Episode 12.3.a
>Aegyptus, 80 CE<
When you open your eyes you are lying in sand. The sun is already down and night is coming on, and Tertius is sitting close by. Far off, the pyramids stand dark against the last of the light, and near them you can make out the shapes of men.
Tertius gets up and comes over to you.
"Good!" he says. "You have done more than you know. Between what you saw of the battle and what the books of the Musaeum told us, the TSTT has found the praetorium of the Potentes, and it has set us down close by.
"There is more. We believe Hannibal carried the Lapis with him into exile after the Second Punic War. So the Potentes are hunting it here, just as you are. Unless they have found it already! You may be near the end of this 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 find it: a door of stone set into the rock, which you would never have seen by daylight. Firelight is shining out beneath it. There is no mistaking that.
Tertius gives you his last advice. "The signum won't be enough by itself. You'll have to invent something. Good fortune go with you."
You walk up to the door as though you had every right in the world to be there. There are enemy eyes on you, and none of you falters; no spear could touch you now. Then you are at the door, and your Recentius knocks on the hard stone.
"Who are you?" says a voice from inside.
Prompt: Make your reply.
