Aten Rising was a visual representation of one of Bayek's genetic memories, relived by Layla Hassan through the Portable Animus HR-8.
Description[]
Bayek seeks out High Priestess Isidora. Though she believes the curse is Amun's will, she tells him of a cult in the farmlands which worships a risen Pharaoh.
Dialogue[]
Bayek travelled to Karnak, where he found Isidora making a prayer in a chamber covered by fences
- Isidora: Amun-Ra-Horkhouti, secret of expressions and shimmering of form. Come forth. Purified, purified is the Lord of Thebes.
Isidora noticed Bayek hiding behind one of the fence.
- Isidora: You, lurking in the shadows.
Isidora walked out of the chamber.
- Isidora: I should be angry, but you are in the house of the Hidden One. What is your business...?
Bayek met with Isidora.
- Bayek: Bayek... of Siwa. I am looking for the source of the curse that plagues Thebes.
- Isidora: You are not priest, or Phylakitai, and the oasis is far from here. What do you care for our troubles?
- Bayek: Because they are not just your troubles. This curse... it stems from a relic. And countless suffered at the hands of the men who wielded another like it.
- Isidora: You suffered more than most. Amun sees deep into your heart. But this is not men or relics, Bayek. Amun's ire is fearsome. The Pharaohs wreak his punishment for the thieves who desecrate the tombs.
- Bayek: You believe this is your Lord's will?
- Isidora: Amun comes at the cry of the poor and distressed.
- Bayek: Then who in Thebes has reason to call him?
Isidora suggesting Bayek to visit the farmlands
- Isidora: Many things have been stolen from us. Relics, lives, innocence. The curse does not distinguish between rulers and subjects. But perhaps... the farmlands? Another Pharaoh walks there, but the people have escaped his ire.
- Bayek: I will find out why.
- Isidora: Speak to them, then tell me this is not the wrath of Amun.
Bayek left the temple.
- Bayek: Can these farmers really welcome the curse?
Bayek arriving at the village
Bayek travelled to the farmlands southeast of Thebes. He investigated a bunch of oil jars on the ground.
- Bayek: A lot of oil, more than a village of this size would need.
He recovered a piece of hay soaked in oil. He investigated the remains of a fire.
- Bayek: Not a typical village fire, this looks ceremonial.
He found a girl talking to herself.
- Pani: I will say it Djehuty, just like you taught us. You alone, shining, risen! And when He comes, men hide, and the gods fly away. When you dawn they die. We fall at the feet of the king, the lord, the Sun, our god. 7 times and 7 times, both on the stomach and on the back.
Bayek speaking to Pani
Bayek spoke to the girl.
- Bayek: What game are you playing, child?
- Pani: It's not a game! I'm making a ceremony to the sun!
- Bayek: To Ra?
- Pani: No! To the true god.
- Bayek: Where did you learn that?
- Pani: Djehuty. He protected us, saves us from the cursed one. But they stole him away.
- Bayek: Some took Djehuty? Who?
- Pani: Bad men.
He climbed up to the roofs of a house and found an idol covered in hay.
- Bayek: This... idol. Who is it? Crude and simply carved.
- Old Woman: How do they live in Thebes? They do not worship the Aten.
- Young Man: So many go about their business, as if their lives mean nothing to them.
- Old Woman: They think the Pharaohs will spare them?
- Young Man: Such hubris.
Bayek finding some soldiers interrogating a farmer
He found several soldiers interrogating several farmers.
- Soldier: You people owe us money, so pay up. Tychon's orders.
- Old Villager: Hasn't he trampled us enough?
- Soldier: Trampled? Don't make me laugh. You have these fields and your lives because of his good grace.
- Old Villager: It's desecration! That's what they're doing!
- Soldier: Keep your mouth shut or I'll feed you to Sobek.
Bayek killed the soldiers.
- Old Villager: Ra bless you, neb. (sir.) Two less of those vultures walking the black land.
- Bayek: You have many troubles here?
- Old Villager: Tychon's men are the least of it. People disappear every day, to the cursed lands, or those damned bandits...
- Bayek: Bandits are taking people? Why?
- Old Villager: Why do bandits do anything? For their own fiendish reasons. Beggars and crooks to a man.
The villager returned to his home.
- Bayek: Djehuty must be the priest the bandits took! He will know more about this curse.
Bayek found a man praying to a mark of Aten on the wall.
- Crazy Priest: You! He placed seed in all women! He is the nurse in the womb. He will take all who refuse to bow before him. Bow! Bow! We must worship him! Honor him. Bring me the wine and the beer!
- Pious Woman: My brother in Thebes calls us heretics.
- Pious Man: Amun holds no dominion here.
- Pious Woman: He deserted us, but for the Living Aten, we would all be dead.
He found a worker calling for fighters.
- Storage Worker: Join me and we will rescue our priest! They will pay for taking one of our own.
Bayek spoke to the worker.
- Bayek: Someone took your priest?
- Storage Worker: Yes bandits. I am rounding up the able bodied to overrun their camp. I will not cower and cry as these neket iadets (pieces of shit) take our people!
The farmers travelled to the bandit camp located south of the village. Bayek found Djehuty being held captive in a tent.
- Djehuty: I have nothing you want, thieves.
My King, my Lord, my Sun, my God!
My people need my protection!
Release me from this prison.
Bayek eliminated the bandits. He investigated a mark of Aten on the tent.
- Bayek: Bandits were afraid of Djehuty. They must believe he can summon the wrath of the Heretic King.
He freed the priest.
- Djehuty: It is not just me you save, Seni. (friend.) Who are you that does Ahkenaten's bidding?
- Bayek: Let us escape this place.
Bayek escorting Djehuty to safety
Bayek escorted Djehuty out of the camp.
- Djehuty: The Aten grants us sanctuary.
Bayek spoke to Djehuty.
- Djehuty: You risked your life for mine!
- Bayek: The curse, I must have what you know.
- Djehuty: He has killed many. I was trying to purify his shrine at the farm. But the bandits took me, they fear the Aten comes at my command.
- Bayek: You worship the Heretic?
- Djehuty: Akhenaten... We offer our piety... songs and rituals and he does not come for us. I can show you? But the farm, the animals rot, they must be burned...
- Bayek: I will go to the farm, in return you will tell me what you know of the pharaoh.
- Djehuty: Yes, yes! We must resume our nightly rituals. Find me at the southern farm after the sun sets and the corruption is gone.
Bayek burning one of the piles
Bayek travelled to the southern farm. He lit up one of the piles.
- Bayek: If nothing else the decaying animals will no longer taint the land.
He lit up the other two piles.
- Bayek: The priest said to find him after the sunset. They will be making preparations for their nightly ritual.
Bayek returned to the village and spoke to Djehuty.
- Djehuty: Meet me here after the sun sets. You will understand then.
Bayek meeting Djehuty at the village
Bayek reconvened with Djehuty at night, where preparations for the ritual were under way.
- Bayek: I have done what you asked.
- Djehuty: Then we cannot act too soon, for the sake of all who make the farmlands their home. Please, Bayek join us for the ritual. See how we appease the Pharaoh Akhenaten.
Bayek followed Djehuty.
- Djehuty: You protected me and my people. Come, you should take part in our ceremony... Everything is prepared, the Aten rises.
- Woman: Who is this man that aids us? He must be important or Djehuty would not allow it...
- Djehuty: Will you honor him by gathering the sacred silica? Place it in the hands of the True King. Then will you see the strength of our hymns to the Sole God.
Bayek observing the ritual
Djehuty climbed up to a roof overseering the ritual site, making his prayer.
- Djehuty: You rise, perfect, singular, on the horizon of the sky. The god that created all being. God without equal! Your form, the living Aten. Risen and resplendent, distant and near. Lord of the Two Lands, son of Ra, the one Living on Ma'at. Your strength lives within these offerings, sparse, but unbroken.
Bayek collected the silica from the offering table. he placed one of the silica on one of the ritual statue.
- Woman: He has given him a great honor, to place the sacred quartz upon the statues of the Aten.
He placed the silica on the rest of the statues.
- Djehuty: As long as they stand, whole and untainted. He will live in the Aten.
Djehuty whispered to Bayek.
- Djehuty: Please, Bayek, will you light the Aten?
Djehuty resumed the prayer.
- Djehuty: You are our desire, there is no other who knows you. Our eyes fall upon your perfection.
Bayek lit up the hay replica of the Aten.
- Djehuty: O Living Aten, rejoice in your son, enfolding him in your rays. Living forever! All came forth in existence from your hand. When you rise they live, when you set they die. Splendid you rise, O Living Aten, eternal lord!
- Woman: Alight! Alight! The Sole God shines his rays upon us!
The ritual ended.
- Djehuty: Bayek! Join me and I will tell you what I know of Akhenaten.
Djehuty addressed his flock.
- Djehuty: Return to your homes and let the rays of the true god warm your hearths. He has spared us, rewarded us for our honor of him.
Djehuty directing Bayek to the Theban Archives
Djehuty left the ritual site, and Bayek joined him.
- Djehuty: Have the scales fallen from your eyes?
- Bayek; You believe the pharaoh Akhenaten is the son of the Aten.
- Djehuty: I believe that his power is fearsome. In return for honoring him, we have our lives. Can you say the same for those who bow before Amun?
- Bayek: This cult is heresy, what texts even speak of Akhenaten?
- Djehuty: One. In the Theban Archive. But the chiseler Tychon has closed the library to all but his thugs and thieves.
- Bayek: I will find a way in.
- Djehuty: Look for a statue in the archives, pointing towards some crumbling scrolls. One speaks of the Aten, and a temple lost for centuries.
Djehuty paused, contemplating Bayek's candor.
- Djehuty: You think we worship an abomination. That I am damning my people.
- Bayek: I cannot judge the path you took... not when mine is strewn with the dead.
- Djehuty: I hope you find all you seek, friend.
Bayek took his leave of the priest and the farm.
- Bayek: Finding Akhenaten's temple should lead me closer to the relic, and who has it.
Bayek infiltrating the archives
Bayek returned to Thebes and made his way to the Theban Archive, where it was heavily guarded by soldiers. Bayek climbed up the walls to one of the windows and entered the archive.
- Bayek: Djehuty said that a statue pointed him to the scroll?
He read a note on the table.
- By order of Athames:
Everything that is in the Tombs belong to Egypt. Do not think that because something fits inn your pouch you can steal from me. Anyone who does not report a find will be flogged. Anyone caught with the gold of the Pharaohs will be executed.
He read another note on the table.
- The God's Wife of Amun:
Appearing in the glory of the White Crown, the Chosen one of Ra, who issued from his flesh, Divine Adoratrice of Amun. The God's Wife shall take a girl child and she shall teach her the ways of the Hidden One.
Bayek investigated the statues on the second floor of the archive.
- Bayek: Doesn't seem to be pointing to anything in particular.
Fine work, but this isn't the statue I'm looking for.
Finally, he investigated the statue pointing towards a shelf in the main area of the second floor.
- Bayek: This is it, the statue Djehuty spoke of. It's pointing high up on that shelf.
Bayek recovering the scroll
He climbed up the shelf.
- Bayek: The temple door is hidden.
Bayek found a scroll.
- Bayek: There is a scrawled note here!
Bayek retrieved the note.
- On Akhenaten's Temple:
You who fills the lands with beauty. We stumbled in darkness until you gave us the glimmering truth. There is but one God and it is you, Akhenaten, the living embodiment of the sun disk. We build this shrouded temple in honor of you. When you rise on the eastern horizon, the light reveals the true path. Note from Tychon's men: I am sick of looking; this temple to the Heretic is a myth, nothing more.
Bayek commented on the note's contents.
- Bayek: Tychon's men are also looking for Akhenaten's sanctuary.
Bayek left the archive and travelled to the waters west of the Temple of Karnak. At sunrise, he found the light shining into a particular patch of water.
- Bayek: The light is shining there, that must be the way into the temple.
Bayek finding an entrance to the temple
Bayek dove under the water and found a entrance covered by wooden fences. He destroyed the fence and swim into the chamber.
- Bayek: The temple of the Aten.
Bayek swam to the corner below the entrance, where he found a golden statue on the floor.
- Bayek: Living Aten who started life. Springing forth from the seeds of Amenhotep.
Bayek investigated the statue next to the first.
- Bayek: Fed the son in the womb of his Mother the Great Royal Wife Queen Tiye. The beauteous, the long-haired.
In another corner, Bayek found a stele covered in algae.
- Akhenaten's Tomb:
Rays of the Sun Disk. Living Aten, O' sole god without equal. Your eternal resting place will live forever in the sands. You sleep with your father Amenhotep. We will not allow them to brand you forever a heretic.
Bayek commented on the note.
- Bayek: 'The Aten. O sole god without equal.' Your eternal resting place will live forever in the sands. You sleep with your father Amenhotep IV.
Bayek also found a model of Amarna, with statues of Akhenaten and Nefertiti overlooking it.
- Bayek: The Royal Palace of Akhenaten. Watched over by the Akhenaten with his beloved wife, Nefer-nefru-Aten-Nefertiti.
In another corner, he investigated several statues on the ground.
- Bayek: He denied the gods, all of them, including the Theban triad.
He investigated a skeleton on top of a table.
- Bayek: So did the Son die, reborn as Re-Horakhty. Akhenaten, he who rejoices in the Horizon.
On a pedestal on the wall opposite the skeleton, he found a small statue of a Sphinx holding the sun in its front paws, a symbol of Akhenaten.
- Bayek: The Pharaoh Akhenaten holding a relic! He worshipped it as the god Aten incarnate.
Bayek had attained enough information to determine that Akhenaten once held the relic causing the curse.
- Bayek: If the Pharaoh had the relic then who has it now?
Bayek swam out of the sanctuary and resurfaced. He entered the Temple of Karnak to meet with Isidora.
- Bayek: Isidora must face the truth, this is not Amun's will. I need to speak to her, see how I can put the Pharaoh to rest.
Bayek found Isidora in the back of the hall, who was overseeing a body covered in natron. She noticed Bayek in the area.
- Isidora: The curse yields another grim harvest. Did you find the answer in the farmlands?
Bayek showing a statue holding the relic to Isidora
Bayek approached her, showing her the heretical statue.
- Bayek: I found this.
- Isidora: You dare to bring this into Amun's house?
- Bayek: I found it in a temple dedicated to the apostate Akhenaten. What is he holding?
- Isidora: He worshipped the disc of the sun, the Aten!
- Bayek: It's not the sun he's holding. It is the relic I seek. This and the man who has it now are behind the curse, not Amun.
Bayek uncovering Tuya's body
Bayek pulled back a cloth covering a deceased woman to emphasize his point to Isidora.
- Bayek: Is this Amun's will? That he sends a heretic, the pharaoh who denounced him?
Isidora came over and look, identifying her as someone she knew.
- Isidora: Tuya! No! I sent her out into Thebes, told her she'd be safe... I did this.
- Bayek: Akhenaten still walks. He is the key to the relic.
- Isidora: I've been blind, hiding behind Amun's veil. Can this truly be?
- Bayek: Isidora!
- Isidora: This may not be the Amun, but Amun can stop him.
- Bayek: This is not the gods... don't you understand?
- Isidora: The Lord to the Limit still holds dominion over Thebes! And I am Amun's Wife. The people need to know that he still hears their cries.
- Bayek: Then tell me his will.
Isidora directing Bayek to Hatshepsut's temple
- Isidora: A single speck of dust from a God statue of Amun. it would purify Akhenaten's resting place in the valley, amongst the true Kings. But Tychon has taken everything of value from our temples and tombs, we have nothing left.
- BayekL This is not the first time I have heard of his thievery. His men harass the farmlands...
- Isidora: While he lords it over us. Struts like a scorpion around Hatshepsut's temple.
- Bayek: Then I will find him and his spoils.
Bayek prepared to leave, taking back the heretical statue he had set on the table. Isidora called out to him.
- Isidora: Bayek!
Bayek stopped.
- Isidora: The man who has your relic, what will you do when you find him?
Bayek simply looked back at her, implying the answer was what she had already inferred.
- Isidora: Then Amun watch over you.
Outcome[]
Bayek visited the High Priestess Isidora for guidance, who instructed him to investigate the farmlands. Through his investigations which brought him to Akhenaten's sanctuary, Bayek discovered that the heretic pharaoh had possession of the relic Bayek was looking for. Reporting these details to Isidora, the High Priestess provided him with a way to release Akhenaten's spirit from the living.
Trivia[]
- When Bayek recites the prayer to Akhenaten in the sunken temple, the subtitles seem to state that he sleeps "with [his] father Amenhotep IV." This is either a writing error, or it is Bayek referring to Akhenaten by his birth name of Amenhotep IV. In either case, his father was Amenhotep III.
Gallery[]
