Riding Through the Desert on a Horse with No Name

Before making my way to Cairo, I made my visit to the Amazon tribes. Things didn't go as well as I'd hoped, but then, they didn't go badly either. I can't say I blame them. I'm asking them to not only march to war on someone else's behalf, but to march against their cultural origin and even their gods. None the less, I managed to improve relations with them.

I've decided a few things about my personal agenda, outside our succession war. Besides my desire to be Brynhildr's wife, I want to nudge Amazon culture towards sustainable numbers, having a wider footprint on world events and be a less... aggressive culture towards it's neighbors. I think I've written about all this before, several times, but now I'm committed to this course of action.

After I departed, I headed to Cairo. I got stopped at customs, of course, but I was expected. I was led into a meeting room where most of the band had already gathered. Once everyone showed up, a badass looking military woman started to lay out the situation. Her name was Kahi and I suspect she's related to Bastet, unless there's some other cat god/ess I'm unaware of. I really don't know much about Egypt.

Anyway, Kahi started to give us the lay of the land and... Claire was back in "cause political incident" mode. I swear, that girl really needs a filter, sometimes. She was in snide snark mode about military readiness and everything, which didn't make me feel very comfortable since Lexi and I would normally have been counted among the enemy.

Lexi managed to smooth things over and Kahi let Claire's trolling slide off her back. I gather, from the Irish girls' attitudes that their trip to Ireland didn't go very well. Hal, surprisingly, pulled off his ambassadorial duties admirably. He secured an alliance with the Yazata who would come to the Pesedjet's aid. I just made sure to mention to keep me away from them, when they show up. Hal assured me I'd be fine, but I don't really trust them to not try to burn me at the stake the instant the alliance expires or is no longer convenient.

Kahi gave us a task to complete, one that, as observed by Claire, let us prove our good intentions and keep us out of the front lines. Though, if this was a simple loyalty test, I doubt it would be so important. We had to cross the border into Sudan to get to Imhotep's Tomb. Us girls will be filling in for four goddesses to enact a ritual to return Imhotep to the land of the living. The hope is that he can help build a defense for Egypt against  Goras.

Yeah, I forgot to mention, Goras/the Dodekatheon somehow struck a deal with a Titan to let their forces circumvent geographical restrictions and pass through the Titan Realm. Yeah, I'm not happy to hear that.

So we set out on horseback to the Sudanese border, with some young Pesedjet Scions with us. I caught Lexi openly flirting with one of the girls. I didn't think she was into that, but she may have been trying to nudge one of the other girls into staking her claim out of jealousy. I was riding with a girl named Diane. She seems nice, and I don't think she swings that way, but I couldn't help but tease her about her hand placement.

We rode out (and I had to get used to riding an animal) towards some mountains and Kennedy spotted large creatures in said mountains. So as we started to get ready to deal with them and give instructions to our proteges, a big friggen claw popped out of the ground and took out one of our pack horses. Great.

Also, if bringing back Imhotep makes him arrive as a walking desiccated corpse, bringing with him the Biblical plagues... I'm gonna hurt something. Or put in a call to Brendan Fraiser.