Honest-Abe-kun and Rutentuten have a little stare-off. Rutentuten has the advantage of eerily glowing eyes and the more general fact that he’s a revenant animated by the unholiest of forces. But Honest-Abe-kun has the arrogance of youth, plus his natural stubbornness, so he doesn’t shrink back from that at all.

Fortunately, there’s no real confrontation, in the end. Rutentuten is apparently rather unconcerned about the Pitch of the Gods. What would he need it for, anyway – he doesn’t play baseball. Uh, and he doesn’t play cricket, either, which is obviously more relevant. The only sport he participates in this running event he has to take part in every 50 years to maintain his title as pharaoh.

And they avoid the next conflict just as easily: they don’t disagree with each other’s spelling of the plural of sphinx. According to the dictionary, “sphinges” and “sphinxes” are both correct, and to demonstrate my perfect neutrality on the issue, I’ve assigned each of the two characters one of the versions. And they don’t even argue about it, giving a great example to all of us, I think.*

So, yeah, the Egyptian Temple of the Pitch of the Gods is being guarded by a Greek sphinx, and another one (clever avoidance of the plural, isn’t it?). An Egyptian sphinx isn’t that great as a guardian, since it’s not unnaturally alive and capable of eating you if you don’t answer her riddle correctly. Only a Greek sphinx can do that, and is thus much more useful as a gate guardian.

More on Monday.

* Also, there’s nothing to argue about. “Sphinges” is obviously the correct version, and only a complete idiot would argue otherwise. >_>