<blockquote><div><cite>Kruft wrote:</cite>He relaxed considerably as soon as she smiled. "Okay, good." He settled back, his fascinated expression both endearing and slightly amusing. He listened with interest, nodding now and again, and once she'd finished that part, he sat back. "Well, that's impressive. I know you knew the place like the back of your paw, but that's..." He shook his head. "Something I'd never be capable of."</div></blockquote><br/><br/>Ptricia glanced over at him. "I suspect you'd surprise yourself, if it ever came down to it."<br/><br/><blockquote><div><cite>Kruft wrote:</cite>"I suppose you must have been delighted to be out among other people, but was it hard to control yourself? I mean, to me, it sounds like for the years you were in the tomb, you were...well, not much more than a monster." He shrugged. "If I'd been locked up that long, I know I'd probably be totally batshit insane." He smiled slightly. "But anyway. What about after you left Egypt? I suppose that's really what I'm most interested in."</div></blockquote><br/><br/>"Oh, I was, but Upen Atem healed me. It helped that I had a more regular food supply, after all I could eat the guys in suspended animation and reform them, and they never even knew about it. The rest was really keeping myself occupied. As for what happened when I was free, well for the first few centuries, I didn't leave Egypt, or at least Asia Minor. I could hunt for my food, and didn't need any place to stay, so all the money I made could go back into making more. I made amulets, basic things but functional, and when I had the money I occasionally invested in various trading caravans, since back them Egypt was still the breadbasket of the world."<br/><br/>She grinned. "You have to understand, a sucessful caravan to a distant place could yield 300 or even 400 percent profit. They had to charge that kind of mark up because of the risks they took. Of course, my caravans never got attacked by bandits, or pirates, or monsters, and When being prepared, often got tips on things that were sure to be in demand at the other end. It was almost as if something was watching over them the whole way, removing any threats, and able to travel from place to place really fast, and so find relatively up to date information on trading conditions. Remarkable." Butter not only not have melted, it would have frozen into ice cream in her mouth as she made these last bland comments.<br/><br/>"Eventually I made enough money that I could set up all the people I'd been using with comfortable places to live. Miyah Keh stayed muy apprentice for a dozen years, I had the magical power and money, but he knew where to find more information, and who was who. I like to think we learned from each other. I eventually made sure he got a start as an independent freelance mage. I guess in part I was insulating myself from eventually loosing them... they all grew up, grew old so fast!"<br/><br/>"Of course, getting an 'in' with a number of respectable merchants gave me contacts I could leverage in training myself. I could pass fpr a beardless boy, and turning up at a master craftsman with a letter of recomendation from a major customer allowed my a foot in the door. It usually only took me 4 or 5 years to become competent in a craft, and I spread out various training missions over centuries, and dozens of cities, so it never got noticed."