Arkhotephs tower

[Fox Mc Cloud]

And so the conspirators met again in secrecy to plot the pharaoh's fall.

This time their target was to be their former leader and fellow conspirator, Arkhotep.
They met in an abandoned crypt they believed to be forgotten and unknown to Arkhotep.
And once again, all were there. Once again, the seven were united.

Morguthis, the never-defeated general. A lethal and merciless warrior consumed by irrepressible rage.
The vain Vashresamun, the pharaoh's notorious concubine burning to avenge her hurt pride.
Mahardis the mage, a pyromaniacal madman who fooled the princes of elemental fire to steal the secrets of the flame.
Diptrah the high priest, master of the mind, wielder of secret powers, keeper of the oldest of rituals.
Rahemos, the greatest conjurer of his time. He recklessly summoned unspeakable abominations and made them do his bidding.
Thalas, the foremost alchemist, master of poison, death and decay. Chief tormentor of the realm. His ghastly experiments cost the lives of countless unfortunate victims.
And Omruc, the dreaded hunter and assassin. None of his victims ever saw it coming, and none of them ever escaped.

[Fox Mc Cloud]

Rahmen Tah and the Vizier, Part I
In the second year of the reign of pharaoh Rahmen Tah there was a vizier who was said to consort with demons and to tamper with the powers of oblivion. He lived in a majestic tower that stood on a little island close the harbour. It was a marvel to behold, made of black glass and gold, and everybody who looked at it was filled with an eerie sense of foreboding. The vizier was rumoured to be so powerful that no one dared to bring him to justice. Even Rahmen Tah himself feared the power of his vizier, and he did not dare to send troops against the vizier. Finally he called for his chief astrologer and mathematician, the wise Athem, and asked him for advice. Athem listened quietly to the words of his pharaoh. After he had finished Athem ask his pharaoh for some time to think everything over. Reluctantly the pharaoh agreed.

[Fox Mc Cloud]

Rahmen Tah and the Vizier, Part II
After a week had passed the mathematician returned. His advice was this: The pharaoh should order a huge celebration to be held, and all pyramids should be adorned with flowers and flags. The pharaoh who trusted in the wisdom of his advisor ordered his people to prepare for the celebration. While the people did as their pharaoh had ordered them to do Athem began to build a huge wooden machine on top of the royal pyramid. No one took much notice of it because of the preparations that were going on. On the fourth day when the celebration was scheduled to start the pharaoh sent an invitation to his vizier and asked him to join in their festivity. As Athem had foreseen the vizier declined because he suspected that there was a trap. Instead he sat in the observatory at the top of his tower and watched the city because he wanted to find out what the pharaoh was up to. Too late did he understand that the construct on top of the pyramid was in fact an enormous catapult. Suddenly a huge boulder was hurled in his direction. The shot had been perfectly calculated, and it hit its mark with amazing precision. The top of the dark tower shattered and the evil vizier was crushed underneath tons of basalt. His death caused the dark magic to disappear, and the tower sank into the ocean forever.

[Fox Mc Cloud]

The tibian world-wonders!
The known and aknowledged world-wonders are:
The colossus of Kazordoon
The black pyramid of Dracoria
The great lighthousetree of Ab'dendriel
The thorntower of Shadowthorn
The undergroundcity of Mintwalin
The black city of skulls in hellsgate
The great lava falls in hellsgate
The pyramid city of Ankrahmun

[Fox Mc Cloud]

Tales of a Stranger, Part I
It was in a time of dread that a stranger came to our lands. More dead than alive was he when he was found in the desert, and the merchants who found him took pity on him and brought him hither. But how great was the amazement and the wonder when it turned out that he wore a birth-mark on his neck that looked exactly like a scarab! The crowd was struck with awe, and it was soon decided that he was to be taken to the priests, so that they might ask the gods for an omen. And so it came that while the man was still lying in a slumber full of delirious dreams the priests burnt incense and performed the ancient rituals to ask the gods for advice and for guidance. The high priest climbed the highest pyramid and called for the knowledge of the wind and the wisdom of the sand. For three long days the stranger was caught in the perilous lands that separate life from death, and for three long days the priest was haunted by visions. But when those days had passed, everything changed. All of a sudden the stranger opened his eyes and looked around in amazement, and it was that very moment that the delirious priest began to utter a prophecy.

[Fox Mc Cloud]

Tales of a Stranger, Part II
But since there were only acolytes there the nature of the prophecy was kept a secret by the priests. They called for the stranger, who seemed to have lost his memory, to be brought to the temple, where they talked to him and asked him all kinds of questions. But much to their dismay he could not give them the answers they sought, for his memory seemed to be blank like the surface of the desert after a sandstorm. However, the priests had the wisdom of the secret prophecy to guide them, and so they knew that they had to give the strangers five tasks to fulfil before they could reveal his destiny to him. And so they did, and the stranger swore he would fulfil all the tasks or die in the attempt. His first task was to travel into the desert and to find the eldest of the scarabs there, so that the priests would reveal their wisdom to him and fill his empty mind with recollections. The stranger descended deep into the burrows of the scarabs in order to face their judgement and to find answers that had been lost in the desert sand aeons ago. But the stranger never returned.

[Fox Mc Cloud]

... were sealed with powerful magic. Only those were allowed to pass who sacrificed one of the peculiar coins that in ancient times were paid by those who came to visit their beloved dead. For this was the way of the Ritual of Sealing. Behind the seal, the mighty traitors were trapped forever. Such was their hatred and their lust for revenge that the very walls and stones became imbued with them and the lower tombs turned into places of utter doom, places where no mortal should venture to go. And to this day one of the traitors lurks in each of these tombs, surrounded by vicious traps and by powerful minions that serve both to protect them and to hold them captive. Woe to the fools who dare challenge the traitors in their prisons! For torturing and killing intruders is the only amusement that is left to these tortured souls.

[Fox Mc Cloud]

While travelling to the lands of Thais the princess Tahmehe, who accompanied her father Uthemath on a diplomatic mission, fell in love with a young nobleman of the empire. Although it was a forbidden love it bore fruit, and seven months after Thamehe's return to the lands of her forefathers a child was born. Pharaoh Uthemath ordered that she and her newborn baby were to die in the arena. Four behemoths were let loose on her. But just before the raging monsters could put their claws on her a flying carpet swept down from the sky and rescued both the mother and her child. The Thaian nobleman - for who else would it be but him - somehow managed to evade the hails of arrows that greeted him, and so the couple managed to make their escape northwards. The pharaoh demanded that both the nobleman and his own unfaithful daughter be handed over to him, but the Thaian king claimed he had no knowledge of their whereabouts. So the trace of the traitorous daughter was lost.

[Fox Mc Cloud]

... After we reached the site we pitched camp. The next day we started the excavations. It was hard work. The sand was treacherous and obstinate, and for every bucket we took away two more seemed to take its place. Sometimes we hit upon something valuable by pure chance, but usually it took hours to find some lucrative spot because you could never tell if a site was promising without having performing extensive excavations first. And still the real thing eluded us. The remnants of the legendary cities of old seemed lost to the desert. But we carried on, working day and night, digging at the same spot over and over again. Progress was painfully slow, but in the end hit on something. What we found proved to be an adequate reward for our hardships.

[Fox Mc Cloud]

The master of the games asked for 'greater challenges'. I cannot help the feeling that the fool is talking about djinns and demons. However, as long as I am chief advisor of the pharaoh this will not happen. If such a creature broke loose in the city, chaos would ensue. It would be a massacre. And I am convinced that certain elements would welcome such a 'misfortune' and even work towards it.

[Fox Mc Cloud]

In the 23rd year of the reign of Esuph III there was a tax inspector whose greed was unrivalled by any other mortal before or after him. He let the people bleed in the name of the pharaoh and amassed huge amounts of gold, most of which somehow ended up in his own private treasury. But Shehamin, the second wife of the pharaoh, was not a woman to be fooled easily. Using cleverness and charm she brought his schemes to light and told her husband about them. Esuph III was furious, and his verdict on the fraudulent tax inspector was as cruel as it was clever: The screaming tax collector was sunk into a cauldron full of boiling gold. The terribly distorted statue which as the result of this peculiar treatment was put up in the tax office as a grim reminder that fraud can seriously affect your health. The gold that was stolen by the tax collector, however, was never found, and to this day there are many who dream about finding the unfaithful tax collector's hidden treasure.

[Fox Mc Cloud]

Since the contamination of the water reservoirs became more and more of an issue, Pharaoh Unklath ordered that the position of the right honourable excreminator should be founded. This position was decreed to be considered as honourable as that of the royal astrologer or the pharaoh's animal trainer.

[Fox Mc Cloud]

...we stood on a plank and beneath us was a pit full of hissing snakes. Worse, the plank was pulled back into the wall, and there was no way out. If it hadn't been for our good Alil who had stayed out of that cursed chamber in a rare moment of clear-sightedness, we would all have ended up as snake food. Just how he managed to find that hidden lever on the statue is still beyond me.

[Fox Mc Cloud]

Will the world never learn?
That pompous coxcomb of an ambassador dared to speak as though his king was equal to our pharaoh! We were shocked by the sheer impertinence of his speech! The fool! How confused he looked when he realised our disapproving silence. I am convinced he had spoken to some of those filthy heretics before he went to see his majesty. I know there are some although none of them would dare to make his blasphemous opinions known in the public. How could the mighty pharaoh not ignore this ambitious fool and his futile plans. How haughtily he walked around in our beautiful Ankrahmun, mocking our true religion with his silly questions. Of course, he got nowhere and he seemed to give up in the end. But did the wisdom offered to him enlighten his blind soul? I think not. So full of himself was he, so firm in his heretic opinions and yet such a slave to his flesh - how could he understand that which is true and holy? People like him are both a curse and a blessing to us, the children of enlightenment. They may insult and provoke us with their ignorance, yet it is when we meet fools like him that we realise the full extent of the glorious state of enlightenment we live in. Far from ascension though we are, we have been granted the opportunity to achieve what will be forever denied to people like him - divinity!

[Fox Mc Cloud]

Year 10 in the reign of Harrah II
The baker Thahon claimed that the wife of the merchant Habthi was guilty of witchcraft. Thahon could not bring forth convincing proof of her guilt and was sentenced to ten blows on his bare feet. The crafter Ziril claimed that the beggar Aukohl stole a cake from his open window. Although no proof was found there was a general sense of agreement that no proof was necessary since everybody was convinced of the beggar's guilt. In a rare display of mercy the judge sentenced him to a mere three years of work in the salt mines. The widow Zehmahil claimed that the travelling bard Todd Ballory had promised here mariage in
exchange for certain services that have not been further elaborated on in the court's documents. The foreigner was found guilty without trial and sentenced to three years of work in the salt mines. The footsoldier Kamahl claimed his father Indril was guilty of witchcraft. Several obscure texts were found beneath the accused person's bed. Indril was banished from the city and his property was equally divided between the pharaoh and his heirs. The foreigner Todd Ballory was pronounced guilty of killing the overseer Barnak, a father of sixteen children and a respectable member of the local whipcrackers' association. The aforementioned convict was sentenced to a rather spectacular final appearance in the local arena.

[Fox Mc Cloud]

After thorough examination the Rathal I Pyramid was officially declared to be free of occult phenomena. The success of the ritual of purification performed by the responsible priests surpassed everybody's expectations, and the rather obstinate evil presence that was clearly the work of a person officially identified as one Ushu the witch by the authorities was dispelled. The suspect was traced to the mountains where she sucessfully hid from the agents of the witchhunting department. She is presently said to produce low-quality love potions in an unknown hideout somewhere in the western jungles.

[Fox Mc Cloud]

In ancient tombs beneath the burning endless sands

Where neither sunlight reaches nor the pale-faced moon

The whispers of the long deceased traitors dance
Bloodthirsty creatures screeching an unholy tune

Dark are the mysteries surrounded by doomed cries

Uncurtained to the warriors of righteous mind

Who well-prepared with magic, sharpened blade and eyes

Step through the doors and leave their mortal fear behind.