Mosenth had hit the mother load! He could feel it in his gut. He didn't have any proof of this statement, but he knew it must be true. At least that was what the pot at his feet told him.
It looked old. Very old. Much older than the other things he had seen in his travels. He had come across it while wandering through the desert, looking for lost graves or the bodies of lost travelers buried in the sand. He was always looking for treasure to sell to traders. And this one looked like a real find. All around it there were little pictures, mostly large ones of what looked like the life of some common folk. Farming his land and eating with his family. The strange thing about it were they were not Stars. Mosenth had heard of ancient civilizations of Stars that used animals capable of holding things to make their habitats, accessories, and anything else someone with no fingers couldn't make. The images on the pot had fingers. They stood upright. They were a creature the stallion had seen before, but never strayed too close to out of fear of what they were. They didn't look friendly to him, carrying long sharp objects.
If, however, this pot meant he was close to a burial site of them, their objects would probably fetch a good profit. And if that was the case, he should have hired a few other Stars to come along with him to carry it all away. Or some other traveler would find the open tomb and take away all his loot.
Mosenth glanced up at the sun. Still lots of time left to the day. He wouldn't need to find shelter for many hours yet. If he was lucky, he could find the tomb before the sun went down and spend the night in there. It wasn't like anything inside it would mind. The owner was dead. And there were no such things as curses.
The stallion stopped every few feet to poke his hoof around in the sand, feeling for anything hard. He was not finding anything. The pot was slung across his back in a saddlebag he had traded for from a passing Star who seemed all too glad to be rid of them. He couldn't understand why. They were very useful. As was the cloth he had draped across his back. It kept the sun from shining down on his black coat too much and heating him up faster. Nonetheless, he was looking forward to finding this tomb and taking shelter within it.
After some searching, Mosenth came upon a series of mountains with paths in between. Natural paths. This was a naturally created series of mountains. Very curious. His treasurers mind told him he would find something here. Ancient cultures often left things or graves in mountains. Ritual sites. Settlements. There was something here. He could feel it.
But it was soon apparent that if there was anything here, it was expertly covered. Footprints in the sand lead him nowhere. There were no statues. No temples. No houses. Not even a scattered pot to show anyone had been here, past or present.
"Clever, clever," the stallion muttered, edging close to a rocky wall, sniffing for anything strange. He moved around a corner, and stopped in his tracks. There, before him, was an open door. It was partially covered in sand and the chiseled opening wasn't as large as it was supposed to be. On closer inspection, it seemed just large enough for Mosenth, who wasn't a very big Star, to squeeze through. His heart beat faster at the prospect of treasure. Gold. Jewels. For this was obviously a tomb of someone great. Why else bury them inside a mountain, so cleverly hidden from the outside world.
But as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, his hopes fell. Here was an empty room. There were small things scattered, some looking like they merely fell off something bigger. Footprints in the sand were not Star-like. Curiosity overcame disappointment and he followed them, for they didn't seem to go back outside.
At the end of the prints was something he had to turn his head away from.
What appeared to be the remains of two creatures like on the pot were sprawled across the tomb's floor. They were in such bad shape, even a traveler like Mosenth could only look for so long. What had happened here? It looked like a massacre of those two people. Whoever had attacked them didn't like them. Maybe they were criminals who had come to steal the jewels and been cornered by stronger raiders?
He dared to glance back at them.
There were prints on their bodies like that of a cloven hoofed Star. They were split down the middle wide, telling him by that alone that they belonged to an Algeidi. That still didn't mean much to him. Stars could be thieves just the same as whatever these two had been.
Above them Mosenth found a book. Skilled in different languages, he opened it with a hoof and bent his head, trying to use the glow of his legs and eyes to give enough light to see by. It wasn't a language he knew, nor a familiar one. It was the only thing left in the room. Whatever killed the creatures didn't want the book. Was it cursed?
Looking up, he saw the doorway leading to another room. Through it there was an open door, beyond that a coffin with the lid thrown off. Hoof prints from the coffin matched those on the bodies. Now that he really thought about it, there had been something red in the dim of the entrance, hadn't there? He hadn't stopped to investigate, too excited about what lay beyond. With all the clues laid before him, he could only come to one conclusion.
Whoever had been entombed here had awoken, was not alive judging by the stale smell in here and the rotten bandages left behind, and was in the world somewhere. They were obviously dangerous. And he couldn't read the language of the civilization they came from to figure out who they were. They were the kinds of Stars Mosenth avoided. But something about this one peeked his interest. It was a walking mummy. A walking mummy who had been someone important and was strong enough to kill. Mosenth was not a strong Star, known more for his sneaking and cunning. If he could get in touch with this Star, perhaps he could weasel his way into their good graces and raise himself to a position of high power more easily than the rate he was going at. Yes. That sounded like a better plan.
Now there was just to find this Star.
Before leaving the tomb, Mosenth snatched up the book and tucked it away in one of his saddlebags.
