all.</div></blockquote><br/><br/>She managed to smile, a small one, but a smile nevertheless. "Actually, that was kinda fun. It took another 40 years for someone to finally try and rob the place. I spent most of that time learning more magic, some from the walls, mostly by trial and error. At least the next few annual meals were thouroughly unpleasant villains, I could tell that much from their auras. By the time the next innocent was sent down, I knew enough to eat him, thus restoring myself, reform him, and use the preservative abilities of the tomb's magic to put him in suspended animation, effectively.<br/><br/>"But the main goal of my studies was to break the geas that bound me to the tomb complex, one of the reasons I collected the innocents was so I'd have people beholden to me when I did, people I could use to help me. I hadn't figured out how to break the geas myself, but I could create a modified loyalty geas, that would prevent them betraying me once I escaped. I knew once I escaped I'd need time, and resources to build myself up to a point where I wouldn't just be captured and recycled as some involuntary tomb guardian again."<br/><br/>She shook her head. "I never did manage to do it myself, I gained the power and the knowledge, but the geas itself prevented me from using it. However, the tomb robbers were a fairly professional group, and included a curse breaker. They also had a serious warrior, a rhino with an enchanted sword that could do massive damage to magical creatures, and an amulet that turned his own armoured hide into something even my claws and teeth would have trouble with. At the time, fo course, I couldn't enhance my own natural weapons with magic. When they were entering, the curse breaker interrupted the wards that protected the place, and at the same time gave me a window to free myself from the geas, at least as a far as staying in the tomb was concerned.<br/><br/>"They knew the tomb complex was guarded by a powerful, vicious monster, but they expected a purely physical threat, at least from me. One of the grave treasures of Poliputaketlon was an Eye of Horus, and Upen Atem had shown me how to use it. I don't count that as stealing, as it never left the tomb, the one I have now I made myself, and I used his to protect the other grave treasures. So I knew what I was facing, and could mess with their torches, and generally provided myself with openings. I fought smart, and managed to take down the robbers, including the rhino."<br/><br/>She was looking quite animated by this time. "I left the curse breaker alive, in return for a geas to serve me, and make restitution. Fortunately, he was simply a runaway apprentice and this was his first big score. I rebuilt their entrance as a way in and out, controlled only by me, and at last I was free! I walked out among other people for the first time in almost a century and a half, disguised as a regular cheetah girl. And I finally got my first taste of flying! Those were great days."<br/><br/>Chris could see her distant look at that memory.<br/><br/>"I continued to live in the complex, guard it, but now it was a base of operations, not a prison. Selling the magic sword and amulet, after I'd studied them and felt confident enough of my understanding to duplicate their magic, gave me a reasonable amount of seed money, and I had the apprentice, Miyah Keh to assist me, and the others to go on errands."