Episode 6.3.a
>Outside Stabiae, Italy, August 79 CE<
You come back to yourself in Sextus's villa, and Sextus is not smiling now. He is already moving, gathering things.
"We have to go," he says. "While you were asleep, I was reading. I found a book, written by another of the Aemiliani many years ago. It says Gaius Cilnius Maecenas sent men of the Society to Stabiae. Why Stabiae? I don't know. Perhaps there is another inscription there. We have to go and look."
He stops in the doorway, and his eyes go up to Vesuvius. You look too.
The mountain has stood quiet above Pompeii for as long as anyone can remember. It is not quiet now. Smoke is rising from the mountain into the sky, black and high.
"Pompeii is not safe any longer," says Sextus. "We leave now."
The streets are already turning. Shopkeepers pull their stalls shut while their neighbors shout questions at one another; a woman hurries past with a child on her hip and another dragging at her hand; and here and there people simply stand in the middle of it all, staring up at the mountain as though staring might change it. The ground shudders under your feet as you run.
Stabiae is a small town down by the sea. By the time you reach it, the forum is empty, the sailors already fled, and the smoke stands over everything.
Sextus unrolls his charta against the stones of the forum, matching it line by line against the words of the Herculaneum inscription copied there. Then he shouts: "There!"
He calls you over and points. Cut into the stone is a mark you have never seen the like of, gleaming, nitidus: three arrows, all pointing down toward the earth, and each one pointing a different way.
Below the arrows runs an inscription:
INFOROSTABIAENECESSEESTVOBISQUAERERE
Sextus reads it and goes quiet. When he speaks again, his voice is grave.
"It is a trap. The Societas Potentium wants nothing but harm. They hide the road to the Lapis because they want power, and because they want the whole world to love power as they do.
"Have you ever heard of the optimates and the populares? The optimates were the nobles and the wealthy, who wanted power kept in the hands of a few. The populares stood with the people, and wanted power shared among the many. You can guess which side the Society loves.
"We have to strike at them. But be careful. Men like these do not only fight their enemies. They recruit them. They will try to make us into copies of themselves."
Prompt: While you interpret the arrows, and attempt to follow their instructions, assure Sextus that you understand his concerns about the SP.
