- - Francis Easton: "Cecil...Do you know where we are? We are in the land that has seen thousands of years of history unfold. The birthplace of advanced civilization. The home of world-famous wonders, older than our family lines themselves. Cecil... We. Are. In. Egypt."- Cecil Banning: "Stop kneeling. You look like an idiot."
On June 24th, 2010, two men set out to do the impossible. And then they almost die.
Francis Easton is a pitiful man. A respected Egyptologist, he falls on hard times, and he is left homeless with $10,000 to try and get himself back up and running. However, he uses that money to take himself and another homeless man, his old friend Cecil Banning, to Egypt, the land he's spent his life wanting to see.
And since they get caught up in the Revolution of Early 2011, they find themselves just trying to survive, and not doing a grand job of it.
This work contains examples (Not yet in alphabetical order, because I am a mess)of:
- Shout-Out: Cecil's surname, Banning, was the name of the main protagonist in some of the early Mummy films.
- Mr. Exposition: Francis's providing of backstory about the ancient monuments takes up a damned good lot of the work.
- Bad Ass Long Coat: Again, Francis. He wears a tattered robe over his regular clothes.
- Deadpan Snarker: Cecil, and Francis in response to it sometimes.
- Dream Sequence: Francis on the plane ride.
- How Fforaz and Francis first meet.
- Alternate History: The discovery of the treasure cache in the Valley of the Kings never happened, and we still don't know what the point of Seti's tunnel is.
- Jerkass: Cecil. Francis has some shades of this as well.
- Perci, though you only really get to see this in the 4th video.
- Those Wacky Nazis: killed Francis's father.
- Clothing Damage: Francis and Cecil start as looking quite battered, with some missing sleeves or holes in their trousers. While Francis buys new clothes that looks like pristine versions of the old ones, Cecil only gets worse, to the point where his long trousers become shorts and his t-shirt becomes a vest/waistcoat.
- The Guards Must Be Crazy: ...to not notice two suspicious foreigners messing about where they shouldn't be.
- Quintessential British Gentleman: Francis, though he lives in New Jersey. After the story, he becomes a citizen of Italy.
- Or so you're led to believe. He heads off to found the Kingdom of Ikana.
The Road Gypsy from that point on
Francis Easton, now going by the name Khazemi gramir du Ikana, reigned over the aforementioned... "borrowed", shall we say... Kingdom with his wife Perci da Capella for seven years, with Cecil (Now going by Garo de Parsa) as Prince and General, and Perci's sister Illupa as Vizier. Khazemi/Francis undertakes many construction projects, including an extensive world restaurant under Stone Tower, and a Garo Tower (Which was... not really his idea).
A lenghty and somewhat tragic war with Capella, the neighbouring city-state from which Perci hails, takes up much of Khazemi/Francis's attention for these years, as well as his inability to concieve with Perci. Eventually, after the war seems to be tipping in Capella's favour, he resorts to assassination of the Capellan emperor, Perci's brother Warnock. At this point, Perci is quick to desert her King, departing for a remote and secret location somewhere in western Afghanistan. With his Queen gone and his heart torn asunder, Francis climbs atop the Stone Tower Temple and appeals to the Ikani demigod, known as The Great Unifier, to bring her back, or to restore Ikana to its former status. The Unifier is unable, for these things are beyond his control.
Illupa goes off "to find Perci, maybe reason with her and get her to come back", never returning to Ikana. Garo drops his Ikani name and returns to Cairo, reclaiming an old apartment Francis had briefly owned. Francis lingers among the ruins of Ikana for some time before the Unifier comes to him and tells him to desert. Dropping his regal name, Francis returns to Cairo as well, followed by the Great Unifier, who sacrfices his powers to leave Ikana.
Francis, two years later, sets out to India, hoping to find Perci along the way (Secretly his whole reason for going), traveling on foot with intent of seeing the lands along the way. He stops to spend a night in the abandoned Assassin's stronghold in Masyaf, which had been repurposed as a hotel. In the lobby, he encounters a hooded figure, and late that night, returns to the lobby to investigate. The figure removes their hood, revealing themself to be Perci, headed first to Firenze, Italy, then to her new home in London. They spend the night talking, and then they head their separate ways.
One year later, Francis makes a final return to Ikana. Seeing his old home in ruins, he lets go of Perci, of Ikana, and of his depression. However, upon vacationing in his old hometown of Swaffham, England, he takes a day trip to London and accidentally runs into Perci and her new husband Laup while in the neighbourhood of Croydon. Perci attempts to make Francis jealous, to which he responds by abruptly leaving never to see her again. On the way back to Swaffham, he is contacted by a mysterious, ambiguous voice calling itself Fforaz, who instructs Francis on where to go; walking down the path it leads him on takes him to his home in Cairo. After a brief conversation with a depressed-looking Unifier, Francis falls asleep and has a face-to-face conversation with Fforaz in his dreams, who tells him to go to Cappadocia, Turkey and climb Mount Erciyes to find her Temple. Francis assembles a team consisting of himself, the Unifier, Cecil, Cecil's friend Yagsnivlac from Greece, and Jack's Spanish friend Magdalena Casas. They rest at the Ikana Tower of Cairo and prepare to venture into the East to find the Temple of Fforaz.
This Work Contains Unorganized Examples of:
- Shout-Out: Every video has a reference to Assassin's Creed, and the soundtrack is composed largely of music from that series.
- Psycho Ex: Perci da Capella, who harbours an irrational hatred of Francis, who hasn't actually ever done her any harm.
- Chosen One: Francis is implied to be one of sorts.
- This will be pretty much confirmed when "Prophecy of the Guardian" releases.
- Bad Ass Long Robe: Francis's white royal robe, which he then dyes greyish-blue; Cecil's Garo cloak.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Francis uses an artifact to relive the memories of someone from the distant past (Assassin's Creed), who killed seven people to win the love of his girlfriend. (Scott Pilgrim)
