An American Mummy in New York [Throne Training]

Training for C-Ranked Sekhem Shield

“Right, so, here we are.”

It didn’t feel very super-heroic to have broken into a batting cage, but Nefeki had insisted that it was his duty as the Chosen of Isis to develop his abilities, or some such, and she’d explained that he’d need some fast moving objects to learn the spell that she had in mind.

He glanced about surreptitiously, then made his way across the green felt floor to the baseball shooting machine. He had a basket of balls in his arms, and set it into place atop the thing. It took a few seconds of perusing to figure out how it worked, but eventually, he got the thing chugging away. He side-stepped as it unleashed the first ball with a heavy chuff, then padded back to the spot where he’d usually be picking up a bat.

“Right, so, run that whole shield schpeil by me again?” He’d been getting better at responding to the priestess mentally, but it was easier to just talk.

[The spell in question requires both reflexes and acute concentration. You must begin by channeling Sekhem into your hands. I will let you know when you had gathered enough.]

He started gathering, but had to quickly abort when a chuff signaled him that another ball was incoming. He awkwardly twisted out of the way, then planted his feet out of the line of fire, red rising in his cheeks. Fortunately, there was no one but his personal Egyptian Miss Cleo to have seen.

He closed his eyes, meditating like the priests had taught him in Alexandria. Sekhem was the energy of life itself, permeating all of the universe. Even a blade of grass had Sekhem, but Trent had a metric shit-ton of the stuff, apparently. He pictured it moving throughout his body, in an even circuit, like it supposedly did. He envisioned the stuff as light-blue energy, and after a moment, he began to envision it travelling to his hands in the mental picture he was holding in his mind.

Six months ago, he would have thought this was a bunch of BS, but now, he could actually feel it pooling in the channels (that was what Nefeki called them) in his hands. It was like… warmth, sort of. Vibrating warmth.

[That will suffice, Chosen. Now you must say the words of power, and visualize the shield taking form.]

“Right,” he said, through gritted teeth, trying to maintain the energy-level while he remembered the ‘words of power’. “Ptah Tem-ankh!” he shouted as quickly and quietly as possible. The result was immediate; the Sekhem pooled at his hands discharged in a burst of cerulean dazzle that sent him flying to rattle against the chain links.

[Perhaps,] Nefeki mentally-intoned (Trent would have swore dryly), [You should attempt to visualize the shield as I suggested next time.]

“Well what the hell is it supposed to look like?” he grumbled, rubbing at his shoulder where it had collided with a metal support bar. Another ball sailed by as he retook his position.

[A scarab,] she answered matter of factly.

“Ooooh, of course, a scarab.” He rolled his eyes. “How did I not think of that?”

[Sarcasm is not productive, Chosen.]

Chuff. He closed his eyes again, visualizing and then gathering, and spoke the words. This time, he pictured a beetle while he did it. With a form to adhere to, the Sekhem he released didn’t just bowl him over this time. It didn’t do much else, either; it just sort of settled into a vague shape before dispersing into the air. Chuff.

[Very good, Chosen. Again.]

He went through the whole procedure again. As he got more accustomed to channeling his Sekhem in the right way, he had a little more time each go to properly visualize a scarab. Each go, the life-energy-magic-shit seemed to look more and more like a beetle, until finally, after the fifth try, it resolved into a stylized image of one in glowing light blue. The image settled and stayed, and when the next baseball came, it collided with a dull thunk before rolling away. Trent would have sworn he saw some hairline fractures in the scarab, but then there was someone talking in his brain.

[The shield can withstand quite a bit of damage; even moreso, as your closeness to Ma’at grows. You can place it wherever you wish, and also position it at an angle if you so desire. Simply visualize it where you want it to be, and test your limits.]

Test his limits indeed. For the next half hour, he bubbled up Sekhem and unleashed it. He set a shield two feet in front of him, and then ten feet in front of him but two feet in the air. He slanted them, even laid one out parallel to the ground. He set one up right in front of the ball throwing machine. That seemed to be about his max, he realized. By the end of it, he was panting and sweating, ready to keel over from exhaustion. He might have had a metric-shit ton of Sekhem, but that wasn’t an infinite amount, and depleting it meant depleting his own life force.

[Excellent, Chosen. Now, for the final part, you must become adept at creating your shield reflexively, even while a threat is incoming. If your timing is not perfect, you may simply create your shield behind an incoming attack, or worse, create it correspondingly with the attack, in which case the limitations of Hekau will cause the spell to fail.]

“This is why we need the balls, huh?” he grumbled.

[Indeed.]

He waited for the machine to launch a ball, then stepped into the path of the machine. He waited for the next chuff, and then erected his shield…

“Ptah Tem-OW, SHIT, FUCK!” His timing, needless to say, needed work. This was the lowest setting, but the ball colliding with his chest still hurt like a bitch and knocked him back a step.

He tried again, and missed again, but this time managed to hurl himself out of the way. On his third attempt, he managed to block the incoming ball just before it reached him.

“You don’t even have to tell me,” he muttered sourly, pain giving his voice an edge. He didn’t dare heal himself, not with the Sekhem he’d been spending. “I’m turning it up.” He plodded to the machine, then notched it up a speed setting. The belts and motors whirred quite a bit faster, and he returned to his post.

To his pleasant surprise, he stopped the ball on his first try. He repeated once more for surety, then wandered over to crank the machine to the max. It was spitting balls out every five seconds, now, and spitting them hard.

He carefully danced back into position, and was rewarded with a shoulder-crushing bean. He swore aloud, and then got hit again.

[You must ignore the pain, Chosen. You can do this.]

He grit his teeth, and concentrated.

“Ptah Tem-ankh!” The ball created very visible cracks this time, and after two more balls, the shield shattered. His eyes widened, and he threw up another just in time.

[That is sufficient, Chosen. Your Sekhem reserves are well-depleted, and you will not grow any more adept at this spell outside of combat application.]

Much as he hurt, Trent couldn’t help but glow a little with pride as he shut off the machine and started packing up.

[1241/700 words]

Training for C-Ranked Soul Sight

[[So, why am I in Grand Central Station again?]]

The place was packed, hundreds of people moving all over.

[You are here to refine your ability to perceive the human soul.]

Trent couldn’t help it. He laughed.

[What is funny, Chosen?] No doubt the security guard who was eyeing him was wondering the same thing.

[[Nothing, it’s just… my life is weird now. So, what do I do?]]

[Look,] the priestess Nefeki cryptically responded. Trent rolled his eyes, and made his way to a bench then plunked his ass down on it. He… looked. People-watched. There was a little girl and her grandmother, no doubt heading south to Jersey. An old man with a handle-bar moustache sat on another bench, reading a newspaper. Two emo kids looking sullen while they listened to music on their phones.

“What exactly am I looking for?” Fortunately, it was loud, and he was alone on his bench.

[You must look past the khat and see the soul within. It is the font of Sekhem, with distinct parts. The part in particular you are looking for is the khaibit, the shadow. Are you familiar with the Feather of Ma’at?]

“Can’t you, like, read my mind and tell if I am?”

[Yes, but I try not to invade your privacy overly. You can be quite sensitive at times, Chosen.]

“Right. Whatever. Story time.”

[Ma’at is embodied by the ostrich feather. When a soul comes for judgment, the heart is weighed against the Feather of Ma’at. If the sins present in that heart are heavier than the feather, the is devoured by the great beast Ammat. If the sins are lighter or the scales balance, the soul is free to join King Osiris in the Underworld.]

“So… I’m looking for a feather?”

[No, Chosen. You are the feather. You connection with Ma’at allows you to perceive souls and the sins that stain them, if you can only learn to look. The khaibit is the shadow, the part of the soul responsible for all dark action, the part of the soul stained by sin.]

“Greeeeeaaaaaat,” he drawled, shaking his head and trying to clear his mind. He picked the emo kids. Fifteen, maybe sixteen, practically identical with their skinny jeans and girly haircuts, dyed black. He focused on the one to his left, and… looked.

He tried squinting, he tried looking at him from the corner of his eye, he tried –closing- his eyes. Try though he might, he couldn’t see the kid’s soul, never mind his sins. This felt like a distinct invasion of privacy, now that he thought about it. Like spying in a locker room, or something.

Nefeki had said the soul was the source of Sekhem, so maybe if he could get a look at the kid’s Sekhem channels, he might be able to reverse-engineer his way to the soul? It was worth a shot.

Just like he did when trying to visualize his own Sekhem, he closed his eyes and them pictured the kid as best he could. He then super-imposed what he imagined the emo kids channels to look like over his body… and slowly, the image resolved itself. He’d never checked out a normal person before. Trent’s own Sekhem looked like bright-blue veins, thick and powerful. Emo boy had barely a trickle, like filament thread set in his limbs.

He followed those threads. Started at the feet and worked his way up.

[Yes, Chosen. Good.]

She broke his concentration, and he had to start all over again. At least it was a little easier this time around. He found the threads, then followed them to…

The heart. That was what got weighed and fed to some monster, right? It made as much sense as anything else. For long minutes, he “stared” at the spot where Emo Boy’s heart would be, but it didn’t look different, or special…

Until he finally saw it. Like a tiny knot, tied right where his heart should be. And as he examined that knot, he noticed that it was actually like five threads, bound up as one. The colorations involved were slightly different, but it meant absolutely nothing to him.

[My last Chosen did not see the soul as a knot, but, you are on the right path. The darkest thread will always be the khaibit, and the darker it is, the heavier the sins. Continue to look; establish context.]

He moved onto the second emo. This kids khaibit-thread was lighter. So he was the good one? Whatever. The little girl’s was a bright, vibrant blue. Give it a few years, he thought, before moving onto the grandmother. Even seventy years older, her thread was still quite clean. Huh.

Handlebar moustache wasn’t so unsullied. His was the darkest thread so far, though still pretty blue. Kind of cobalt, he decided.

The guard who had eyed him before earned a frown from Trent. His thread was –black-, black as night, black as sin.

[That is evil, Chosen, or close to it. He has murdered, raped, or worse, and with some frequency. He is a pawn of corruption.]

“So should I like… gank him?” he whispered.

[No. You are not a murderer, Chosen. Bring him to justice, if you can find a way.]

Trent sighed. He hated stake-outs, but he couldn’t get the image of that black thread out of his head. He lingered at the station, wandering around a bit, and waited until the security guard left…

[910/700 words]

Training for C-Rank Strengthen the Ab

Another day, another portion of his soul mastered!

[What you are capable of is hardly mastery, Chosen. Perhaps when we are finished I will tell you of what you might someday be capable of.]

“You really know how to rain on a guy’s parade, you know that? Ugh.” Trent was doing some push-ups; he’d started a little workout routine, and was even contemplating a gym membership. He finished his set and bounded to his feet. “Let’s just get started.”

[As you wish, Chosen. As you should already understand, the ab, or ib, also called the heart, is the seat of emotion and personality in the soul. It is easily the most vulnerable aspect of the soul. Many sorcerors or abberations that you encounter will strike at the ab, even if they do not consider their methods such, and that is particularly dangerous for you. If emotional manipulation causes you to stray too far from Ma’at, the terms of your resurrection will be broken, and you will die in a much more permanent fashion.]

Throne frowned. Nefeki had never quite laid things on the line like that before. He knew that he was basically bound to do good, and that his power was directly correlated to Ma’at, but he’d never thought about what happened if he lost sight of the hero thing. Death was… pretty final. And the fact that he could be tempted or whatever by superpowers and still pay the ultimate price was more than a little scary.

[I do not mean to alarm you, Chosen. Perhaps I should have taught you to protect your heart more quickly, but it is somewhat more difficult than the other soul-based operations you have learned. It is… something of a natural progression. Quite similar in nature to triggering your akh, but different enough.]

“So I’m going to be channeling Sekhem into my ab, or ib, or whatever, and that will make it so people can’t fuck with my emotions?”

[Indelicately put, but more or less accurate. Save for the fact that you will not be channeling, but instead surrounding. The Sekhem will protect the ab from any brand of incursion, but you must note that many mind powers will still affect you. Only the most insidious, those which bend emotion, will be stopped.]

“Alright, so I just want to… cocoon up my heart? Sounds like a bad teen Disney song, but, here goes.”

He was an old hand at accessing his soul by now. Well, not entirely, but it didn’t take him five minutes of mental acrobatics to get at it anymore. He found the “knot” and then went looking for the ab; much easier, now that he knew what the ba, ka, sheut, and ren looked like. It was really just a process of elimination at this point.

The ab “thread” was unique, just like all the others. The “smallest” by far, it wound around every other thread, like wisps of spidersilk clinging to a twig. Small wonder that effects that could mess with it were serious business; it was tied to everything about his soul.

He also quickly figured out why shielding it was a lot more complex than simply funneling Sekhem in. If that were the case, he could just pick a starting point and go to down. Instead, he basically had to map his entire ab first, and then slowly encase it in power.

The trick was going to be holding a “model” of the ab in his mind; sure, he could take his sweet ass time building the casing gradually, but he needed to be able to do this quickly if it was going to be worth a damn in a fight. Once he had the “map”, he could do it wholesale, and quickly to boot.

It was a bitch of a trick though. He had a dozen false starts before he managed to work out the best way to visualize the ab. It was easy to confuse himself and branch off onto other soul-threads, so he slowly stripped away the visual representation he was holding in his mind until all that remained was the spider silk of the ab.

The going got better, after that. He lost his concentration about halfway through and had to start from scratch, but eventually, he had picked out the twisting thread of the ab entirely.

“Here goes nothing,” he said softly, holding that model in his mind and then gradually restoring the other, less infinitesimal parts of the soul. He’d need to know where they were to avoid bleeding any Sekhem into them.

He began channeling Sekhem, envisioning it as a sheath around the impossibly complex shape that the ab represented. By the time he’d managed to get it, dusk had fallen, and his Sekhem reserves were getting dangerously low. Then, just like that, he had it. He could encase his ab at will. He’d try again after a long night’s sleep, just to make sure it stuck.

[828/700 words]

Training for C-Rank Sekhem Orbs & Sekhem Flare

I’m sick of not being able to defend myself, Trent whined at the priestess he shared head real-estate with.

[I do not know what you mean. You can conjure shields and heal yourself. There are few more potent defensive applications of Hekau that I can impart, and those that I can, you are not ready for. Your connection to Ma’at is not strong enough, Chosen.]

That’s not what I meant. I meant… I mean, it’s all well and good to heal people and stuff, but sometimes the best defense is a good offense, ya know? He was out jogging, clad in sweats and a wife-beater; it was the dead of morning, but he’d been keeping strange hours of late.

[Ah. Well, as I have told you, Sekhem is not particularly suited for attack. Most of the spells that inflict harm are well beyond your understanding; the gods do not give their destructive powers to those who they cannot be sure will use them correctly. There are some spells that you may find useful, though.]

He bounced on his feet a bit, and threw a few jabs and an uppercut into the air. Lay ‘em on me, sister.

[We will require privacy, Chosen.]

He finished his jog in an abandoned lot. New York was the city that never slept, but at this ungodly hour, the traffic was pretty thin. Hopefully he’d be able to do his thing without gawking witnesses or interruptions.

[Both of the spells in question are highly inefficient, in terms of the amount of Sekhem they require. Sekhem is much more suited toward healing and protection than it is causing harm. The first spell, you would call Sekhem Flare. You must essentially overcharge your Sekhem network, and allow the resulting discharge to escape your body all at once, from every direction. You should begin by building up as much energy as you can; in this case, wastefulness is not entirely unwanted. Mastering the Flare will make it that much easier for you to learn the other spell, as well.]

Trent listened to and digested the lesson portion of the exercise. It sounded pretty easy; way easier than focusing his Sekhem into a scarab shield, or using it to heal injuries. Just build up, and release. He closed his eyes and went quickly through his visualization; it was getting to be almost reflexive, now, and soon enough he had kicked his Sekhem channels into overdrive. It was easy to forget how much of the stuff he had.

He let it build, doing his best to smooth out the flow, keep it even throughout the entirety of his body. At first it was simple, but the more power he added to the mix, the more unstable it seemed to get. Before long it was practically surging. The feeling was distinctly uncomfortable; it was like his heart beating too fast, but just a little. Just enough that he knew something was wrong.

Nefeki heard his fears and did her best to alleviate them. [I am surprised that you are sensitive enough to Ma’at to feel that, Chosen. That wrongness, as you call it, is just what I said. Sekhem is not truly meant to be used in this way, and so doing so will never feel as right as other applications. Continue, you’re nearly to the next step.]

Well, at least he wasn’t freaking out for no reason. That was good to know. He did as she said, though warily. It felt like there was a river of energy running through his body, threatening to burst the dam of flesh and escape in a torrent, by the time Nefeki finally spoke again.

[Now, regulate the flow. It must be utterly even, of the backlash will be… unpleasant. Take your time, Chosen, you continue to impress me with your intuition.]

He drew a deep breath and focused. Really focused. If the backlash was bad enough for her to warn him about, it had to really be something. He made little nudges here and there, getting eddies of Sekhem to join the stream coursing through him until the power was distributed evenly and cycling. He felt a little dizzy and more than a little queasy from all the juice flowing through him.

[Now you must visualize it leaving your body, all at once, like an expanding aura, and say the Word of Power Sahu-Ra to give the spell proper form.]

She always made it sound so damned easy. He sucked down another deep breath and did just as instructed.

The result was… agony. Searing, blinding agony. When he came out of the maze of pain, his skin was smoking and raw, and every cell of his body felt like it was on fire.

[-must begin healing quickly, Chosen, or the damage may be permanent.] Nefeki’s voice sounded more urgent than usual, cutting in mid-command.

Trent grunted piteously and began suffusing his flesh with Sekhem. The relief was immediate, but it took almost ten minutes of lying there and healing before he felt up to sitting, and five more minutes before he could stand.

“That’s one helluva backlash,” he mumbled blearily, stretching out some and cracking just about bone and joint in his body. “So what did I do wrong?”

[Your timing was off. Visualize, then immediately intone the word, or the escaping Sekhem will be uncontrolled.]

He got himself thrumming again, and then made sure that the flow of Sekhem was completely fluid and even before he dared give the spell another shot. This time he visualized and spoke almost simultaneously, gritting his teeth once the words left his mouth in anticipation of more pain.

There was none, though. The Sekhem erupted in a brilliant display, washing the entire lot in a glow of pale blue. It was just a flash; almost immediately, the lot was cast back into the near darkness tempered only by a few broken street lamps and the general glowy haze of Alphabet City.

[Anyone who witnesses the Sekhem Flare directly will find themselves unable to see for several seconds, Chosen. It is something of an admixture between defense and offense, but it is at least proactive, and a stepping stone toward the only attack you will be capable of at your current level. Shall we proceed?]

“Might as well… if I’m going to be dead to the world tomorrow, we should at least finish what we started.” He was sitting for the lecture portion, though. He dropped down on his ass, huddling his knees to his chest with his arms wrapped around them and listening.

[The Sekhem Orb spell is the only truly offensive tool in the possession of a fledgling champion of Ma’at like yourself. The basic technique is similar in nature to the flare, though you must focus the Sekhem into the channels in your hand and create a circular flow. The orbs make use of concussive force; they are not tools of killing, but of suppression. A being of average human stamina can easily be rendered unconscious, and something with average human mass should easily be knocked down.]

“Sounds pretty boss. So… circular flow? Then what?”

[Then you intone the word of power; Seth-Akha. The Sekhem should feel solid to you at that point, an orb of swirling energy. If you’re successful you will be able to throw the orbs, and the spell takes it from there.]

Sounded simple enough. And at least this time if he flubbed it up, it would only be his hands that got mangled.

[The backlash will actually be much worse, should you fail, Chosen.]

“Lovely,” he muttered. He couldn’t imagine worse if he tried. Better to get on with it then, while he still had Sekhem to spare for self-repair.

He closed his eyes and began the visualization. First he built up the overflow, then he steadied it, then he directed it to his hand. It was part imagination, part willpower, like always. He could as much “see” the path the Sekhem took to the channels in his hands as he could “feel” it.

The next part was what he was worried about. He’d never had to modify the direction of the flow before, so the prospect of creating circles was intimidating. He tried to visualize it like a loop, but that didn’t do anything at all. Next he tried to visualize it more as a whorl, a whirlpool of vibrant blue energy, and that got him somewhere. He could feel the Sekhem stirring, reacting, and he grinned.

[Over-confidence is the success killer, Chosen,] Nefeki warily intoned.

He was getting good enough that her interruptions didn’t wash his work, which was awesome too. Feeling emboldened, he refined the whorl of Sekhem, first in one hand, after which he concentrated until it was spinning stably without his needing to monitor it. Then, he did the same with the other hand. The first whorl started to act up as he diverted his concentration, but by making careful, alternating adjustments, he finally managed to fine tune the whole process into something stable.

Now for the moment of truth. “Seth-Akha!” he shouted, and the response was immediately. The Sekhem manifested, rotating around his hands like a pair of glowing blue globes. They were rotating fast, and the energy had… not mass, but he could feel air rushing in response to the rapid movement. So he just had to throw them?

He lobbed the first at the ground, some twenty feet away. At least, he intended to. The second the ball of energy “left” his hand, it streaked forward in a blur. Upon impact it exploded outward like a shockwave, not doing any damage to the asphault, but…

“Fuck yeah!” he whooped, gleeful as he released the second orb, this time taking the speed into account. It streaked into the chain-link fence, exploding so hard that the fence rattled for nearly ten seconds before stilling.

[Your progress is commendable, Chosen, but you should repeat the spells until you are adept enough at your Sekhem manipulation to cast them on the fly.]

“Yes, mother,” he droned in response, playfully. He was in too good a mood after that to argue with her, and he did just as he was instructed, flareing and orbing until his stores were nearly depleted.

[1717/1400 words]

Training for C-Rank Restore the Vessel

So let me get this straight. You want me to find a homeless dude who is clearly very ill, walk up to him, convince him to let me touch him, TOUCH HIM, and then magic away his illness? Trent was… not pleased with Nefeki’s latest lesson plan. He’d always had a bit of a thing about germs, not crazy crazy OCD, but touching a sick street-dweller tested the limits of his ability to deal with ew.

[It could be a female, as well, Chosen.] He would have –sworn- she was trying to tease him, there, but he never could tell. The priestess was as dry as they came. She could have been a BBC actor, if she’d been born 4,000 years later than she was.

Very droll. So… what am I doing exactly? You lecture, I’ll find Subject Zero. It shouldn’t be too hard. The destitute were everywhere in New York, even Manhatten, and at least half of them had to be sick. Maybe there was a better way. Without making Nefeki aware, he chose a destination and started walking.

[This spell entails Restoring the Vessel, rather than repairing it. You already know how to heal damage, which is the basis of this spell, but now you must apply it to undoing the effects of more insidious agents that can affect the khat. You do remember what the khat is, I trust?]

“The body,” he responded aloud. “Right?”

[Essentially, yes, but it is more apt to say that it is the physical housing for the soul. What affects soul affects khat, and vise versa. The blueprint, for lack of a better term, of the khat is encoded, for lack of a better term, on the soul. Rather than simply mend the khat, you must restore it to its original state as commanded by the soul.]

“So it’s kind of like… resetting a computer to the last saved backup?”

There was some hesitation before she replied. [Yes, Chosen. It is much like that, though it can be extremely time-consuming for extensive alterations to the khat.]

He arrived at his destination- a free clinic not far from where he worked. The place was packed, and so Trent sidled up against a wall to wait for a likely suspect. “So how do I swing this?”

[You must channel Sekhem into the recipient vessel, but instead of repairing the khat directly, you must empower the soul to restore the khat itself. Doing so is extremely painstaking; normal human beings can easily be damaged by Sekhem as potent as your own, so you must trickle it in, slowly building strength until the soul can do what it must.]

As always, it sounded far easier than he knew it would turn out.

Finally, he got a hit. A youngish dude, early twenties maybe, sort of cute in a scraggly way. He looked upset, which meant bad news. Trent broke away from his leaning point on an intercept course. The guy stared at him, blinking away tears and regaining his composure.

“Bad news?” Trent asked, lacing his voice with compassion.

“None of your business, buddy,” the guy retorted and started to move off.

“Hey, wait, I just want to help.” He reached out, grabbing the guy’s arm to stop him.

“Help how?”

“What would you say if I could make whatever you found out go away? No pills, no needles, just… gone.”

The guy fixed him with an incredulous stare. “I’d say you should be on Oprah, because if you can do that, you could make millions on the talk-show circuit dude.”

“Oprah’s off the air,” Trent put in smoothly. “But fair point. But… what if I could? Would you let me?”

The guy shrugged slowly. “I guess.”

Trent grinned. “Come with me then.”


He took the guy back to his apartment. This needed more privacy.

“Uh, dude, I’m not gay,” the stoner-ish guy intoned. “I got the clap from a girl, not a guy.”

Trent laughed. “You really aren’t my type. And you have the clap. So… moot point. Sit down.”

The stoner did, and then Trent knelt down in front of him, taking him by the hand and closing his eyes.

He didn’t even bother building up Sekhem, like he did when performing his instant triage. Nefeki had said to start slow, right? He tried to visualize a tendril, thread thin, of his life-force snaking up into a visualization of his house guest’s, but that got him nowhere.

[You will not be able to work the spell like you normally do, Chosen. You must use the Sekhem to navigate his network.]

“You always leave something out,” he murmured, trying again.

“Um, what?” the guy asked in confusion.

“Shhhhhhh,” Trent soothed.

Now that she’d explained it, he had an easier time getting in. The filament of energy snaked forward, very much like the device that plumbers employed to clear clogs. It never failed to amaze him how insubstantial the life-force of an Average Joe was. Slowly, he insinuated the filament, actually dialing it back even more, into the man’s wispy Sekhem network.

He guided the tendril up the hand, the arm, and into the chest cavity. He knew that was where he would find the… knot thingy… that corresponded to the soul.

[Tread carefully, Chosen. Once you have attuned yourself to his soul, even just an iota too much Sekhem could cause his heart to fail.]

Trent decided it was probably a good idea not to warn his unwitting patient as he thinned his power to the barest trace and hooked up with the soul-knot.

Stoner-boy’s body lurched, and for the first time, he actually thought Trent might be able to deliver on his promise. Unbeknownst to Trent, when he was doing it right, the subject would feel… amazing. Even a trickle of his Sekhem was enough to enervate the average human being.

“This is trippy man,” he stated before relaxing.

Trent was in too deep to reply. He focused on his work, following the path of the knot in hopes of finding… the blueprint for the body, or whatever. He was in for a shock; what appeared to be a tiny knot from a distance was massive on the inside. It wound and looped in on itself a thousand times, creating a labrirynth for him to dissect. Eat your heart out, Maniac McGee.

Finally, he found it… or what he thought was it. It was sort of like a node, but surprisingly empty.

[That is it, Chosen. Now infuse it with Sekhem, but slowly.]

Slowly. It seemed like days passed, though in reality, it was only an hour or so. By the time it was done, Trent was shaking all over, cramped and achey, and Stoner-boy wasn’t much better off. It all happened so suddenly when he was done. When the node was saturated, it suddenly released the imparted Sekhem in a wash that spread through every mote of the other man’s being.

“I am reasonably, sure,” Trent panted, standing shakily. “That you no longer have the clap.”

[1173/700 words]

Training for C-Rank Mantle of Sahu

Trent liked his soul abilities. They were less… work… than the sorcery that Nefeki imparted. Hekau was like homework half the time. He had to memorize spells, fine-tune his control of his own Sekhem, meditate… it was just a bit of a chore, really. He couldn’t deny that it was useful, but he welcomed the break.

Again, he was free to practice in his own apartment. Apparently “cladding himself in his shining soul” wasn’t liable to cause any property damage, or didn’t require a lot of space.

“Alright, soul sister, lay it on me.” He’d just finished a light lunch of tuna eaten directly from the can and some Pringles, and was feeling spry.

[I have made my feelings on that form of address known, Chosen, but as you wish. You remember the parts of the soul, do you not?]

Pop quiz time. “Yeah.” He flopped down on his futon. “There’s… the ab or ib, the ren, the ba, the ka, and the sheut… right?”

[Correct. Today, you will be working with your ka, in a way not dissimilar to the manner in which you can project your ba from your khat. The ka is the true seat of Sekhem, the counterpart to the ba, in a way. The ka is closely related to the sahu and the akh as well, and by manipulating it you can manipulate them.]

“Wait wait wait. What are the sahu and the akh? You skipped something.”

[Ah. Apologies, Chosen. I forget what you grasp. The sahu and akh are other souls, like the khaibit. They are similar to parts of the soul. The sahu corresponds to the ba, the akh to the ka, and the khaibit to the shut.]

He gave a hopeless sigh. “Other souls? You mean I don’t have just the one?”

[It is… a contentious term, I will admit. It stems from the transformations resulting at death. The sahu is the mummy, that which remains. The akh is the shining soul, that which ascends.]

“Okay. I get that, I guess. So, same soul, different name depending on whether its living, dead, or inbetween.”

[That is… close enough, for our purposes, I suppose. Not an inept way to think of it.]

“You say the sweetest things.”

Nefeki chose to ignore him, continuing. [To tap the akh, you must channel Sekhem into your ka.]

“Wait wait wait… I thought you said my ka was the font of my Sekhem, right?”

[True enough, but is also your connection to your akh. Think of it this way; if you squeeze a bladder filled with water, the water will escape. The fact that the water escapes the bladder does not prevent it from wetting it, does it?]

“I… guess not.”

[I believe you are familiar enough now that you need no instruction on how to access your soul, Chosen. You will find the ka if you follow the Sekhem.]

He turned his focus inward. He’d gotten so good at the visualization techniques involved in manipulating his soul and Sekhem that he didn’t even have to really visualize. He could just sort of dive in. Rather than just cutting to the knot that was his way of interpreting his soul, he decided to take his time and trace the flow of his life-force back to its root.

It took longer than he’d thought. The course that the Sekhem followed was winding and redundant. It was like completing one of those circular mazes you sometimes found on diner place mats, only the maze was more complex than a mandala.

At long last, he wound up at his ka. It was a vein of bright blue twisted through the knot in an intricate pattern, and now that he knew how to look at it, he could see the power pouring from it. Slowly, he began to channel Sekhem back into the ka, surrounding it in the life-force it exuded. He could feel the effects immediately. It was like a gear had been shifted, or something. His whole soul lit up like a Christmas tree, but as he processed what was happening, he realized that for the first time he was seeing one of the other souls. He finally understood why Nefeki had called his assessment inept; it was there all along, just dormant.

[That is the akh, Chosen. The Mantle of the sahu. The gods wore their akhs at all time, as did the pharaohs, and the shining glory of the akh bestows grandeur on the wearer and awe on the beholder. Open your eyes.]

He’d forgotten they were closed. As he did, he noticed immediately that a corona of soft golden light was limning his whole body, very much like some pictures of Egytian gods he’d once seen. “So you’re saying that people will… think I’m a god?”

[That is a crude way to put it, but in essence, yes. Be wary, Chosen. The power of the akh has led many of your predecessors astray from Ma’at. Overuse or misuse will surely lead you to corruption.]

[838/700 words]

Training for C-Rank Wisdom of Thoth

[This will be your first foray into Ren Hekau, Chosen.]

For once, his spell work didn’t require him to break into somewhere vacant or accost someone in an effort to help them. This time, he could do it from the comfort of his futon. It was a pleasant change, especially since he was feeling lazy today.

“Let’s go out on a limb and assume I have no idea what Ren Hekau is.”

[The ren is the True Name of a thing. Every person has one, but more than that, every object has one, every concept, everything. The names were recorded by Thoth the scribe and used by Ptah to create all of the universe. Being able to manipulate the ren is the most potent weapon in the arsenal of the chosen.]

“I am… really not following you.” He wasn’t ashamed to admit it as he kicked his legs up and clasped his hands behind his head to await the Cliff Notes version.

[For example: assume that you know the ren for stone. Once you do, you can perform a variety of spells that allow you to manipulate stone. By altering the ren, you might improve a stone or diminish it, or even transform it into something else. If you survive long enough, you might even be able to erase the ren, actually removing the stone from reality. Technically, all Hekau is ren Hekau. When you repair flesh, you invoke the ren of flesh, but not directly. Only when one is directly naming is it considered Ren Hekau.]

He mulled that over for several minutes. “Okay. I think I mostly get that. So… what ren stuff do you want me to do?”

[The most simple and difficult ren to work with is one’s own. It is simple because of your familiarity, but changes evoked never last long. That is the difficulty. This spell was once called Ren of Skill, but is now called Wisdom of Thoth. By incorporating the ren of a topic with your own, you can briefly gain almost full knowledge of the topic, with a number of limitations. That will come later, though. First you must learn to access your ren. Proceed as if you were attempting to locate your own khat-node, Chosen.]

He was secretly pleased that he’d called the node the right thing when he’d first learned to find it, but then he realized she was just parsing it in a way he would understand and sighed and got to work. Finding his own soul-knot was easier than finding someone else’s, and finding his own node was easy as well.

[Now, Chosen, you must find the ren.]

“What, praytell,” he said tensely, on account of epic concentration, “Does a ren look like?”

[I am afraid that I can offer nothing more, Chosen; in order to use Ren Hekau, you must make that discovery for yourself. It is the most difficult aspect of the spell, and locating the ren on your own is crucial to performing it.]

Just great. He spent nearly an hour pouring over the knot, but nothing screamed out ren to him. He found the khaibit, the node, the ka, the part that supposedly activated his ba… and nothing else. There was nothing else to find. The fortune cookie bullshit of it was starting to piss him off.

So it was a riddle, basically. One hand clapping, a tree falling in the forest, the part of his soul that wasn’t actually part of his soul. So… what was it, then? He began to scry the outlying edges of the knot, and got the impression he was on the right track. At first he followed that border, but when that got him nowhere, he tried a few other tactics.

It wound up being a bit like Magic Eye. He had to try to sense the whole border at once, and in three dimensions, which made his head hurt more than a little. Finally, though, he could see what seemed to be dozens of tiny characters hedging in the knot, giving it shape and form.

[That is the ren, Chosen. Finding the ren of another is much, much more difficult; to learn the ren of another will give you great power over them, one day. Now, to teach you some ren of skills, so that you can practice altering your own ren.]

It actually wound up being a lot like a word puzzle, which Trent liked to think he was good at. Actually, it was more like a number puzzle. Apparently, the Egyptians were pretty big on numerology. The math of it was weird, but easy enough to grasp with Nefeki’s help. It was all about balancing the equation of the ren; he couldn’t just cram the ren for basket-weaving into his own, he had to integrate it in accords with one of the seven different configurations so that it didn’t fry his brain.

Nefeki wanted him to practice on his actual ren, but he had a better idea. He got a notebook and pencil and went to town, finding the way to incorporate ren after ren into his own. The priestess even admitted afterward that he’d learned quite a few rens faster than she thought possible, and now he had a handy study guide. How about that?

[882/700 Words]