[Charlemagne] Chapter Five: The Lost City of Cyrenaica

[Lev Lafayette]

Meditations of Eric

I write these words in the hope that when soldiers of Christendom discover
our bodies they will understand why we fell into the ways of the old
pagans of virtue.

The tale begins in 775 in the Year of Our Lord, after our party, servants
of Bishop Giselbert of Tournai, had rescued our liege from Widukind, who
calls himself King of the Saxons. During the course of those events we
witnessed a terrible spectral re-enactment of the Teutoburg forest between
the Roman and Germanic tribes. Merde swore an oath that night to the
Romans to recover the Eagle of the XIX, and that curse lies upon him.

Our our return with the good Bishop we were granted audience with the holy
King Charlemagne himself, where the issue of the destruction of Irminsul
and the Massacre of Verden was raised. Our Bishop pleaded for clemency on
this instrusion, which Charlemagne granted. When Merde explained the
nature of the oath that he had swore, there was further consternation,
resulting in leave for a year being granted to the Bishop's subjects;
myself, Merde, the astrologer Rebekkah, and the ruffian, Rainer.

Resarch was conducted and it was discovred from the records the indeed the
Roman commander Lucius Stertinius had recovered the Eagle of the
Nineteenth from among the Bructeri in 15AD. However, it's current location
was unknown and the last record of Stertinius was that he was transferred
to Cyrenaica. The party thus set sail across from Italy across the
mediterranean to the lands of the Abbasid Caliphate.

The journey was rough with myself, Merde, and Rebekkah suffering the
sickness of motion on the journey. Nevertheless, we completed our journey
and disembarked at Antipyrgus, which we were informed was the closest
position to where the old Roman legion was based. A merchant caravan
informed us they could detour from their planned journey to take us to the
fortifications which our research indicated was the location of
Stertinius' legions.

Alas for us, a mighty sandstorm arose and we were separated from our
caravan and found ourselves lost in the desert. However, partially hidden
by a dune was three classic statues; one of Mars, one of Apollo, and one
of Artemis. It was discovered that this was the entrance to a buried
pyramid. Making our way inside we were confronted by a number of natural
beasts that had made their home there, until we encountered a group of
individuals who spoke in old Latin and were dressed in said garments.

The story they told was incredible; the buried pyramid was actually the
home of an entire community who had cut themselves off from the world,
following the rule of the old pagan gods. They claimed to followers of the
old god Mars, and asked us to join them in their quest to overthrough the
rule of an evil Capricorn [yes, I know I said Sphinx - same thing,
curiously from the Roman to Egyptian perspective] which ruled as a god
over the population who had turned to the manner of the Thespians.

The Martians sought both recruits and to take a message to their
stronghold in the city and offered us food and water if we complied. With
little choice we did so, although their leader seemed to able to look into
our soul and determine whether we were sincere.

Continuing downard into the pyramid, we also encountered servants of
Dianna, which Rebekkah joined and then servants of Apollo, whose young
fine bronzed men Rainer found to their liking. The three groups seemed to
greatly disklike each other, yet each had a mission to the city. I was of
course astounded by the lack of modesty displayed by these pagans and
found that I had to avert my eyes.

Just prior to the encouter with the Apollians we alos had our first
encounter with the city population, the Cyrenaicans. This group seemed
quite dramatic, dressed in costume, and claiming to be demons, before
launching a failed and futile attack on the Apolloians. Nevertheless,
despite all this we now has a sense of an objective - to reach the city,
deliver or collect our quarry, and then hold the pagans to their hold and
have them escort us to the closest town.

April, 776AD



-- 
Lev Lafayette, BA (Hons), GradCertTerAdEd (Murdoch), GradCertPM, MBA (Tech
Mngmnt) (Chifley)
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