The Pharaoh of Duat

The Palace Reopens

You once turned down the throne of the Sandsea and chose Zhoom to wear the crown. Since the fight with Apophis and Neith, you’ve helped him survive Queen Meresankh’s curse. Now people are coming out of hiding, the palace is open again, and the Sandsea is in talks with Greenguard and the Yokai Isles. Zhoom remembers how wary the Alteons were of him when he first spoke with Victoria at the archery range. He hopes their kingdoms will eventually stop seeing one another as enemies.

Crulon has become one of Zhoom’s advisers. His standing as a Guardian of the Djinn Realm qualifies him to serve at court, where he does everything from diplomacy and paperwork to breaking up dangerous rituals. When former rebels from Zhoom’s bounty-hunting days let scorpions loose in the palace, you help catch them. Some of Zhoom’s current guards were rebels themselves. They’ve learned to fight alongside his bow and expect him to join them on the front line if war comes.

What Sek-Duat Tried to Erase

Zhoom asks the archaeologist Layla Surehunter to restore the memorial hall of the pharaohs who came before Sek-Duat. Her map marks old temples of Order and Chaos, and she wants to know what Chaos meant to the people who built them. The duel for the newborn river gave her the names of two deified pharaohs. A scale you bring her from Sobekemsaph helps restore a pillar from a ruined temple. Layla still goes by her former husband’s name for its connection to Valencia. She says she had to escape and couldn’t take her daughter with her.

Faiza and the Lorekeepers uncover how Sek-Duat kept his throne. His Lectors forged histories, and Lorekeepers who defended the truth were forcibly mummified. For fifteen generations, the same lich faked his death and reappeared as his supposed son. His attendants used the secrecy of royal burials to mummify other bodies in his place. The Lorekeepers find records of the false rites, and Zhoom asks Layla to look for the original Book of the Dead.

Sealed testimony preserves what the people Zhoom hunted remember of him. One person still has a scar from a bounty hunter’s arrow, and another says their daughter has nightmares about being hunted. Faiza worries that the people Sek-Duat harmed will judge Zhoom by his ancestry as well as his deeds. Zhoom says he sealed his predecessor back in a box after the fight with Apophis and Neith. Inside it, Sek-Duat demands release, wonders whether to beg for death and remembers serving as a knight under a king of Greenguard.

The Lorekeepers also find the remains of Anubians who were imprisoned and executed. A cage bears scratches that appear to show a woman holding a snake. The palace Guardian Hounds’ claws match the marks. Faiza hopes this will help explain what happened to the Anubians and that their remains can be returned to their kin if any survived.

The First Ifrit

A flame burns inside a sandstorm approaching Duat. Crulon realizes that the beast people have seen in the storm is a human body possessed by a Djinn. It attacks Zhoom in the throne room before he can warn anyone. Crulon believes the Djinn leaves its host to take Zhoom’s body. He strikes it while it’s exposed and forces it to flee, then performs a rite to seek an audience with King Efreet.

Efreet remembers a Djinn who once protected the Sandsea alongside a mortal hero. They kept pharaohs from turning order into tyranny, and when the hero was offered the throne, he chose to keep adventuring with his friend. The Djinn grew bitter at the honors the hero received, killed him and took his body, hoping to crown himself pharaoh. The hero’s will held. He trapped the Djinn inside his own body and disappeared into a sandstorm to keep his friend from hurting anyone else and spare him from destruction.

Efreet stripped his former retainer of his name and called him Kha’in, the first of the Ifrit. The storm was his prison, and when it finally dispersed he went straight to the palace. Nefertari has been studying the Djinn with Crulon so she can protect the Sandsea even when he’s away. She explains that the name Ifrit is given to a Marid who betrays those closest to them.

Crulon believes Kha’in still wants the throne. He asks Zhoom to stay behind while he and Nefertari keep Kha’in from jumping into your body during the fight. You free the host, but Kha’in escapes. Before pursuing him, Crulon wants to lay the fallen hero to rest after so long wandering the Sandsea without a name.

Sources

Duat Palace, Duat Palace release notes, Crulon’s Djinn Valley quests, Djinn Valley release notes