Episode 13.1.a
>The Praetorium of the Societas Potentium, Aegyptus, 80 CE<
The wall that closed the way in front of you slides aside, and beyond it lies a great chamber cut out of the living rock. Lamps stand all around the walls, and the room is well lit. After the dark of the stair, the light is welcome.
When you step inside you see that the chamber has been built to look like an atrium. There is a lararium against one wall. There is a couch. In the middle of the floor stands a pool, and the water in it comes up from a spring somewhere under the earth. Many doorways open off the room toward smaller chambers. On the far side hangs a curtain of fine purple cloth, and behind it, you suppose, is the tablinum.
When the last of you has come through, the wall slides back into its place behind you.
"Young ones," says the voice, "you have reached the atrium of the Potentes. Now it is time to learn. Are you worthy to enter? You have the signum, but the signum proves nothing by itself. Do you know the ways of power? Every one of the Potentes must know them."
For a long while there is silence. At last you begin to ask one another, in low voices, whether you are meant to answer. Then the voice speaks again.
"Three trials await you. This is the first. Who defeated Carthage, and why? Each of you answers for yourself. You may not repeat what another has said. You may reach the same conclusion, but each of you must give reasons of your own."
Prompt: Answer.
