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Meru collapsed to his knees as he entered the temple at the end of the long valley. He was exhausted and had picked up a few wounds, though he suspected they must just be wounds of the soul, since his mortal body was already dead. Conquering the Duat hadn't quite been how the goat had planned to spend his day...or week, or vast unit of time it felt like he had spent among the hills, mounds and beasts of the afterlife. Not just that, but he had overcome all of the obstacles despite not being buried with a Book of the Dead - it was reassuring to know that his wits had not left him in the afterlife. Now, however, he was at the end of the valley and he knew that no amount of wits could help him find a way around the final trial that laid within. Only one more thing stood between him and Osiris' paradisaic field of reeds.

A shadow fell over him. "Welcome, traveller."

Just as expected, Meru found himself looking up at a robed jackal.

"Anubis..." he winced.

"And you must be Meru of Shedet."

The jackal god was offering a hand, but Meru powered through the aches and rose on his own accord. "Forgive me if I don't feel up to making small talk, my Anubis. I've trekked for countless hours through these mounds and evaded your slaughterers. I only narrowed avoided dying a second time at the hands of He Who Lives On Snakes. Please, lead me to the end of my journey."

Anubis simply smiled and turned, walking swiftly back into the confines of the temple. When Meru passed its entrance, he was shocked to find himself in a chamber much larger than the building could reasonably contain. It looked like an unassuming mastaba from the outside, but an enormous and grand temple within, much like the temples he had seen in life. No light poured in through openings where the walls met the roof, only dark mist. No shrines or offerings were laid about; the only inhabitants here were a god and those past worship. Pillars traced a square around a lowered central area and there, bathed in a light emanating from nowhere, was an enormous set of scales. The scales of Ma'at were twice the height of the jackal god, who was already standing eerily high over Meru's mortal, hircine body.

"I'm ready to be weighed, Anubis," Meru said tersely.

"No, traveller. I am impressed you have made it this far without a Book of the Dead, but now you must contend with something a little more difficult to avoid."

Anubis grasped a sheet covering some kind of shape in front of the scales and pulled it aside. A throne set into the scales was revealed and upon it, in wrappings that looked unfathomably old, was a mummy. It was limply clutching a crook and flail, but sitting uncomfortably still. There was an equally uncomfortable feeling in Meru's stomach, a swirl of butterflies urging him to find a Book as though trying to remind him of something he would certainly need it for. Unfortunately, neither the memory nor a Book found its way to him. He mentally assured himself that if he could take on the hordes of the Duat, he could certainly take on a single mummy.

"Is that it?...Is it dead?"

"We're all dead here, friend," Anubis remarked. "But perhaps you can wake him up by making your testimonies. 42 sins, 42 assurances to the First Mummy that you have lived free of them."

Meru sighed and looked around. The sins were noted in heiroglyphs on the pillars around the scales; he wasn't sure if they'd always been there. So, reading from the walls, he made his 42 assurances. Surely an embalmed corpse wouldn't be able to spot a lie or two?

The embalmed corpse did nothing. "Why isn't it moving?"

The jackal moved in closer to the goat. "Now you are ready to be weighed."

"Ugh, what now? I already beat the Duat. This is a waste of time!"

"You have plenty to spare."

Anubis raised his hand as he approached and Meru found his body falling numb, unable to move. Just before making contact, the jackal yanked his hand back and Meru's limbs snapped back into his control. Anubis was now holding a swirling ball of light, beating rhythmically. He reached up to place it on one side of the scales, watching them tip in that direction. In response, some of the sourceless light around the scales converged on a point and formed into a large, shimmering ostrich feather. Meru wiped his forehead, watching as the feather wafted down painfully slowly towards the other side of the scales.

It was at this moment that Meru remembered the one thing he couldn't bypass without the spells contained in the Book. The feather touched down and the scales did not move at all. Almost immediately the pillars all around crumbled and fell, sending clouds of the dark mist all around and shooting cracks through the floor tiles. Meru watched with widened eyes as the feather floated into the air and tucked itself into the headband of a ghostly female face, formed of the same light.

"We will not tolerate liars!" it boomed, shaking the entire Duat and crumbling the floor even more.

Meru found himself falling. The temple disappeared at shocking speed above him as he plunged down into a sea of dark mists, but just as his fall seemed to be speeding up, it came to an abrupt end.

Before he could pull himself to his feet he was thrown into a cowering stance by an explosion of fire all around him. The sea of dark mist had turned into a vast sea of fire, stretching out infinitely on all sides of the small tiled island Meru was now laid on. He rose to his feet and cursed the cheapskates who had buried him without a Book.

"You should be cursing your own cockiness, Meru." There was a slight hiss to the voice appearing behind Meru. He turned and saw his fate, personified in an abominable hybrid of predators - a hippo's legs, a lion's torso and the piercing gaze of a crocodile's head. It was Ammit, the Devourer.

"What are you going to do?" Meru shouted. Standing up to the beast was the only defence he knew. "If you hadn't noticed, I'm already dead."

"You can always die a second time," Ammit hissed, standing stoic and keeping his gaze fixed on the slowly back-stepping goat.

"So you'll cast me into these infernal fires?"

Ammit let out a roaring laugh. "You really haven't read the Book, have you? They call me The Devourer for a reason, unworthy one."

Meru's steel veneer started to peel away as Ammit stepped forward. Meru tripped and fell backwards, watching as the beating blue lump fell from above and right into the Devourer's feline hand. Ammit stomped her way up to Meru, looming fiercely over him. The three tiers of predator that made up her mismatched body shone demoniacally in the glow of the fiery sea. The firelight wove around the smooth hippo skin, shimmered in the lion coat and twinkled in the eyes - and teeth - of the crocodilian head. The Devourer opened the long jaw and licked her lips with an unnaturally long and prehensile tongue, staring closely at the beating blue thing.

"Your ka, your soul, your heart. It has bore witness to the crimes that you thought you could hide from Ma'at herself. Insolent mortal," Ammit growled, pulling the heart close to her maw. Meru was frozen in fear, fixed on the sight of Ammit letting whatever aspect of spirit Anubis had plucked from his chest drop onto her extended tongue. She threw her head back and swallowed it with a gulp, the throbbing, glowing bulge of it travelling slowly down the crocodilian neck, into the feline torso and down into a stomach that, although lion-like, seemed to had inherited some girth from the hippo part below. The glow settled in her gut. Her arms lashed out suddenly, dragging Meru in close. Meru groaned as his head was squished up against the beast's grumbling belly. He felt the heat coming off the god's belly and the large lion paw pressing him to it and he was tantalisingly close to the blue life glow within. He could only whimper as he was held there by the god's insurmountably strong grip, listening to the chorus of gurgles and grumbles echoing from the stomach. Every guttural sound made the blue light stumble and flicker. Eventually the stomach settled and the glow was gone. The god released her grip and threw Meru back onto the tiles. He could barely stay still, he felt...restless. Deeply, intrinsically restless, like there was a terrible itch on some spiritual phantom limb.

The Devourer growled contentedly. "It is done. No small measure of bad in your bones, was there, Meru? The ka tastes so much richer when it's so... sinful."

Meru rose to his hooves and shuffled about, searching in vain for a comfortable way to stand. "Is that all? I expected more from 'The Devourer'. You're not going to eat me after all, just that...thing?"

Ammit laughed with a snort. "Devouring your ka was my job. Devouring you will be just for fun."

If he still had one, Meru's heart would have dropped. There was no easy spiritual passing in his future now, no way he could still use his cunning to escape his fate. It had already been sealed with the unceremonious digestion of his ka. The stories of the Book of the Dead had already ended and he was beyond, in a tale that no sequel would ever cover. The dealings of gods and mortals had concluded and now it was nothing but predator and prey.

Meru fell back again. His hooves scuffed and slid on the tiles as he pumped his legs against them, barely sliding any distance away from the hungry creature. The hot sting of the fire at his back made him stop. Ammit lurched forward and dropped onto all-fours, the bones of her limbs seeming to crack and change as they took on a more beast-like quadrupedal form. She opened her scaled jaw and closed in on Meru's hooves; he could feel the hot breath on his ankles. He lashed out and clipped her snout, just stirring up rage in the hungry god. The unnatural tongue whipped out and surrounded his legs, wrapping them tight and dragging them helplessly into her maw. The soft interior was almost cool on Meru's ankles compared to the stuffy air of the furnace they were in. Meru was already damp with sweat but the saliva dripping from the tongue soaked in and his legs couldn't find any purchase. He tried to push back against Ammit's snout but she just grinned, staring directly into his eyes with the telling glare of a predator who knows they've succeeded and wants to savour it.

The goat was in up to the hips, his legs feeling like they were melting from the extreme wet heat inside the throat. The Devourer suddenly threw herself back up into her bipedal stance, jaw pointed straight upwards, holding Meru high like a well-earned trophy. Meru thought he'd fly out, but he felt the uncomfortable digging of rows of crocodilian teeth and knew that he was held fast. Ammit put a hand on his head again, but he was surprised to feel no pushing. It was more like petting, either out of sympathy or just an act of dominance. It was hardly needed at this point. Meru's torso was sinking fast into the gullet, the walls squishing softly around his body. He could feel the swallowing waves dancing over him like a full-body massage in a tiny sauna. The gravity was pulling him deeper and Ammit was intentionally letting it do all the work for now, it seemed. Meru was up to his armpits in godflesh when the thought occurred to make some final move, some last effort to not go down so easily. He squeezed his arms together and hugged onto Ammit's upper jaw like the only buoy in a slimy sea. The Devourer was not so easily foiled and Meru knew it. A mighty swallow was all it took to wrench Meru away, lest he go down without his arms. The final gulp dragged Meru down into the dark depths, the fleshy tunnel-vision intensifying as he stared up at the firelight of the Duat disappeared and eventually faded to darkness.

Meru had time to ruminate on his situation while he waited for whatever was next on the schedule for unworthy ones. He was stuck in the fetal position, every part of his body pushing out against the soft, fleshy walls. He had conquered every trial of the Duat but his cunning was not enough at the crucial moment. At least it was comforting being in a space like this. No more beasts or traps, just held relatively safe in the soft belly pouch of a god. Meru could feel an erection rising between his legs. At first he had some kind of guilt for being into a situation like this, but it passed. He was at the end of the road and likely about to move onto undocumented horrors far beyond The Devourer, so he might as well enjoy this. He had lived an immoral life and now he was about to top things off with the most immoral fap he could imagine. If there'd be more like this in the next place, maybe he wouldn't have been struggling so much. He sighed and started moving his wrist. If he couldn't get out, at least he could get off.

Ammit barely felt the frantic vibrations inside her over the triumphant belch she let out. Another unworthy soul safely sealed away. She returned upward and into the now reconstituted temple. They didn't much care for The Devourer being around the Scales, naturally, but she had to show off her bulging, gurgling, shifting stomach.

"You must be jealous, Anubis," she teased, gripping the flesh of her belly. "Doing weighing duty for Ma'at can't be as fun as my job."

"I think you enjoy it all a little too much, Ammit."

"Oh, praise Osiris!" came a yelling voice from outside. "I have made it through the Duat! Oh, merciful Ma'at, thank you!"

"Another soul wanders our way!" Anubis cried, covering the First Mummy in readiness for the traditional dramatic reveal.

Ammit grinned and sank back through the floor to her fire sea. She knew a dessert so soon so be bad for her, but as she always said, there's nothing wrong with a few sins now and again.