Bastet Scrollkeeper's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Bastet wanted a seat among the Deep Scholars, the ones who chose which drowned knowledge rose again. She was only the Scrollkeeper of the Sunken Library, it was her job to catalogue sunken lost scrolls. Then the stars began to fall. Spilling from the sky. She peeked from her library door and watched them drop into the black sea, past scattered sheets of papyrus that drifted like leaves, one after another, stars were sinking like coins. One fell straight toward her. She caught it against her chest. It was a gold star, carved with a sun and rows of tiny Egyptian marks. It was surprisingly hot still despite the cold dark waters. This was a special sunken scroll despite it not being a scroll, it still held a sunken message. She knew the council would want to see this. And This was the thing that could earn her the seat she craved. She held it up to the light and pushed her glasses up her nose. The marks blurred and swam. She could not read a single one. There were more that fell. The location unknown to her. Each bore its own inscription. Without reading them, she could not tell which mattered and which were junk. She might carry a warning and it could really just be a shopping list. Still, the star in her arms felt too important to hide. She gathered it up and swam for the city of black pyramids. The Obsidian Pyramid City rose from the dark water, its towers cut through by a river of ink. A dark river ran between the shining black forms. Bastet clutched the star and followed the current inside. She had wanted to enter this place her whole life. Now she came with something she hoped was important, holding a message she could not open. The scholars gathered around her in a low council room. They floated in a slow ring and studied the gold star she set before them. One turned it over. Another leaned close. They spoke in murmurs she could not catch, and none of them smiled. "You bring us a star," one said. "But you cannot say what it tells us." Bastet felt her ears flatten. "I can bring it," she said. "I can find things no one else can find. That is what a Scrollkeeper does." "Finding is not knowing." The scholar slid the star back across the stone toward her. "Decipher it. Learn what it says. Then return, and we will hear you." So they did not turn her away. They gave her a task instead. Bastet lifted the star and pressed it to her chest. Her seat was no longer a dream. It sat behind one locked door, and she held the key without the way to use it. She swam out through the dark river with the star glowing under her arm. The marks still made no sense. But somewhere on the black sands, someone charted these very stars. Someone could read what she could not. Bastet fixed her glasses and turned toward the beach. She had a message to break open, and no time to lose count again.