Orient-Express – The Maudslay Collection

London, British Museum, January 1923

– And now gentlemen, it’s time for our Pièce de Resistance !
Julius
Smith took a dramatic pause, then unveil a massive statue of a woman
with a delicately chiseled head of a cat. The audience gasped as they
saw the eyes of the statue shining brightly, giving life to what was
with no doubt the pinnacle of the exposition.
– I present you
Bubastis ! Excavated from what we though was a simple mastaba in 1882
during the Maudslay expedition, this was in fact the central piece of an
ancient temple dedicated to the well-known cat goddess, also known as
Bastet.
The professor kept going on about the probable significance
and datation of the statue. Choura and Cihat listened patiently but Carl
was intrigued by the brilliance of the opal eyes. Moving around, he
soon discovered the reason of his fascination : theses stone were not
crimped, they were natively included into the rock the statue’s head was
sculpted from ! Theses eyes were two polished and connected outcrops of
one big chunk of chalcedony.

Pencil doodle on A6 sketchbook
Excerpt from an ongoing run of Call of Cthulhu Campaign : Terror on the Orient-Express