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Message: <blockquote data-quote="sniffles" data-source="post: 3309415" data-attributes="member: 30035">Letter #2727 Reaping, SefmirDearest brother;As I told you in my last letter, we'd gone to the ruined temple of Kali at the behest of Sheik Azman.  We'd encountered an earth elemental near the entrance and several of the shiek's men were badly hurt.  Thor suggested that they remain at the entrance while we continued to investigate the temple, and they didn't object to this.  Thor confessed that he feared we didn't have enough healing for both ourselves and the shiek's men.We proceeded across the bridge over the horrible sacrificial trench and almost at once entered a small chamber.  Thor went ahead. I suppose he's weary of always being last when he goes on foot.  He spotted a skeleton in the chamber and exclaimed, “Are you here to guide us?”  I'll never quite understand his gnomish sense of humor.  I could hear other things moving about in the chamber so I stepped up behind Thor.  There were four skeletons in the room.  I found that my spear wasn't much use against them and exchanged it for the large scimitar I acquired at the temple of Kumari.  My scimitar still wasn't nearly as effective as Illtud's mace, but we made short work of the skeletons.Then I heard something metallic up ahead.  We entered a room that had evidently been used for dining.  I thought perhaps the metal sound had been someone setting down one of the pewter plates, but there was no sign of such recent occupancy.  The next passage doubled back on itself.  We came to another chamber, larger than the first, with a many-armed statue of Kali on a plinth opposite the door.  The room was dark but Ninad heard a sound like someone moving about in heavy armor.  Thor cast a spell that allowed him to climb the walls like a spider before entering the room.  Unfortunately that didn't keep the well-armored half-orc from hitting him with a thrown spear.There were a number of skeletons in this room as well and the half-orc commanded them to attack us.  Not being endowed with much wits, they began pursuing Thor, who stood upside-down on the ceiling above them, out of their reach.  The rest of us hurried into the room to attack them.  The half-orc cast some spell upon himself, and in return Thor hurled a ball of fire at him.  Ninad ran across the room to face him.  Illtud was busy smashing skeletons with his mace, though I was having difficulty damaging them and I think Erasyne's sword was nearly useless against them.When Ninad threatened him the half-orc called the skeletons to his defense and began to back toward the plinth.  I tried to block him by climbing up the plinth myself.  I felt a malign influence from the statue for a moment but it didn't stop me from casting a flaming sphere at the half-orc.  Ninad blasted him with bursts of sound and Thor flung another ball of fire from his perch on the ceiling.  My flame sphere did him little harm, and I came to regret getting so near the half-orc when he struck me two substantial blows with the longsword he carried.  I had to back away.  The half-orc then moved around behind the statue and opened a hidden door.As the half-orc ran through the door, Ninad sent another sound burst after him and ran in behind him before the door closed.  Fortunately Thor's position had given him a good vantage to see how the mechanism worked on the door.  The rest of us filed through the door to find the half-orc had turned to face Ninad.  After Thor struck with another ball of fire, the half-orc fell dead.  Illtud had stopped a moment in the chamber to smash an arm off the statue, and he now joined us to take up the fallen villain's sword.Thor sent a glowing figure down the corridor ahead of us.  We came to a point where another passage crossed this one, and Erasyne told us she could see a door at the end of that passage.  The way grew warmer.  We soon found that the source of the warmth was a tar pit, connected to another passage by a bridge.  On the other side of the bridge we found a woman held prisoner.  She hung from shackles and had obviously been sorely mistreated.  Erasyne freed her and Thor applied his healing magic, but she was still too hurt even to be conscious.  Thor summoned Pheretima from her bottle and asked her to take the woman back to the shiek's men.Erasyne then decided to investigate the door she'd seen.  She found that it opened into the dining room we'd passed through earlier.  When she opened the hidden door she surprised Pheretima, who was on her way through carrying the woman.  After Erasyne satisfied her curiosity, we made our way across the bridge again and down the passage that lay beyond the tar pit.We entered a triangular room with a stone chair at the end opposite the doorway.  There were some bookshelves as well, but they held few books, much to Ninad's disappointment.  Illtud went to examine a silver chest he saw to the right of the door.  Suddenly a blurred figure appeared and stabbed Illtud in the back with a scimitar that flickered with black flames.  The assassin also struck Ninad with a poisoned dagger.  As Illtud collapsed to the floor, the rest of us attacked our foe with all our might.Ninad stunned our enemy with a blow, causing him to drop his weapons.  Erasyne kicked the poisoned dagger away.  Thor grabbed the assassin's scimitar and ran out of the room.  The man shook off his daze and ran toward the stone chair.  Erasyne and I tried and failed to stop him.  He opened a small jar, and several swirling forms began to emerge, accompanied by a fearful moaning.  The assassin then turned and walked through the wall before we could stop him.I tried to smash the jar, hoping to destroy what it held as well, but succeeded only in breaking the jar itself.  The swirling shapes began to take on humanoid forms.  Everyone decided to flee the room, dragging fallen Illtud with them.  Thor ran back in and announced that he could deal with the wraith-like things.  While the others fled, I remained behind to aid him.The three wraiths came through the wall and my spear couldn't touch them.  Only magic weapons had any effect on them and I had none.  Ninad ran up with Illtud's mace, but none of us could wield it.  Thor was able to destroy one wraith with his magic spear.  Ninad handed me his magical staff and struck another wraith with his bare fists, connecting quite solidly.  I struck at the third with the staff, and in a moment all three of the spirits were gone.Poor long-suffering Illtud was dead.  His murderer had fled, evidently by magic, and there was nothing we could do for him.  Despondent, we looked about the room briefly.  Ninad found a few books about Kali, and opened the silver chest, which turned out to actually be of platinum.  It contained some 3,000 gold pieces and two packages wrapped in velvet.  The first held a bit of stone that we determined to be a missing piece of the Sythrael figure.  The second packet contained a pair of platinum and ruby earrings.  Ninad and Erasyne proclaimed that these earrings matched a necklace that Prince Javid had been prepared to present to his bride.Ninad became convinced that this was evidence of some plot against the sheik.  Thor suggested that perhaps Prince Javid was in league with the cultists of Kali.  I saw no reason to support either assumption, and Erasyne only wanted to get our reward from the sheik and be on our way.  In fact she sounded more like Illtud than her usual self.  Perhaps his death affected her more than one might have expected.We decided that we couldn't simply return to the sheik and tell him we hadn't found the missing piece of his statue.  A diviner had told him it could be found in the temple.  So Ninad broke the piece in two, Thor encased part of it in stone, and I floated out over the tar pit to push it under the tar with a long pole provided by Pheretima.  It should be quite difficult to find there.Ninad is particularly indignant that someone may be plotting against the sheik and his family.  I think he's quite willing to remain here until he finds out how the earrings came to be in the temple.  But the rest of us aren't so eager to become involved in local political intrigues.  We also must decide what to do with Illtud.  Thor has a scroll that will raise the dead, but none of us have the proper knowledge to use it.  I'll tell you more in my next letter.Lothiriel________________________Quips & Quotes:Zora:  "Patrick won't let me bring Biff (a halfling PC in another game) over to this game."Devo:  "'Annoying short person's' already taken in this group."patv (to Illtud): "The blade seems to burn after it hits you."Devo:  "Just like your last date!"Zora:  "Possession is 9/10 of gnome law."Devo (as Thor):  "What are you looking at me for?"Zora:  "We were so amazed that you stopped talking!"Jubilee was absent, so Zora took over running Erasyne after Illtud died.  Erasyne ended up being in charge of Illtud's body, and Zora kept trying to have her shove poor Illtud into the tar.</blockquote>

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