WHAT IT WAS: Chapters 65 and 70 of The Enchantress.

This memory slots right between Josh fighting bearsarks and Josh killing his parents, picking up right where the former left off -- ie, Tsagaglalal (hereafter referred to as Aunt Agnes, which I can actually spell correctly without looking it up) has just obliterated the three bearsarks threatening the twins in the space of as many heartbeats. She gives Josh a book, saying that he has the pages needed to complete it, and then opens the door. They follow her down a corridor, and she tells them to save their questions; she's going to give them some answers first. An anpu tries to grab Sophie as she talks and Josh punches it back into the wall.

They feel an earthquake, and Aunt Agnes says that her husband (Abraham the Mage) created it for one of them to use, but they have to be in the right place to use it. Josh stops cold and says he's sick and tired of people telling them what to do and expecting them to just do it; first Isis and Osiris, then Aunt Agnes and her husband. Aunt Agnes says that she isn't -- that the twins must decide for themselves what they'll do.

Isis and Osiris round a corner and start running toward the twins; Aunt Agnes keeps talking, saying that Josh and Sophie may believe that they were trained to rule, but Abraham always suspected there was a deeper plan at work. Isis and Osiris could have put anyone on the throne of Danu Talis, so why Gold and Silver twins? Aunt Agnes suspects that Isis and Osiris want to use their power for something, but she says that the very training they gave the twins now lets them choose for themselves. Sophie takes Josh's hand and says there's no need; they've already chosen. Aunt Agnes tells them she'd trusted them to make the right decision, and the three of them turn their backs on Isis and Osiris and run.

They burst out into the sunlight to find a battle going on -- Elder versus Elder and human versus monster. Josh can probably spot from the brief glimpse that the only units working from any kind of strategy are the humans, who are attacking from the air with gliders and vimana, but they're taking heavy losses and their supporting Elders are badly outnumbered. They don't have time to intervene, though; they need to climb a mile of pyramid fast. And as soon as they're spotted, they hear horns and every monster disengages to come after them.

The horde pursuing them are anpu and hybrids -- bull, bear, boar and cat. The cats are fastest, followed by the anpu; significantly faster than the party. They have archers and tonbogiri rifles, which are coming into play as they close. Aunt Agnes explains that they have to get to the top because the Pyramid is a giant magical amplifier; it was used to create the first Shadowrealms, and even to capture a rogue planet on a collision course for Earth and set it into orbit as the moon. The Great Elders who built and first wielded that power are dead, but it remains, and from the top of the pyramid they can control the entire world.

Josh is winded and slows down; Sophie urges him onward, but he says he'll hold them here, activating his aura. Aunt Agnes tells him not to; they'll need every ounce of strength for later. Josh asks whether it'll be all right if only one of them uses their aura, and Aunt Agnes tells him to do it and let Sophie save her strength. He sits down and whistles his air magic trigger.

Sophie is dubious, but Josh explains that he's triggering his air magic; she identifies it as the Close Encounters theme. A cat-man lunges at him while he's wondering if it was today or yesterday he learned air magic, and Sophie tells him to do something if he's going to. He gets them to sit down next to him and link arms with him -- and all three of them start to rise into the air. (Sophie and Aunt Agnes are both impressed; Josh gives a brief explanation of how he's doing what he's doing.)

(A note here: the Pyramid of the Sun is, again, a mile high. As far as I can tell, Josh takes them from near the bottom to basically the top before either Sophie or Aunt Agnes can think of a conversation topic; based on evidence, I'm going to guess that's not more than thirty or forty seconds, a minute at the outside. Which, yes, means that Josh was moving between sixty and a hundred miles power hour under his own power, carrying two passengers, and then did all the stuff he did in the next few chapters. And it was the first time he'd flown under his own power.)

As they near the top, Josh is starting to tire out, but Sophie notices someone on the pyramid above them. It's Prometheus, who says they've been waiting for the twins. Josh asks who "they" are, and Prometheus tells him to take a spin around the pyramid. He sees Saint-Germain, busy with his notebook, who waves and tells them it's a positively musical evening; Shakespeare and Palamedes, the former commenting that they were a sight one didn't see every day, and finally Joan of Arc, complimenting Sophie's armor as she activates her own.

Sophie asks what they're all doing here, and Aunt Agnes says they're here to guard and protect the twins, hold off the anpu while they do what must be done -- though they shouldn't take too long. Josh asks what she's talking about, starting to shake with strain, and Aunt Agnes tells him to drop them at the top of the pyramid. He almost collapses, and she and Sophie help him stagger up to the top, just as Isis and Osiris land their vimana before them.

Aunt Agnes says that now it ends; the fate of the world and every other is theirs to decide. But, she says, Josh should probably read the stone tablet she gives him before he decides; it's a parting gift from Abraham the Mage, the last missive he ever wrote. She takes the twins' hands and says she hopes to see them again in ten thousand years; she loves them very much, and asks them to be kind to their old Aunt Agnes. Then she leaves the twins to go stand with Prometheus.

Josh looks at Sophie and tells her it's just him and her; she replies, as always. Then they go forward to meet their parents one last time.



EFFECTS/WHAT HE LEARNED:

* Aunt Agnes is awesome and badass.
* A lot of details falling into place -- how he got the tablet and the Codex, how they got up the Pyramid, what exactly the Pyramid does and why they had to have the showdown there.
* He's also pretty badass.
* The empire was definitely on its last legs; there was a war breaking out, and no matter how it ended...
* Not a whole lot else, honestly. He knows how this ends already.
* +100 Sophie dere
* +50 dere for everyone else on the pyramid



WHAT IT IS: Simply put, when Josh takes this skill, he'll canon-update to the end of The Enchantress. Which means that he's going to lose his left hand, fairly painfully, and have it replaced with a scythe-hook.

A couple of other more subtle metaphysical changes take place at the same time! Death is added to his pings in a major way, and the hook itself is enormously metaphysically powerful for those who have the senses to see that kind of thing. His name, for purposes of magic, also changes to Marethyu; he'll still go by Josh, but trying to use the name "Josh Newman" to conjure or bind him won't work. (I don't expect this to ever be relevant, but you never know.) I think he also grows into his full power here, pinging more or less like a demigod (though still reading as human as well) but that's not overly obvious.

The hook itself is sharp, unbreakable, can't be removed from Josh's wrist (...I guess you could cut off his arm but good luck with trying) and as far as I can tell combines the powers of the four Swords of Power -- Clarent, Excalibur, Durendal and Joyeuse -- without the nasty drawbacks of going crazy. (Probably because Excalibur and Clarent cancel each other, and assumedly the same for Durendal and Joyeuse.) We don't see him use it in battle onscreen, but it's not a stretch to assume it can do what we see Clarent and Excalibur do onscreen: kill the immortal with a single cut by freezing them, turning their blood to lava, or whatever the other two Swords do; drain memories and auric energy from whoever it kills; and open leygates at will (which we actually see Josh do, hence my assumptions). The leygate power is a separate unlock, but the rest come with this skill. This also opens his most advanced skills for regain.

In Aather, obviously he's not going to be one-shotting anything, but wounds from the hook will be effective against immortal beings while he empowers it, and resist regeneration abilities if not outright nullify them. He will have to power it up to use it, to the equivalent of a small spell. The effect will be significantly reduced against monsters, and it probably won't drain their aura or memories (asssuming they...have any).



IMPORTANT EFFECT NOTE: Josh is going to have a hugely magical hook for a left hand after he takes this skill; he's questing with Nimue for a solution that makes his hand a little less...lethal, but it's probably not going to look like flesh again. Also some ping changes, but that is the obvious takeaway.