7979/Hamunaptra: Natural History Museum

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Hamunaptra: Natural History Museum
Date of Scene: 21 June 2019
Location: American Museum Nat. His.
Synopsis: Nathan Drake, Samantha Nishimura and Lara Croft run a casual look over of the artifacts sent to the Natural History Museum from the supposed lost city of Hamunaptra.
Cast of Characters: Lara Croft, Samantha Nishimura, Nathan Drake
Tinyplot: City of the Dead


Lara Croft has posed:
A back room in the Natural History Museum. Its not a room for the public. Its a room where museum artifacts are stored, researched and catalogued. A sign on the wall has it lovingly named 'Laboratory & Research Room 2C'.

Lara had invited Samantha here tonight because there'd been a newly arrived collection of discovered relics from a city thought to have been lost long ago. A light is flipped on when the duo arrive within the room, Lara steps in and reaches up to remove a scarf from around her neck, she tucks it into a messenger bag on her hip.

"Three, thousand, years, the city of Hamunaptra has been lost to record." Lara says to Sam, having been chewing on her friend's ear the whole walk through the busy touristy-trappy museum up to this room.

Lara walks to a table in the center of the room where boxes are, lights above it shine down brightly. "These clues could lead us to it though, if we're lucky." She glances back to Sam and smiles softly to her friend. "What I need is your eyes and that camera skill of yours. To take as many photographs as possible with the best lighting, and... well, you know your craft better than I."

Samantha Nishimura has posed:
Samantha wanders among the artifacts, noting color, depth, and shape. She scribbles notes on her tablet, her eyes flitting from each artifact to her tablet, and back again. "Hamunaptra..." She shoots a sidelong and incredulous glance at Lara. "You just made that up, didn't ya? It's all right. You can tell me. I won't rat you out." She winks, and goes back to looking at the artifacts, considering angles, and scribbling more notes. "All the time I was in Africa, I was wishing I could come across a trove like this. I don't seem to have your knack for unearthing the ancient MYSTERIES of the WORLD," she says, giving those last three words wigglefingers for effect.

Nathan Drake has posed:
Nathan MAY or MAY NOT have snuck into the back room, using his stealth to hopefully sneak up on Samantha and Lara, leaning against one of the bookshelves that HOPEFULLY won't fall over. His luck is kinda shit like that.

Yet on most occasions, he literally stole the luck of the devil himself.

He grins at the pair. "Hunanaptra, huh? Sounds like an adventure waiting to happen!" he looks at Samantha and gives her an upnod. "Hey hey." then to Lara. "You didn't miss me too much, did you?"

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara moves a few steps behind Sam alongside the table with her hands held together in front of her lap. She smiles faintly at her friend's words. "I didn't find these." She corrects her. "Colleagues at the museum in Cairo located them on a dig for one of the local universities. They've sent these here for our more advanced analysis systems and... well, they wantd my opinion on them as well."

"Hamunaptra is--" Lara is cut off then by Drake's arrival. She pauses and looks back to see the man having slipped into the room.

"I thought I saw you out there." She says to Nathan with a light smirk. "Samantha, this is Nathan Drake, he's a... relic recovery expert?" She asks, then glancing to Nathan with a raise of her left dark brow. "And this is Samantha Nishimura, my closest friend and the best film and photography expert in Manhattan. She specializes in our shared interests, Nathan." The introductions are made and Lara looks between the two of them.

The table, yet remains a display of many things, likely to grab Nathan's attention. Hamunaptra is a legendary city of the lost treasures of the Pharaohs. He'd definitely know of it.

Samantha Nishimura has posed:
"Hmm...Well, this stuff is legit cool," Samantha replies to Lara half-explanation, glancing at Nathan momentarily. She turns her back to him briefly, facing Lara instead and gestures, jerking a thumb toward the man, mouthing the word, "Stalker?" silently. She follows it up with another gesture, drawing a finger across her throat. An offering, perhaps, in case this guy is, indeed, a stalker. But she keeps it all hidden from Nathan.

"Nice to meetcha, Nathan Drake," she replies aloud, writing down his name on her tablet in case she needs to be a witness later.

Nathan Drake has posed:
Nathan looks at Lara then specifically. "Oh, this is Sam?" he looks at Samantha and gives a smirk and a finger-wave. "Hey Sam, nice to meet you." Then to Lara. "Resting place of the great wealth of Ancient Egypt. Also known as the City of the Dead. You know, that place that is screamed of in the texts to never, ever touch?" Though of course, this just makes Nate smile. "When do we leave?"

Is he crazy?

But he does wink at Lara. "Relic recovery expert." he confirms.

Lara Croft has posed:
On the table specifically are what appear to be ancient spear heads, headdresses and a number of smaller objects, small containers made from old worn metals with detail inscriptions. One particular item stands out though and would likely catch anyone's attention, its a golden mask with its mouth wide open and its eyes tightly closed, it looks as though its screaming up at the ceiling in agony and though its edges are rough and old, it still softly gleams in the light.

Lara gives a sly grin to Samantha's word of Nathan's intentions here. She gently shakes her head to it though and when Nathan chimes in with information on the city itself she motions toward him with a hand. "Precisely." She says to him as though he were a student and had just answered a classroom query correctly.

At the idea of rushing away to this lost city, Lara just softly laughs. "I'm afraid that might be a bit hasty yet still, Nathan." She tells him as she turns to the table and places both of her hands down upon it, her forefingers and thumbs pressing gently to the table's edge as she looks down at the items. "Sadly the city yet remains lost. I haven't had a chance to... delve into these items yet. Samantha is here to get visual records of them for me." She smiles to Sam, then looks to Nathan.

"No touching, either." She warns the man, knowing full well that he'll likely start juggling them any moment.

Samantha Nishimura has posed:
"You want to touch it all SO BAD, don'tcha Nathan?" Samantha gestures to the relics in a sweeping motion, like one of Barker's Beauties. "All this...AND DEATH... can be yours, IF...the Price is Right..." She wiggles her brows and grins. "Wait, did we not want Nate here dead?" she asks as an afterthought, beginning to dig through her camera bag.

Nathan Drake has posed:
"Yeah, actually." Nate admits with a small smile, chukling a little bit before he looks at Lara. "Hey, I was askin' for an estimation. Though I can still get my bags packed for tomorrow in like...two hours, tops." clearly he has amusement in his look. But then he looks at Sam. "Uh...Lara, does uh...Sam not want me here?" he stage whispers.

"Well, good thing our specialty is finding Lost Cities. I mean...you found a lost island, I found Shangri-la...you found a hidden city that legend didn't even knew was a thing and you found excalibur, and..you get the idea." Nate chuckles.

"What? Why no touch? I have to go through the customary juggling process, Lara."

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara starts to round the table, she lets Samantha do her thing when she sees her start to sort through her camera bag. Lara moves past Nathan then and pats his arm softly. "She likes to tease, Nathan, don't take it to heart. Its how she shows new people that she's in charge." Lara says this with a faint smirk and a calm voice, she passes him by and moves on around to the other side of the table where the shipping containers were that these artifacts were removed from.

"Finding a city that was supposedly buried in a magical sand storm is no easy feat, either. Even for any of us. It would take a lot of shovels, and thats assuming you'd even know where to stick them." She states as she moves some of the packing container insulation around and as she does this an item falls from the plastic and lands on the floor, small and cylindrical it rolls over to bump against Samantha's left foot.

Its an odd looking little thing, like a small music box almost.

Samantha Nishimura has posed:
Sam opens her mouth to suggest where they might stuck the shovels, but then she reconsiders, and closes her mouth again, screwing a filter on over her lens. "I'm in charge, by the way," Samantha quips to Nate. That is the other way she shows new people she's in charge.

Then, the small item bumps against Lara's foot. "Oooh, festive. What's THAT little fella, then?"

Nathan Drake has posed:
Nate looks at Lara and mouths 'oh' before Sam literally just tells him that she's in charge. "Sure you are. Just if we get Sully involved, don't tell him that." he winks, though he does return his attention to Lara as she reveals further that they still don't know even the general vicinity of where to dig. Nate looks at the music box that falls out and rolls along the floor.

"Looks like an antique music box. I wonder if it can still hold a tune."

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara hadn't even noticed the box fall out of the packaging, it had slipped past her and fallen down out of her peripheral vision. So when the others speak of it, thats when she stops what she's doing and turns around, her eyes go to Nate, then to Sam and then down Sam to the item on the floor.

"What?" Lara says softly then as she steps over to it and takes the initiative to lean down and pick it up. In a crouch now she examines it, but she's beneaht the table blocking the light so she rises back up with it and stands between Nathan and Samantha, holding the box in a way that all three of them can easily see it.

"This isn't a music box." Lara says quietly. "Look." She raises her right finger and she draws it across the markings. "Hieroglyphs." She states, though both Nathan and Samantha are likely able to determine that.

"This is a container." She starts to roll the object over in her hands, scanning the rest of the markings upon it. "Its all backwards." Lara says, and if one is keen enough they'll likely note that as well. "It has to have a pressure spot on it, where to press to open it..."

Samantha Nishimura has posed:
"Wait. Lara, we might not WANT to open that thing," Samantha warns. "I mean its value as a beautiful artifact might be greater than the worth of any evil spirit inside it." This may also be true of Sam. "Don't you think it's bad enough you're touching it? You have all those cursed cooties and stuff on you now..."

Nathan Drake has posed:
Nate looks at Lara, then back to the box, but he watches as she lifts it up.

"OR she might want to. Who knows? It could have a clue." Lara was a bit better at Box deciphering. But he does remain on standby in case his services are required. Otherwise, he stays right where he is, and he looks at the hieroglyphs on the box. He keeps his arms crossed, though his eyes remain on the box as Lara searches for the pressure spot.

Sam gets a smile. "I be 10 bucks that there isn't an evil spirit."

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara has to continues to spin the box around but eventually she hears both of them and she just looks up and laughs lightly. "I won't open it." She says then. "Not yet." She holds the box up on its side and spins it around in her fingers. "Not until I've deciphered the hieroglyphs and the etchings around them."

A breath is drawn in then and the item is set down onto the table amongst the others. She looks over to Sam and places a hand on her shoulder before she drops it a second or so later. "I'll let you work, I'll take Mister Drake here to go see the rest of what they found."

She looks to Nathan then and nods her head toward the door they'd come in. "Come on, you'll enjoy this." She tells the fellow adventurer and thrill seeker.

Samantha Nishimura has posed:
"Sounds good, Boss!" Samantha grins, and looks down at her camera, finishing up the attachments and adjusting the aperture. "I've got this, you guys have fun. Don't find some Death City without me, though! I want in on the excitement next time!"