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.

Itinerary

The Expedition was meant to travel from Dementlieu, to Borca, to Barovia, to Hazlan. Once in Hazlan, it was meant to follow a Mistway to Pharazia, acquire camels in Phiraz, pass through the Sebuan desert and then into Har'Akir.

The Expedition was fortunate enough to gain the help of the Camolomescro in passing through the Mists to Phiraz. Unfortunate events in Phiraz garnered the wrath of Diamabel, making return through his demesne impossible, but a Mistway was 'fortunately' available to lead the Expedition back to the Core by way of Falkovnia.

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 was obsessed with securing 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.

In addition, the majority of the guards and a travelling reported assigned to the Expedition, motivated variously by greed, extreme debt, and revenge against the Council of Brilliance and Dominic D'Honaire in particular, formed a qabal that sarcastically named itself the Conspiracy. Their own mission was to take control of the Expedition, neutralize their more scholarly counterparts, and make off with such treasure as could be easily fenced to gather a fortune. Conspiracy leader Samael Maleagant, it needs to be said, genuinely did not intend for any of the scholars to be harmed; in spite of being a longtime con artist and thief, he felt he was not a murderer. Events spiralled out of control when Pelletier started trying to kill Maleagant as he sensed some of his intentions, and Maleagant's half-brother Jervis (real name: Vladimir "Volodya" Dilisnya) first poisoned and later stabbed and decapitated him, instead. The Conspiracy abandoned their counterparts at a monastery near the exit of the Jackal's Ruse Mistway without camels or food and water and moved on to plunder the tomb.