🍁Nine Ancient Obelisks

Eight of them went through this procedure without any problems, but Jack was not allowed into Calcite - first, they tried to make him take off his mask, and when it became clear that it could not be removed and, moreover, in the photo in his documents, he was without it, he had to get off the train.

Ushumgallu remembered this mask, knew what power it possessed, and understood that on such a day, anyone traveling to Shina was a likely candidate for the tournament. He grinned maliciously and rejoiced in his intuition.

Shina

When Ushumgallu jumped out of the belly of the hated iron monster, where, in such heat with the windows closed, it was easy to be cooked alive, the desert wind that blew in his face seemed more pleasant than a drink of fresh water. The young man walked towards it, the sand stinging his eyes, getting into his nose, penetrating behind his collar, but he didn't even think about covering his face. After walking like this for a few meters, he started running, climbed onto the nearest hill, and fell to his knees. The sand was softer than a feather bed.
He plunged his hands into it, barely feeling the heat. Deep beneath the earth, soaked with a thousand years of blood, lie his ancestors, it is time to greet them after a long separation. Then he turns north, offering prayers to the ancient goddesses, his ancestors, and separately to his father. Somewhere far away, in the Sunlit Abode, caressed by the sea breeze, Felicia Lungwort sits on her throne, and somewhere not far from Barsina, in an unnamed grave, Akkad Babbar sin Zababa mer Lahar, deceived even after death, is buried. His hands clench into fists, and Ushumgallu pulls them out of the sand, before he gets burned.
The Calcitean didn't even glance at the train. He doesn't care where the rest of his fellow travelers will go; he is home and needs neither advice nor guides. Let them follow if they want. Now, his feet are carrying him to the "beacon of the south."