How It All Goes Down
We Win an All-Expense-Paid Trip to Death
- Carter takes over the narration in order to tell us how awful it is to be turned into a lizard. Worse, he feels like a complete loser for not contributing to their magician battle at all. On top of that, he was owned in basketball by baboons earlier in the day.
- The portal takes Carter and Sadie to a giant glass-and-metal pyramid by a river instead of to Thoth's office. However, Thoth is there, setting up some barbecue. He is also playing an electric guitar. Horribly.
- Turns out they're at the Pyramid Arena of Memphis. It's been abandoned, but Thoth declares that he's moving in.
- Sadie and Carter give Thoth the ankh, and Sadie confronts Thoth about how he was testing them.
- Thoth says that shabti make great stunt doubles, and he needed to know for certain that they could handle themselves in battle without unleashing the power of the gods within them.
- Carter tries to get Thoth to explain the painting of the cat, but Thoth is annoyingly evasive.
- Finally, Thoth agrees to look over the magic spell. He says it's an incantation for destroying Set (duh), but that it'll only banish him from the mortal world for a time. Centuries, perhaps.
- According to Thoth, Carter and Sadie can only read the incantation in Set's presence. Plus, they'll need two ingredients: Set's secret name and a feather of truth.
- The secret name is going to be tough to get, because how are they going to trick Set into giving up the secret name that'll give them power over him? Someone close to his heart might know it, which makes Carter and Sadie think of Nephthys, who was also probably released from the Rosetta Stone.
- The feather is also going to be trouble. Carter explains what it is to Sadie. When people died in ancient Egypt, they had to make a dangerous journey to reach the Land of the Dead. There, their hearts (representing how they lived their lives) were weighed against a feather of truth. If they passed the test? Eternal happiness. If they failed? Their souls were devoured.
- Thoth tells Carter and Sadie that they can probably get to the Land of the Dead via river travel, since that's how it's usually done. Khufu volunteers to come with them. Thoth tells them that children of the pharaoh always have metaphysical boat access. A boat appears.
- Thoth wishes them luck, and Khufu, Sadie, and Carter board the mysterious boat.