Episode 12.3.a
>Aegyptus, 80 CE<
You open your eyes. You are lying in sand. Tertius sits near you; the sun has already set, and night is close. You look around. Far off you can make out the shapes of the pyramids, and there, near the pyramids, the shapes of men.
Tertius gets up and comes over to you.
"Good!" he says. "You have done more than you understand. From what you said about the battle, and from the books of the Musaeum, the TSTT has found the site of the praetorium of the Potentes. And it has set us down near it.
"And there's more. We believe Hannibal took the Lapis with him when he went into exile, after the Second Punic War. So the Potentes are hunting the Lapis here, just as you are. Unless they've already found it! You may be near the end of the training."
He stands and points toward the pyramids.
"We think the door of the praetorium is two miles off, that way. . ."
An hour later you see it: a door of stone set in the rock, which you would never have found by day. But under the door, without any doubt, firelight is shining.
Tertius gives you his last counsel. "Even with the signum, you'll have to invent something. Good fortune go with you."
You decide to walk up to the door as though you have every right to be there. Enemy eyes are on you, and you are as brave as you have ever been. No spear can touch you. And then you are there. Your Recentius knocks on the hard stone.
"Who are you?" says a voice inside.
Prompt: Make your reply.
