K’ip and Si’ri shouldn’t feel too bad about ruthlessly ransacking those ancient remains…it’s well within the bounds of the prize-winning Dr. Henry Jones jr. Archeological Method, and thus perfectly acceptable in a work of fiction. Real-life archeologists usually try to avoid having skulls roll down the hallway, but then, real-life archeology is pretty boring. =P And K’ip and Si’ri aren’t even archeologists to begin with…fantasy is commonly set in a past of unspecified distance, but definitely distant enough that they don’t have to treat artifacts from an even more distant past with any sort of special reference.
And then they perform the ritual, which naturally involves a lot of dancing, chanting, bowing, singing, scraping, waving incense around and all of that good stuff, as a proper fantasy ritual should. I’ve restricted myself to only a short excerpt of a long ritual in the depiction. Naturally, fantasy rituals also require special ritual vestments, and the task of wearing them falls to K’ip, since you wouldn’t see much of them on Si’ri. Here, Ms. Wong displays a final, impressive, beyond-the-grave demonstration of her prescient abilities – by prescribing exactly the kind of outfit she’d have liked to see on a young En’ilef like K’ip. That it’s not the kind of outfit K’ip likes to see on himself only makes the posthumous joke funnier. Getting to humiliate the hero is part of the perks package that comes with being a wise old hag in a fantasy story.
And then…not much happens. Or even anything, really. And that is odd. This is fantasy, not real life, so if something important happens, you have a right to expect noticeable visuals to come with it. The purpose of the ritual was to summon the heroes from another world, after all, and while it’s certainly true that the Elder never distinctly stated that they would appear immediately within the context of the ritual…isn’t Si’ri kinda entitled to have been expecting that, considering the genre? Something might be off, in my humble, if unusually well-informed, opinion. =P
More on Thurs…uh, Monday.