The Wonder Hole was deep, dark, and filled with the glitter of cursed diamonds.
The Grootslang lay coiled around its hoard. It was a mistake of creation—too strong, too smart, a blend of elephant and serpent that the gods had tried to split but failed. It smelled something ancient entering its cave. Something that smelled of embalming fluid and judgment.
Anubis, the Jackal-Headed, walked through the stone wall as if it were mist. He held a golden scale in one hand and an ankh in the other.
"This is not a tomb," Anubis stated, his voice echoing from everywhere. "But it will be."
The Crush of the Earth
The Grootslang hissed, raising its massive trunk. Gem-Sense told it this invader had no jewels, only death. It attacked.
Primordial Constriction.
The beast lunged, its serpentine body filling the cavern, aiming to crush the god against the diamond-studded walls. The sheer physical mass of the Grootslang was enough to shatter bedrock.
Anubis did not move. He tapped his staff on the floor. Natron Ward.
A wave of grey energy rippled out. Where it touched the Grootslang’s skin, the flesh turned dry and brittle. The moisture was sucked out of the air. The Grootslang roared in pain as its hide cracked like old parchment.
The Weighing
"You cling to the earth," Anubis said. "But the earth belongs to the dead."
Path of the Duat.
The cave dissolved. The diamonds faded. They were standing on the black sands of the Underworld. The Grootslang, cut off from the physical strength of the living world, slumped. It was just a spirit now, and a heavy one.
Anubis held up the scale. "Your heart is heavy with greed," he diagnosed.
He placed a feather on one side. He reached into the phantom chest of the beast and pulled out its heart—a black, pulsing stone of avarice. He placed it on the other side.
The heart dropped like lead.
"Unworthy," Anubis pronounced.
From the shadows, a second beast emerged—Ammit, the Devourer. Anubis tossed the heart to his pet. The Grootslang faded into nothingness, erased from the afterlife, while Anubis turned back to his eternal patrol.