[b]Set![/b]

Caphtor thinks very, very hard, and then brightens! She’s figured out the answer. “Ah, of course. You must be working with Annan ab-Ereshkigali. That is very clever of her, bringing more than one [i]masrur[/i] on such an important mission! She’s here to catch the Phantom Thieves, you know.”

The locks on the door disengage and it rolls back silently, revealing the Nameless Library, built into a hollow pillar, the storehouse for every bit of knowledge the Annunaki wish to keep suppressed.

When you step inside, at first you must think that you have made some sort of mistake, that you fell for an elaborate trap, because the walls are elaborate depictions of Ereshkigal and the Ten Thousand Exquisite Torments. Here is the Rose’s Kiss, there is the Leading by the Nose, and there is the cruel Shutting of the Sarcophagus. (Rumors circulate about particularly stubborn sinners left blind and deaf and sustained for years inside those elaborate oubliettes, thrashing helplessly as Ereshkigal’s Love washes over them day in and day out.) And there, the Wiping of the Slate, the hypnosis that turns its victims into, if one were to be uncharitable, giggly useless ditzes. It’s not permanent, but reversal requires the forgiveness of the Inquisitiors, so in your case...

It very much would be so.

***

[b]Marianne![/b]

Jerry is trying so very hard not to look at those murals, isn’t she? So she can only look at the ornate carpet in the center of the chamber. It has anti-gravitational properties woven into its elaborate design, much like the war-chariots that darkened Earth’s skies. A stone plinth sits before it, and a tablet rests there, its stylus carefully chained to the plinth.

You look up, and see the niches, each one holding a scroll or another tablet, innumerable and leading up into the shadows. Ah. So that’s their game. You enter the carpet’s directions into the tablet, and it rises up to allow you access to one of the niches. Doubtless every access is logged and recorded. It’s likely one is an index, and that’s the only one that’s taught to the vast majority of Inquisitors; that’s the way you’d do it, if you were a paranoid, sadistic godling who got her kicks turning spanking, bondage, and sensory deprivation into divine sanctions.

Too bad she never expected that Marianne would be here to stick her hands into every little niche until she found what she wanted...

***

[b]Canada![/b]

It is fortunate that the chain of command is so rigid. Even though these janissaries know they have caught Canada, the notorious Phantom Thief, they had their orders: pacify the gladiators and put them in their cells. So here you are, in your new cell, chained to the wall by your wrists. The spare veil they forced over your face smells funky, and you’re very aware that the news of your capture is trickling back up the chain. Not the chain holding your wrists up over your head, the other one, the chain of command.

You’ve got a narrow window of opportunity here for getting out of this dingy cell before Unpleasant Things Happen, but it’s incumbent on you getting out of the cuffs, and your superpowers aren’t exactly helpful with that, right?

So you have time to think, and stew, and think back to when you first found the Power of Ra...