Menetnashte Expedition

Launched in 761 BC, the Menetnashte Expedition was a group of twenty-three professors, students and guards employed by the University of Dementlieu. Its mission: to travel from Port-a-Lucine to Har'Akir and research the recently-discovered tomb of Menetnashte and retrieve its artefacts, especially a giant emerald known as the Eye of Anubis.

Doublecross and Triplecross

Although the Expedition was supposedly funded by the University, it had actually been paid for by the Fraternity of Shadows as a consequence of Balfour De Casteelle's wager with John Lancaster Cavendish. Its leader, professor Pelletier, was himself an Esteemed Brother.

Unknown to Pelletier, who feared death from old age and hoped to secure immortality through the Eye as necromancy was forbidden to him, the Expedition had been sent out to fail. The Umbra planned for the Expedition, which had been publically announced, to draw out opponents like Cavendish, allowing them to launch a secret operation. Only when the Expedition was unexpectedly successful in finding clues to attain the tomb did they dispatch Marcos Vedarrak to offer support -- and take over control after Pelletier was poisoned and later outright murdered.

Unknown even to the Umbra, they had themselves been set up. Desert guide and Cleric of Anubis Fassahd, who had told the University of the Eye and the tomb, had done so by order of Ankhtepot. The Ancient Dead Pharaoh had given the order in an effort to rid his domain of the presence of the Vestige Beherith, which was the true source of power in the Eye, as the wards on Menetnashte's tomb were finally starting to decay.