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Message: <blockquote data-quote="sniffles" data-source="post: 3304387" data-attributes="member: 30035">Letter #2627 Reaping, Sefmir (Sunday December 19, 2004)Dearest brother;As you may recall from my last letter, we'd met with the druidess Sharareh and had aided her in destroying the horrible tree-monster she called a keening maw.  She presented us with a divining rod made from the black diamond shards, so we could try to detect the presence of other shards without having to touch the shards ourselves. We decided to continue traveling toward the city of Sefmir, as we didn't see any reason to change our travel plans unless we found some way of disposing of the shards.Once we were back on the road - much to Illtud's relief, as usual - we quickly caught up with Prince Hamad's party again.  He invited us to enjoy his hospitality in Sefmir.  His father the sheik isn't ruler of that city, but he is an important personage there.  As we arrived in Sefmir we were greeted with considerable enthusiasm by the city folk.  It seems that the young prince is very popular here.  He took us to an inn called the Golden Minaret, which is the most luxurious lodging house I've ever visited.  Each of us had a private room and the staff provided us with appropriate garments to wear when dining that evening with the prince.  We were uncertain if we should continue on to meet the prince's father, Sheik Azman.  There was some concern as to how he would react to the cancellation of his son's betrothal to Princess Ceceliah. During the afternoon, as we thought over this situation, we each took time to pursue our own concerns.  Erasyne went out to purchase a very fine shirt of mithral chain.  Later she and Thor reported that they'd met another Halfling of the same family as Kirp, in fact another brother.  That must be quite a large family, and all of them have such peculiar names.  This brother is a bard named Werp.  He was happy to meet someone who knew his brothers.  He reported to Thor that evidently this is not the first time a betrothal has failed for Prince Hamad's brother Javid.  Even the ever-optimistic gnome began to get a little concerned that our welcome at the sheik's palace wouldn't be a friendly one.Nevertheless, we gave in to the Prince's pleadings that we go with him to his father's palace.  The next morning we all decided to purchase horses so that we could travel in greater comfort - and perhaps not always be left so far behind when Thor goes racing off on Beaker.  I confess I'm not much interested in horses and would have preferred some other type of mount, but my other options were camels and elephants, neither of which seems very practical for our journey.  We arrived a short while later at the palace, where we were greeted by the sheik and his elder son.  Prince Javid was rather confused that Ceceliah hadn't accompanied his younger brother, and at first mistook Erasyne for the princess.  He was quite obviously disappointed when he learned that Ceceliah wasn't coming and took the news with poor grace.  Perhaps this explains why his previous betrothals have all failed to result in marriage.We had a sumptuous meal with the sheik, who was polite and much more pragmatic about the situation than his elder son.  Before we dined, however, Prince Hamad insisted on giving us a tour of the palace and showing us a statue much prized by his father.  It was apparently called Sythrael.  The statue was found in the shrine of a dark cult, where it had been broken into many pieces.  The sheik was in the process of reassembling it.  The statue was quite lifelike and appeared to portray a very tall and handsome being caught in the midst of casting a spell.  Oddly, the creature appeared to have had wings but they had been removed - not merely broken off, but removed before the point at which the sculpture was created.  Ninad grew very concerned at this.  During dinner he took the sheik's advisor, Jamshir, aside and told him that he feared it wasn't a statue at all.  Ninad was convinced that the statue was actually a petrified being, and that being was a fallen angel.  He felt that restoring the statue to wholeness was a dangerous plan.  The sheik and Jamshir were rather taken aback by this, both of them being convinced that the statue's wings had merely been broken off in whatever violence damaged the rest of the sculpture.  The sheik had become quite devoted to restoring the statue.  He informed us that he had discovered the whereabouts of other pieces of the statue in the remains of the shrine where it had originally been found.  He then asked us if we would be willing to go to the shrine and recover the remaining pieces.  He offered a reward of 500 of the local gold pieces if we would visit the shrine, and an additional 500 for recovery of the missing pieces of the statue.  It seemed that there had been some activity at the shrine of late and he also wished us to investigate this, as his men were very reluctant to go there.Illtud in particular was not at all excited about this plan.  Even Thor remarked that we shouldn't have come to the palace, though we all acknowledged that it was too late now to leave.  And we felt that if some new evil was brewing in the shrine, we ought to do what we could to snuff it out.  Illtud didn't want to have anything to do with seeking the bits of the statue, fearing that anyone who touched them would turn toward evil as Shishir had done with the black shards.  Illtud's become quite talkative since Shishir departed.  The rest of us decided that if we determined the statue was evil, we simply wouldn't give the pieces to the sheik, but would find some way to dispose of them ourselves.  I'm not sure how we came to be such avid foes of evil, but I can't see walking away from a chance to do good.The sheik is rather superstitious and was disappointed that our group didn't number seven, as he considers that an auspicious number.  We assured him that we could number seven if we included the djinni and the clockwork fairy in our number, though personally I'm not certain how useful either of them would be.  Pheretima is only good for making overly elaborate meals and Vogelyn has to be wound every day or she becomes inert.  In any case the sheik decided to send seven of his own men with us to keep the party at an auspicious quantity.  His men guided us to the cave entrance that leads down to the shrine.  It was once a shrine of the evil goddess Kali, and her worshippers practiced human sacrifice there.  We saw evidence of this as soon as the sheik's men removed the rocks that blocked up the entrance.  The shrine was surrounded by a pit into which the sacrifices were thrown, and we could see the remains of human skeletons at the bottom of the pit.I saw no sign of activity at the shrine, much to my relief.  Unfortunately I wasn't entirely correct.  As Illtud, Ninad and Erasyne made their way toward a central room, an earth elemental suddenly appeared and made to attack them.  I ran up behind them to employ my spear.  Although the elemental struck a few good blows it was mostly unable to aim its strikes at us very effectively, and despite its rocky toughness we reduced it to a pile of dust after a few concentrated blows of our own.  It helped that Thor called down the lightning several times.  Several of the sheik's men were badly hurt, however.  We hoped now that we had only to find the statue shards and decide what to do with them.  I'll tell you how that went in my next letter.Lothiriel__________________Quotes of the day:patv: "Shishir leveled up last time."Zora:  "Shishir wasn't here.  He left."patv:  "Well, okay, but he still leveled."Zora:  "Cool!  He leaves again.  Does he level?"Zora:  "Sythrael, the god of no success with women."Jubilee:  "No, that's syphilis."</blockquote>

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