MorcuCorp HQ

Apparently intrepid adventurers aren't supposed to get in here, especially if the folks set electric traps for anyone trying to get in. First I inspected it and determined that indeed it is an electric trap. Then, I attempted to disarm it, and finally I decided, ah, shoot, what the heck, I'm gonna try and cross it, and if it stings me, it just friggin' stings me.

I had to move around statues (what good are the doggone things if they don't block your path?) to unlock floor switches.

Then I crossed an electric trap, leaving it sizzling behind me, and I had to admit, I was feeling pretty good about myself.

But I took a few steps...carefully... towards one of the exit doors...and I heard...a small little clicking noise. What was that? I wondered.

Apparently I'd stepped on a hidden electric trap and gotten singed! Hell, I've had enough electricity going through my body to power a power plant.

Feeling a bit woozy after that one, I stumbled onward towards another room, this one containing a number of chests. I picked the locks on each and walked away with money bags, ancient coins, dive well fragments, even a crescent-shaped keystone.

I fit the crescent keystone through the hole and walked through the hidden door it opened.

I knew as soon as I saw the lamp and computers that this was where I needed to be. This was the main 'nerve center' of MorcuCorp and their entire international operation. I had to say, though, if they did run everything from here, it was certainly a sparse facility.

I saw the chest glistening in the front of the room. Aha, I said, this is where I have to put the mummitomium. As it was nearly midnight, there was no one inside. And this place was buried some distance below the ground. Of course. They couldn't put an operation like this above the ground, they'd most certainly be discovered.

I took the gemstones and ancient coins hidden in the chest but left behind the package of mummitomium Layla sent.

She phoned me soon afterward, with instructions to hack the boss' computer. I jotted the info down in my adventure journal. The reason to hack into the computer? To find the location of the second of the three relics.


I spotted a door in the back of the room and picked the lock to get into it. I spotted the computer I needed to try to hack. But hacking a computer? I hardly know what I need to know about computers, let alone hacking into someone else's. Boy, I needed a lifeline on this one. It was getting late, so I thought I'd try to tackle this in the morning.



In the meantime, some poor grunt left HIS computer on, so I used his machine to compose a letter to my publisher, realizing their deadline for having "Interview with a Mummy" finished and on their desk had already passed. I knew the closer I got to snagging these relics, the harder all this was going to be to synthesize. I needed an extension, and I needed one badly. I couldn't exactly say, give me one because I'm searching for a few elusive relics in Egypt. I composed a hasty email to my publisher that read like this:

"Dear Sirs: Please accept my apology for my tardiness in not turning in my drafts for 'Interview with a Mummy.' I had fully intended to turn them in on time, but I was called to return to Egypt for an important business matter. I shall have them finished when I return. Sincerely, S. R. Plumb."

I closed my eyes and waited. I decided to return to base camp.