Meresankh Chambers: the Ninth Queen’s Curse
The Ninth Queen’s Curse — A Pharaoh drying out
Crulon called the Hero to the inner chambers of the Royal Palace. A ghost had cursed Pharaoh Zhoom. Crulon had thought Zhoom was deep in contemplation, and he could not enter the royal chambers without permission. By the time he noticed something was wrong, the Pharaoh had nearly lost the ability to bleed.
Zhoom tried to keep the Hero from worrying. He could neither eat nor drink, and Crulon said his body was drying out as if it were being mummified while he was still alive. The curse could kill him slowly or turn him into the same kind of Lich as Sek-Duat. Crulon had prepared potions and incense, but needed the Hero to weaken the ghost first.
The queen of the ninth reign
Zhoom identified the ghost as Queen Meresankh, who had ruled the Sandsea alongside the man who called himself Sek-Duat IX. The supposed ninth Pharaoh was Sek-Duat I pretending to be his own descendant. Zhoom suspected Meresankh had discovered the fraud and been killed to keep it hidden. He understood her anger and asked the Hero to help put her to rest.
The palace was full of ghosts. Crulon had planned to calm them peacefully, and feared other former queens might follow Meresankh’s example. Zhoom said Sek-Duat had married a succession of women to make the public believe he had heirs. Some had played along for the privilege, while others had been deceived. Zhoom could not yet say whether there had been fourteen queens or fifteen.
The lotuses turn violet
Crulon’s engraved wards found Meresankh in the palace’s inner chambers. The Hero weakened her so Crulon could perform the exorcism. Crulon had read that Meresankh was a fair and kind ruler who died suddenly of illness. He and Zhoom believed Sek-Duat had poisoned her. Zhoom thanked the Hero for dealing with Meresankh. He wanted to go back to sleeping in the library, where he often dozed beneath the tables. More spirits still haunted the palace.
There was something Zhoom wanted to discuss in private. When Meresankh cursed him, the blue lotuses in the palace fountains had turned violet. Zhoom thought of Pharaoh Neith and wondered if lingering Chaos reached out to those who had suffered in similar ways. The old scrolls that might explain it were gone, and he asked the Hero to send any experts they knew.