Case in point, we're at the hospital. Yes, again, for the third time since arriving in Cairo two months ago. It's a bit of a story, but until we can find a new author to take over, we've all kind of been using the journal. I'll start at the beginning, and I won't lie - it took us a while to even consider continuing after what we saw in the Bent Pyramid. Once we found some level of normality (Ha! What's normal anymore?), Bridget went and got a wild hair up her ass concerning asking Dr. Kafour about more Black Pharaoh legends. You see what I mean? The woman's obsessed with him. She wanted to know all she could, and besides, we needed to check tabs on the guy and see if he was a cultist or something, so we all went. Fortunately, he was in, and we settled down as Bridget asked for the information she wanted. He explained he'd need to look up some more... intricate facts, and left us to our own devices.
This time, Ewan was ready. He snuck behind the man, peeked into the little room through the keyhole, and observed as Dr. Kafour pulled a lightbulb string... and one wall swung open on hinges, revealing a set of steps carved from sandstone leading down into another room. Once he was sure Dr. Kafour was gone, and told us of what he found of course, Ewan crept downstairs to see what was there. I don't mind telling you, a long, tense five minutes passed before Ewan finally returned, looking greatly relieved.
"Well?" I asked, curious. "What did you find?"
"He's trustworthy," the Scot responded, and we all breathed a sigh of relief. "He's got a proper library o' books down there, and he was readin' from some sorta ancient scroll. The lock down there's got one o' them glowin' tree branches on it."
That was definitely a good sign. We hadn't seen anyone besides those against the Black Pharaoh use that branch-like symbol, so maybe it was a sign we could trust Dr. Kafour. Then Sarah brought up that the symbol hadn't exactly bothered the Black Pharaoh himself any, and we all had pause. Maybe it was paranoia, but damn it, I think we deserve to be a little paranoid when literally everyone and everything wants us dead.
"Well either way," Ewan leaned against the wall, hand fishing around in his pocket for something, "I broughtcha a gift, Byrd. I cannae read it, but you can." He then handed me a piece of worn parchment, ancient and thick with lacunae, onto which Arabic lettering was hastily scrawled in a spidery, shaky hand. I'd never seen the kind of ink before, reddish-brownish as it was, used on any other old Arabic document.
"Where did you find this?" I asked, though I was sure I knew the answer already.
"In his library. It's a piece from that old scroll he were readin'. Had one of the branchy things on the ends of it, too, and some real weird drawings..."
Sarah, ever curious, glanced over my shoulder as I pieced together the archaic translation, eyes roaming over the document... and then she blanched.
"I... I know what that scroll is!" She murmured, her voice hushed. "I've read about this before... That's a page from the Necronomicon! It has to be!"
I wanted to say it wasn't, I wanted to tell them all it wasn't, but it was. Here, in my own two hands, a fragment from the dreaded and supposedly mythic tome, spoken only of in hushed tones by fellow expeditionists like myself. The more I decrypted the ancient Arabic, the more I realized she was right. This... was from the al-Azif, more famously known in some circles as the Necronomicon. And it was, eerily enough, a passage concerning Nyarlathotep, the very god we had met in the Bent Pyramid. The very god that was using us as his pawns...
The footsteps up the stone stairs from the hidden room indicated Dr. Kafour was returning... but something about them wasn't right. The gait pattern wasn't normal for the doctor, and for a second we believed it was Omar Shakti and this was a set-up all along. Then... then we all thought we heard the soft humming, in a voice we remembered, a voice from the Bent Pyramid.
Thank God it was only our imaginations playing terrible tricks on us. Dr. Kafour arrived alone, and looked very concerned with how pale we were. He thought it was heat stroke until we explained we'd... seen some more things, and then his face grew grim and serious behind his wire-rim bifocals.
"Then you know. The Crawling Chaos has seen you..." His tone was like ice and stone. "What have you done? How would you have...?"
There was a chill in the room for five seconds, and we swear we all saw the doctor sweat. His dark eyes flicked between us, and he murmured something to himself in an unknown language. We felt energy in the room, prickling down our spines... but nothing more than that.
"... You are trustworthy, thank Allah..." The doctor's shoulders relaxed. "I do apologize for that. For a moment... I thought you were Shakti's agents."
"Shakti's agents?" I echoed. "No... why would we be? We're looking into him! We wouldn't trust him as far as we could throw him."
"As well you should! He is not to be trusted or trifled with. A very dangerous man indeed..."
We inquired further, now much more open about our ties in Cairo knowing Dr. Kafour was on our side. He confirmed the branched symbol was one of protection, called the Elder Sign, useful for protecting against some entities and warding things. He told us much about further legends regarding Nyarlathotep as the Black Pharaoh. Yes, he knew about the Mosque of Ibn Tulun, Zehavi, and the Girdle of Nitocris. He explained that he knew Zehavi well, as he was good friends with the man. The Girdle, he said, was believed to be one of three artifacts that, along with Queen Nitocris' mummy, was rumored to resurrect this ancient worshiper of the Black Pharaoh, and that he believed was what the Brotherhood wanted it for. They already had the mummy, he believed, from the Clive Expedition, and the Amulet and Crown were believed to be in the hands of the cult already. That was why Zehavi guarded it so jealously, and why it was hidden in the Mosque of Ibn Tulun - it was believed to be the safest spot for it.
That was when the phone rang, and what started as an informative, upbeat discussion between our newly identified ally took a sudden turn for the worse. Dr. Kafour picked up, and listened, frantically speaking in Arabic as his face fell into a mask of worry. It was too fast to even tell his words, but his dread was palpable as he finally hung up. Something was wrong.
"The Mosque is under attack by the Brotherhood again," he murmured. "There's more of them this time..."
We didn't wait to hear Dr. Kafour protest. We just left, running for the mosque as fast as we could. The nausea and dread was infectious - had the Brotherhood found the Girdle before we could destroy it? Had they stolen it? Was our ally Zehavi dead?
We arrived to a massacre. Two ibrahim lay dead on the floor of the mosque already, their blood spoiling the geometric purity of its religious tile designs. Down the hallway, we heard a commotion like many men fighting, but couldn't tell the true source until we finally ran over there for ourselves and discovered it opened into a prayer garden courtyard. There, in the courtyard of the mosque, was a full-on battle between Brotherhood cultists with clubs and the men of the mosque with shimmering scimitars, fighting in clusters. The battle was furiously locked in a stalemate. They clearly needed help, and we had guns.
No rest for the wicked, is there?
We descended like angry hornets. I ran to one side of the courtyard as Bridget moved to position, Sarah jumped at the nearest two with her blades out, and Ewan took up a defensive spot behind a pillar. I quickly lost track of the others in the fray of battle, intensely focused and easily overwhelming with firepower. All seemed to be going well... until I heard Sarah scream in agony, and turned to see her with a scimitar firmly embedded in her ribs, the blood welling onto the ground in rivers. Then I caught Ewan's eyes, the worried look there, before a cultist's club slammed into his back and sent him sprawling, unconscious.
Panic gripped me. I ran to Sarah first, just in time to catch the Brotherhood member as he yanked his scimitar free of her. I pretty quickly dispatched him, and helped the ibrahim drag Sarah to the hallways and out of danger. The gash in her chest was enormous and the ribs themselves had even been cut, and for a minute we all thought she might die. But none of her organs had been damaged, and damn if that little fledgling isn't a tough one. She smiled through the heavy breathing of her pain as her wounds were bandaged. Steady on, Sarah McCain, you lucky girl.
Then to Ewan. By the time I'd gotten to him, Bridget had put a bullet in the head of the cultist threatening him. He was still unconscious, so I helped move him as well. Now that many of the cultists were dead or dying, the ibrahim had a much better chance of dealing with them, and they did so with impunity. I turned from helping move Ewan into the hall to find Sarah weakly leaning against the nearby wall, favoring the side she'd been hit in, but walking and moving.
"About that Girdle?" She mumbled somewhat weakly, moving to join us, and just as when we had first met her we couldn't tell her no. She's with us to the bitter end, just as much then as now. Maybe we all underestimated her strength.
She had a point though, the Girdle needed to be taken care of. I asked for where Zehavi was, and confirmed, thankfully, that he was alive and in the vault with the Girdle. Of course, we rushed down there with the aid of one of the ibrahim, and found him with a gleaming scimitar in one hand and both his wizened eyes on the Girdle. Around the pedestal were two dead cultists, no doubt slain by his blade. It was him who first called Dr. Kafour and asked for help. How the man knew we were with the doctor is a mystery, but he knew, and we had gotten here just in time. The Girdle, a gleaming golden thing with rich mail of jewels and onyx, was safe.
Before Zehavi could explain the situation any further, we all heard a shuffling from behind a pillar, and labored breathing. Upon further examination, I found it was a barely living Brotherhood member, bleeding heavily from a wound in his torso. He'd apparently crawled over here to die. I took no chances, and made that journey a bit shorter with my .38. If there's anything I've learned by now, it's that the only good cultist is a dead one.
That accomplished, we explained we knew of a way to ward the Girdle, thus destroying its power, the symbol we'd found that Dr. Kafour had explained as the Elder Sign. Zehavi's eyes grew wide in wonder as he realized what sort of power we had, which he did not mind telling us, and explained he would do all he could to help fuel the warding. And so, it began - an hour of focus and chanting under our breaths as Sarah traced the symbol in her own blood, as we had been taught. The energy in the room was palpable, a crackling aura of what seemed like inherent light and ozone sparking along our skin. We all felt our energy drain with the effort, and we were exhausted by the end of that hour, but when we opened our eyes, we saw the Elder Sign recess itself into the gold of the Girdle, and knew it had been done correctly. A whitish glow permeated it, very faint, but visible. We were exhausted... but victorious, for once in Cairo. I just hope it's enough to keep the Brotherhood's dirty mitts off the Girdle.
I think we've earned a break by now. Granted, I didn't think we'd be spending that break in the hospital for the third time, but at least the doctors here are getting to know us very well. We'll be spending the next few weeks here recovering, probably into the first week of May at this rate. But we're healing well, and despite a broken arm, Ewan's okay. Sarah's been healing quicker than any of us. It must be because she's so young and chipper, even after all this time. We'll be out of here and able to speak with the Clive Expedition in no time!
But between you and me, I don't trust the doctor who's working on us - the one with the thick ruby ring inlaid in dark metal. He has familiar, dark eyes, and a slight smirk to him I can't help but compare to... But that would be impossible, right? Why would Nyarlathotep try to heal us if he wanted us to suffer? No, it's all a delusion of my mind... it must be.
But then, if that's the case, why does Sarah look so very uncomfortable around him, and why does she become so silent whenever he's near?
-- Clayton Byrd, On Edge but Alive (April 21st, 1928)