The Great Belligerency [Round 4: Static]

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

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Amidst the myriad alien cultures of New Shambhala, Cole did not seem out of place. Everyone simply assumed he was a species they had not encountered before; there were enough in this city for that to be plausible.

It was actually rather comforting. He had been used to concealing himself and lying low. Now he could walk around openly, though not quite freely; the other combatants might stumble across him at any time, after all.

In fact, he was more unsettled by what he found familiar.

The Cultural Museum had quite a few exhibits on early 21st-century Earth. It was a strange experience to walk through a recreation of a now-ancient science lab, one which Cole had visited himself. And which, he noted silently, they had made several significant errors on. It was a pity he couldn't bring them to the attention of the museum staff without raising questions about how he had gained the knowledge.

But he was not here to reminisce. He was here to search. He walked through the exhibit, finding the exhibit of religious artifacts.

Behind the glass display case, Cole saw items allegedly blessed by several gods he recognized from legends, and a few he didn't. Either some new religions had formed since his time on Earth, or the historians had erroneously recorded gods that were never worshiped. Both explanations were quite plausible.

But what most interested him was a small animal horn with a string tied around it. More precisely, the plaque beneath it which said "Horn of Anansi".

It appeared that the horn had been fashioned into a crude musical instrument. The plaque gave a few details.

"Anansi's followers believed that when a priest chosen by the spider-god blew a specific melody on this horn, he would be summoned to the god's realm for an audience. We can find no documentation of this alleged melody, but given that the artifact seems to be a simple carved animal horn, it is unlikely that this is true. Estimates for the size of Anansi's religion wildly vary; some experts believe it was merely a small cult, while others have found evidence to suggest it was the dominant religion of the planet for at least a century."

If he still had a human mouth, Cole would not have been sure whether to smirk or to scowl. On the one hand, this was potentially the key to locating Anansi and enacting his revenge. On the other hand, assuming it worked, not only did he need the melody, he needed some way to actually play the instrument. The unique nature of his body made that less than trivial.

Nonetheless, he had located it. The museum was too crowded to take it without drawing unwanted attention, but that was all right; he had another stop to make.

He recalled his conversation with Jaknel, the mammoth-man. Cole remembered that his new acquaintance had taken his family to the zoo.

A zoo which most likely had an entomology exhibit.