[Aya has entered from the Ramses Hilton]Tipping her cap up to look at the top of the Citadel walls; the shadow of which she stood in was apparently a millennium old. During her cab drive over Aya had realized an issue with her riddle; it only pinpointed to the Citadel, not anything else inside its walls. She was not completely sure where to begin. Closing her eyes and repeating the riddle in her head,
'At the centre of the Capital of the Arab World, watched over with a thousand eyes-' "A thousand eyes," whispering the line to herself,
'The chandelier in the Alabaster Mosque supposedly has a thousand crystals hanging from it,' hunching a little at the concept,
'Already made the association to Ra, etcetera. Could argue the chandelier represents a sun?' it was a better hunch than anything,
'It's the biggest and highest up structure in the whole Citadel anyway. The better of first guesses,' a fleeting moment had the girl wishing she brushed up a little on foreign and ancient history in Seattle.
Aya's cab drifted off, leaving her outside the main gates to the fortress. A mass of people moved about inside the walls of the Citadel, the narrow paths between buildings acting as ferrying lanes to keep people moving. A slight slope in the lane suggested the hill she was on, and that the top of it rested her target, the Alabaster Mosque. More popularly known as the Muhammad Ali Mosque; Aya couldn't help but think of a giant poster of the famed boxer hanging from the building in that instance.
Huge would have been an understatement. It dwarfed the Citadel's Nasir Mosque beside it in comparison with more tourists heading in its direction with a clearly higher amount of interest for the building. The snap of a SLR camera shutter pulled Aya's attention towards a Swiss couple marveling at the pale turquoise domes; a thought of image capturing crossing her mind.
An small market resided just outside the Ali Mosque in a quaint garden, the gentle patter of water dripping from a fountain surprisingly well heard after stepping into the silent green from a noisy crowd. At the centre of the crossing stone paths stood a single well; Aya poking her head over to observe the darkness below. She looked between the Mosque and the well a few times, lining them both up. Stepping back as theories hit the facts bucket; while turning away from the opening she dropped a dime into the maw before heading to the market.
Aya approached one of the street vendors, bills in hand,
["One of the disposables, please,"] she pointed at the single use Polaroid cameras and exchanged the cash for it before heading back towards the Mosque. The ivory girl met a religious sight she had yet to experience before, and would otherwise get in the way of her investigation.
["Please excuse. Prayer is currently open in the Mohammad Ali Mosque,"]A guard in tan fatigues had stood in her way holding his hand up having confronted her a good 30 metres from the Mosque itself; the courtyard of the Mosque was filled with so many praying Muslims that an overflow of bowing Egyptians filled the area outside of the building itself.
["My apologies,"] Aya was quick to interject any impression she would simply barge in,
["Can you tell me when today's prayer might end?"] she made the mistake of asking. The tone she received in return was a bitter and grudging one.
["An hour. Move along."]Nodding nervously, Aya continued up the path as the guard had asked. It was sin not to pray in Muslim religion; requesting what time it would end was next to the least respectful thing anyone could ask. Aya found herself scowling at the nuisance,
"Fine then," talking under her breath,
"If you want to be difficult,"She had returned to the market, crossing to the opposite side and leaning over the wall looking down the man made cliff. Taking a quick snapshot of the buildings below Aya gave one last cursory glance at the people in the garden, making sure all eyes were averted, and leaped over the brick barrier.
Cut into the limestone about a metre from the top of the wall ran a ledge all the way around the perimeter of the Citadel. Aya clung to it, her fingers wrenched shut on the grapple she had taking a quick look at the rooftops below. She began scaling around the fortress, keeping the pale turquoise domes in sight.
The north-western wall of the Mosque synced up perfectly with the perimeter wall, the clock tower of the courtyard roof directly above her head. Aya counted to three, rocking gently with each digit, and launched herself skyward reaching out to grab the tiles of the roof. Like a gecko she shimmied herself up to a view of the courtyard square, praying Muslims packed in like sardines. Nobody lifted their head up from the ground, Aya was free to look down on them without fear of anyone watching the roof,
'If only breaking and entering was a little more like this,' the former cat burglar mused while progressing around the courtyard towards the building proper of the Mosque.
Closed glass doors faced the centre point of the courtyard keeping everyone out; Aya would need to find another way in. Scaling further up to the windows around the rim of the central dome; the dry air of the Sahara truly carried in from this height. Aya breathed in deep to adjust to the temperature, moving around the half globe for a suitable window. None of them could open freely so, while hiding in the shadows of one of the minarets, she was forced to dig her fingers into the plaster and tear one out.
Clean. It was only small enough for her to fit through either way; any damage would only be discovered once herself, Tyson and Matthew were far away from the country regardless. Slipping through the opening she had made and dropping to the red carpeted floor below, her shoes making a dull slap at the loudest.
A successful insertion,
"About 45 minutes before prayer ends, girl. Better find what you're looking for before then," she surveyed her grand surroundings soaking up the light and colour.
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365 lamps hung in rings from the ceiling all level with each other, designed to look like oil lamps but from a lack of scent Aya presumed they had been switched to electricity a long time ago. At the very centre of the mosque ceiling a motionless chandelier shimmered with illumination; the suspected culprit in all of this.
Symmetry was close to perfected in all aspects of architecture; from the design of the carpet, the four identical support pillars and the patterns along the inside of the domes running into the ceiling. A small alter resided at the east wall, and a minbar sat in the south-eastern corner. Minbars looked similar to a staircase leading to nowhere; royalty would climb to the top to address all of their people below them. Not to be confused with minibars.
Aya couldn't help but feel a little spooked by the atmosphere. More so when another, smaller room further in held the tomb of the departed Muhammad Ali Pasha himself. A dastardly intricate stone coffin with three levels; a level as in what looked like another coffin stacked on the last; each getting smaller in size with old Arabic embossed into the head wall with what the pale girl figured was gold. At the foot of the top level stood a tall tablet, most likely some flattery inscribed into it of the old Egyptian viceroy.
To begin with, Aya tried merely lifting the lid off with her own strength. It was possible, though after hearing the creaking sound of something taking on stress she decided against the idea,
"Would have been too simple anyway," she stood back, placing her hands on her hips. More than likely it worked via some mechanism; Aya did want to leave any evidence of tampering at the same time, so she was at a loss at merely breaking in.
Climbing up on top of the tomb in hopes of finding something to look at, a pressure plate depressed. Aya squeaked in fright from the sudden drop. The entire lid of the coffin started to move on a horizontal axis; stone grinding against stone. Aya stood up, holding onto her balance as her vision shook like a tearing frame rate. Upon closer inspection of the roof of the coffin it became clear Aya was looking into the eyes of a cobra, it's hood dilated and a perfect circle carved into it.
"Sun," she smirked. Aya figured what they were looking for wasn't the bones of an old viceroy, but it was an obvious hint at the right direction albeit stuck in an arbitrary location.
The sound of a solid stone lock dropping in place signified the completion of the lid's movement. Aya leaned over to look into the darkness of the tomb, her eyes adjusting to see clearly. It ran another six feet deep, the remains of royalty lying below among many other items. Asking forgiveness for defiling the resting place, Aya dropped in; her feet crushing several antique trinkets.
Wrinkling her nose in putrefaction as stale air filled the bronze haired girl's olfactory senses; Aya looked down into the hollow eyes of Muhammad Ali, the boxing gloves covering his hands clearly invented by her humorless imagination.
In front of her, nearly hidden by the immense darkness, Aya could make out what appeared to be an age old form of lever. The user end of it anyway. Taking hold of the handle and pulling it out of the wall, dragging it downwards, and pushing it back in.
For starters the lid of the tomb began sliding back into place; Aya looked up to see light vanishing from above. She ejected herself hastily landing in a haphazard roll once out of the rotten coffin. The second mechanism heard came from back in the main area of the Mosque; not loud enough to grab the attention of all the praying people outside, only resonating enough for Aya to catch on that something was happening.
Watching in astonishment as the chandelier began to lower itself towards the floor, the lowest hanging crystal only millimeters away from touching the stone. Once it had finished its descent the many rings of lanterns began their ascension, each outer ring raising slightly higher than the last. A focused line of light cast out from the crystals, hitting each stage of lanterns all the way to the ceiling before bouncing inwards of the main dome and meeting dead centre of its bowl. Aya took a snapshot of what she was seeing.
A moment of the gleaming light passed before the beam shot back down into the chandelier and from there into the floor,
'The Mosque is supposedly made of Calcite. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of chemical reaction,' Aya formulated an answer to how the mechanism could possibly work.
An answer to the end all of the riddle sounded off as the minbar staircase started to drop into the ground slowly, taking another snapshot of the entrance,
"20 minutes left,"________________________________________________________________
The minbar had connected to a narrow, square stairwell which continued below the surface, deep beneath the Mosque. Aya stepped out of the tight corridor into a broad cavern at the landing of the set.
Near pitch black surrounded her making the cavern feel more claustrophobic than it needed to be. At a distance stood a single, white harbinger of light painting a circle on the ground. Aya took gentle steps towards it keeping a close eye on the floor for any booby traps; considering how ancient archaeologist adventure this was getting, nothing could surprise her at this point.
Looking up from where the light came from, Aya smiled,
"The well," looking down at her feet. A mess of coins scattered all over the floor amongst half an inch of settled dust. She picked out the shiniest, most recent wish dropped into the well; her dime sitting snug atop all else.
Picking the coin up revealed a faint glint, confusing in its brightness. Aya scratched at it pushing away more dust to reveal more glean. Readjusting herself, the archaeologist wiped her forearm across the dense surface of dust. After a minute of spring cleaning Aya had completely uncovered a stainless blue hatch built into the stone floor,
"You don't look so 18th century, my friend," she spoke to it in a condescending tone, trying to interpret the ancient Egyptian carved around the rim.
No handle was visible, but its operation was clear. It opened outwards, she could peel it off but...
She was getting ahead of herself,
"Remember who you're dealing with, Aya," standing up and taking a step away. As far as her curiosity wanted to take her they needed to go into this prepared. She lined the viewfinder of the Polaroid with the hatch, switching the flash on to take a picture.
In that moment the light from the camera's flash brought the entire room to life Aya caught approximately 3 separate figures all standing in offensive postures around her.
Startled, the cold tug of wire around her throat pulled her away from the white harbinger and into the darkness. Feet against the dirt and stone floor echoed in the cavern all around screwing with her senses as a lack of oxygen left her slightly disoriented. She blinked, her pupils picking up a crimson tint as Red vision kicked in. All hostile figures looked like white marionettes against a red backdrop.
Aya reached back to grab both hands of her attacker, crushing them. The pain he suffered from made him scream out loud while Aya pulled the wire away from her throat and wrapped it around his neck; still held by his own hands she gave it a sharp tug and severed his head from his body turning the short lived scream into a blood curdling gurgle.
Now the darkness was to her advantage, the dust covering the floor muffled her footsteps. Creeping up on one of her victims who looked around furiously trying to make bearing on where everyone was; they didn't communicate for the sake of silence, that was her own benefit.
The assailant held a machete; its steel blade cold from the black silhouette it had over the red backdrop. The attacker was surprised to find it suddenly vanished from his grip, looking to his hand as Aya brought it down onto his head.
The final attacker had heard the commotion, switching a flashlight on to see where Aya had gotten to. Breathing coarse, nerves almost cooked as his hands shook. A dark shadow cast on the wall behind him, the classic view of the victim overwhelmed by the invisible killer. The flashlight fell to the floor as muffled shouts were emitted, the sound of a struggle sealed with a wet crunch.
Picking up the flashlight along with her camera, Aya shone light onto the faces of her attackers. They looked no more than small time mercenaries,
'Had they been down here the whole time?' she couldn't work out their story,
'Were they sent by Medusa?' Aya hadn't felt inclined to ask them considering they likely wouldn't have known.
While thinking her train of thought somehow went full circle back to the fact she was on the clock,
"Christ. Out of time!" having no clue as to how long the tussle between her and her attackers had taken, Aya bolted back for the stairwell.
A similar lever to what she had found in the tomb sat in the wall just before the minbar, activating it and riding the faux stairwell back up into the Mosque.
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Aya took her place in a break between the glass doors, all of the archaic mechanism had returned to the way it was as if the lanterns had never moved; not even the crystals of the chandelier swayed.
The banter of people grew as the Muslims finished their prayers, standing and walking in groups towards the doors of the Mosque chatting about many different topics. Aya waited until the flow of people dimmed before exiting through the entrance beside her, crossing the courtyard and leaving the Mosque.
Pulling the baseball cap off and fitting it backwards onto the head of a kid passing her by, hand held by his parent and zero protest as to why Aya had done what she did.
It became ever obvious as she passed the guard from before, a major piece of her profile missing letting her slip freely under the veil of security, heading for the exit of the Cairo Citadel.
[Aya has left the area]