<em>A hundred years ago the people of this village groaned beneath the yoke of Lord Khamose. He and his legion had conquered this land for the Eternal King, and he took cruel tribute from the surrounding communities. Their sons were enlisted to build a tomb-house befitting his noble stature and their daughters were sent to his table to feed his captains’ awful hungers. For the better part of a century Lord Khamose tormented the land.<br/><br/>In time, the advancing armies of Emperor Kaday drew him out to a battle where he and all his warriors perished. For forty years, the site of his buried mastaba has been forsaken by the locals, who remember well the agonies their grandfathers endured. Even the precise location of the mastaba has been lost to the silence of departed elders, the better to discourage strangers from disturbing it.<br/><br/>But now herdsmen in the western hills have begun to vanish, their cattle driven off toward the accursed hill. Perhaps something has disturbed the tomb-house - or something within has finally clawed its way out. The villagers fear to send their sons and brothers to investigate such an ill-omened place, but strangers who dare to venture into the mastaba and seek out a reawakened peril will be rewarded as well as their poor means allow...</em><br/><br/><strong>The Tale of the Lost Mastaba of Khamose</strong><br/><br/>The pleas of venerable<strong>Ingawa</strong>, the village chief, were eloquent enough to impress upon you the suffering of his people--the loss of so many cattle means that they will be beggared inside of a season. That the former mercenary was known to your own mentors and speaks of them with fond remembrance as comrades in arms? This was hardly needed.<br/><br/>It has taken you only about half a day to track the stolen cattle. The rustlers were not careful to cover their tracks, or not numerous enough to do a proper job of it, and their path has led straight to the dreaded mastaba said to be the tomb-house of the former Eternal lord of these lands. Nearing it, you find many cattle wandering about--the young boys who have guided you this far broke off to start herding them towards their home.  On the south face of the artificial hill, you find evidence that these cattle thieves were indeed impious and reckless enough to dig into the mastaba, for not far from their cold cook-fires, you find the doorway unsealed and opened.<br/><br/>Most disturbing of all, while you find blood soaked into the dust and signs of struggle, you find no bodies.<br/><br/>Descending into the tomb-house by the long, narrow stairway, you find more signs of struggle by the time you find the inner door, seals chiseled away and the slabs meant to keep the Eternals trapped moved aside. Beyond this, you find a wonder: a chamber ten paces wide and twelve paces long decorated to resemble an outdoor garden. There are plants of enameled clay, a fountain that recycles a fine silvery sand instead of water, trees of carved wood and enameled leaves, and a ceiling painted with a white circle that shines as brightly as the full moon.<br/><br/>Eerie. Coldly beautiful. Bereft of life for all its seeming, a mockery of the world as it is.<br/><br/><em>There is a passage in the western wall, another in the eastern wall, and a door set into a recessed area in the north wall.</em>