Quest for Bes' Sheut

The Quest for Bes' Shadow was a quest undertaken by Sadie Kane and Walt Stone to restore the dwarf god Bes after he lost his ren.

Prelude
While trying to restore the sun god Ra, Sadie and Carter Kane ran out of time to make it through the gates of the Eighth House of Night so they played senet with the moon god Khonsu for more time, wagering their ren and Bes' against three hours of time. After Khonsu got one of his pieces off of the board, he demanded one of their rens and Bes sacrificed himself for his friends, losing his ren and becoming basicaly mindless. Once everything was over, Sadie swore to find a way to restore Bes.

Start
While looking for a way to destroy Apophis, the Kanes learned the true nature of the sheut, or shadow from the god of funerals Anubis, that it was basicaly a "back-up copy" of the soul and that it could be used to restore a mortal's soul. Sadie realized that possibly the same could be said for a god and learned from the goddess Tawaret that Bes' sheut was in the ruins of Sais. After making a deal with the evil ghost magician Setne to find Apophis' sheut and capture and destroy it, he gives Sadie and Walt the information they need to capture a sheut and restore it to a being and they set off for Sais, having Isis send them via portal to the Nile River Delta near Sais. From there, they ride on the back of the albino shabti crocodile Philip of Macedonia to Sais where they encounter the goddess Neith.

Neith's Challenge
Neith offers them a deal: if they can survive her hunting them until sundown, she will help them find Bes' sheut and battle Apophis later when he rises. Given a five minute head-start, the two agree and split up to draw Neith in two directions to confuse her planning to contact each other using their shen amulets when in trouble and having the other transport them to their side via the amulet and then repeating the process to keep ahead of Neith. They succed, but get distracted when they come across Bes' sheut and Neith catches up to them both. However, noticing it is near sunset, Sadie secretly draws a protective circle and distracts Neith with stories of hunting Jelly Babies. Neith falls for it and sunset hits. Angered at being tricked, Neith charges them, but is repeled by the circle so she sends in arrows that nearly kill them before Walt turns them to dust with his powers. Recignizing it as a power from Anubis and accepting defeat, Neith leaves the two alone with Bes' sheut and places a hunter's curse on Sadie that she should be someday outwitted by Jelly Babies.

End
As Walt prepares to capture the sheut before the fading sunlight makes it disappear until the next day, Anubis appears, informing Walt that it is their last chance to do what they had planned. Walt agrees, saying he can't leave Sadie, a sentiment that Anubis agrees with. The two dodge Sadie's questions and Walt has Sadie watch as he binds the sheut to a shabti, something that he realizes is a much simpler task than Setne made it sound. Using the last of his energy, Walt binds the sheut and instructs Sadie to reverse an execration to use it to restore Bes. Sadie casts the reverse of an execration spell and Bes is restored.

Aftermath
Walt dies of his curse, but comes back as the host of Anubis. Walt tells Sadie that Setne has betrayed them and that to destroy Apophis, all that needs to be done is to cast the execration on his sheut in his presence. Walt/Anubis creates a portal to where Carter and Zia are and send Sadie there alone with the knowledge of how to bind a sheut to a shabti as he is still too weak to come and help himself. Walt/Anubis promises to meet Sadie at the First Nome at sunrise before she leaves.