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Message: <blockquote data-quote="sniffles" data-source="post: 3311826" data-attributes="member: 30035">Letter #289 Goodmonth 601 CY, SefmirTo Tiryon Aldarin, Flameflower, VesveDearest brother;A great deal has happened since I wrote you last. I'll have to condense my story a bit else this letter will be too unwieldy to read. As I told you in my last letter, our friend Illtud had been slain in the temple of the banned cult of Kali, in a cavern near the estate of Sheikh Azman. Once we had disposed of part of the statue fragment we found, we carried Illtud's body back to the surface and returned to the sheikh's palace. We took with us the woman we had rescued, Dinaz. We noticed that two of the sheikh's men had already left, ostensibly to report back to their master. But they left before we returned to the surface and didn't take Dinaz along with them, which we thought odd.The sheikh was of course delighted that we had brought him another bit  of the statue. In fact, his interest seemed to border on obsession. He had little time for Illtud's demise or Dinaz's imprisonment. He did arrange for Illtud to be laid in a shrine and for Dinaz to be cared for. It turned out that Dinaz was a former suitor of Prince Javid. But neither her plight nor the earrings we'd found much interested the sheikh. He had arranged a large meal for us despite the late hour, and while we dined we told him what had occurred in the caves. After a time he grew annoyed that Prince Javid hadn't joined us, and was informed by the servants that the prince couldn't be found. He then excused himself and Prince Hamad tried to take over as host. I'll be glad to leave thatboy behind. He is as selfish as his father, though more charming.After a time I had enough of this and went to the garden to commune with nature. Ninad left with me and went to his room. Later I learned that Thor had insisted on the rest of the group going to check on Dinaz. I'm sure they frightened the poor lady. I forgot to mention that the sheikh had two other visitors: a Halfling musician named Werp (I think I mentioned him before) and a Halfling priestess called Rose Weisselpuff.The next day was rather dull. The sheikh had sent for a priest to attend to Illtud - Rose not being experienced enough - and the priest wouldn't arrive for several days. The house was in turmoil about the prince's absence and we didn't see the sheikh until evening. Prince Hamad tried to play host again, insisting on horseback riding before lunch and then a coach trip to the city. We discussed seeking other lodgings to avoid trespassing on family troubles, but the young prince would hear nothing of it.At dinner we learned that Prince Javid had apparently been involved with the cultists of Kali. He'd fled with the two missing guards. Then dinner was interrupted by the arrival of three more visitors, two priests and a fat merchant. The priests were Ali-Dad, priest of the sun goddess Surya, and Bijan, priest of Kartikeya, god of war. The merchant's name was Gwarunga. I think we all disliked him immediately.Ali-Dad and Gwarunga told us a story of something amazing that had happened when the merchant visited the Ivory Temple, a famed but abandoned temple of the dawn goddess Ushas. Long ago there had been a famous priestess there, Yaleah, who had a gift of prophecy. She had turned to stone or somehow become a statue, but would supposedly speak in times of need.Gwarunga claimed he'd gone to leave an offering and the statue had spoken to him. She told him to take the temple's greatest relic, the Teeth of Yabgu. Yabgu was a giant who apparently had gems for teeth. We'd seen a painting of him in the sheikh's art gallery.Ali-Dad offered to look after Illtud if we would accompany Bijan and Gwarunga back to the temple to investigate further. Being curious and bored, we agreed. After two days' preparation we went off with a caravan of Gwarunga's coach and Bijan's underlings toward the Ivory Temple.Gwarunga didn't seem pleased about our presence and mostly stayed away from us. We were all suspicious of him. He didn't seem like a very devout person, and I think we all doubted that he'd go out of his way to visit an abandoned temple without good reason. His coach was also very slow and it took us longer to reach the temple than we would have liked.One evening while Erasyne was on watch, my dogs began barking, as well as Rose's riding dog (she'd offered to come with us). We heard battle cries and everyone woke as a number of orcs and an ogre appeared. Before I could get Rahon and Morwen to safety an orc attacked Rahon. Then Thor ummoned up a storm of sleet to attack the ogre, and poor Morwen was caught in it. I had to drag her out of the ice and set her near the fire. I sent a sphere of flames at one foe, then took up my spear to meet the orcs.Strangely, Gwarunga's guards didn't move to help us, and Rose told us afterward that the orcs seemed to be deliberately avoiding the merchant's camp, which lay a short distance away from ours. Praise the Keen Eye, Thor's sleet storm kept the ogre blind and off his feet much of the fight.  The orcs had an archer who kept targeting me, and once the ogre recovered his footing and moved out of the sleet he was a difficult opponent for me to face. Thor called lightning down on the archer and removed him from the fray. Rose was calling on her deity's power as well, Ninad cast some of his fine sound spells, and Erasyne was whirling everywhere with her blade. Soon the orcs and ogre were all down but for the orcs' leader.We questioned the captive orc and he offered us his party's equipment as ransom for his life, to which we agreed. He took us to their camp after dawn the next day, when we had all recovered a bit and Bijan had given us some divine healing. Rose very helpfully used her ability to increase the power of his spells. At the orc's camp we found several horses, which we donated to Bijan's temple. There was also an elephant. Thor and Erasyne were particularly excited by the elephant, although I can't see how such a large creature could be useful to us in our travels. Rose wanted to ride it but was too small to persuade it to cooperate with her and I had to lead it along.At noon we came to the Ivory Temple. It was indeed abandoned, the entry chamber full of rubble. Down a wide hallway we found a sanctuary containing the statue or petrified figure of Yelaya. Gwarunga had gone in to make another offering and seemed annoyed when we came along. He kept talking in an unusually loud voice. When we examined the 'statue', Thor insisted that he saw her breathing. He cast a spell to light the chamber. Ninad also indicated that he thought there was something suspicious about the woman. We determined to search the temple. While Ninad searched one side passage, I took another. The rest of our companions remained in the statue room. I found nothing in the rooms I peered into. Ninad found a staircase ascending to another level. Meanwhile, Thor challenged the woman in the chamber to give up her pretense. Erasyne even used her Gem of Seeing to seek the truth of the matter, though it showed nothing unusual. The woman made some announcement regarding the Teeth of Yabgu that resembled what Gwarunga had recounted. Gwarunga made a great fuss over her. Thor challenged her with the holy symbol of Surya he carried and she appeared to panic. She tossed something, and then Gwarunga's bodyguards began threatening Erasyne. Gwarunga shouted out that thereshould be no witnesses.Then a gong sounded. I rushed back to the main entry chamber but saw no one. My friends were fighting with the merchant's guards in the altar chamber, so I ran to their aid, as did Ninad. Gwarunga had surprisingly drawn a weapon, though oddly his blade looked very old and in poor condition. I couldn't see Rose anywhere - I learned later that she knows how to become invisible. She had apparently seen someone else do the same and followed them. Gwarunga attempted to flee from us. We pursued him into a side chamber, and abruptly found ourselves confronted by a strange bird-like being that caught hold of me with a grasp that sparked with lightning. Then it cast some other spell that made me feel oddly disinterested in fighting it. I stood there gaping at it as it tried to run away. Thor transformed himself into an axebeak - a new talent - and attacked the bird-thing, but it surrounded itself with images of itself so that it was difficult to fight.The merchant had taken a potion of invisibility, we later learned, and fled up the stairs. Rose followed him, though I didn't know that at the time. Unfortunately for Rose I tried to catch Gwarunga by sending a sphere of flame up the stairs after him but only succeeded in scorching Rose instead, and the Halfling woman was too small to stop the hefty merchantfrom passing through the doorway. As it happens, Erasyne was able to see both of them through her gem, and when I came out into the main chamber again she began shouting directions to me. But despite his girth Gwarunga was somehow able to avoid my flaming sphere.The merchant was quite determined to flee and we had to chase him outside. But first we had to gain the surrender of the two bird-men. A second bird-man had appeared and begun battling with Ninad in the hallway. These two creatures claimed to be working with Gwarunga only for money and were willing to surrender and go their own way if we wouldallow it. Ninad made them show him what they had done with the offering items we'd left at the altar.Erasyne and I had to chase Gwarunga all the way to his coach before he could be caught. Thor had outlined him in faerie fire so that all could see him. There are certainly many greedy folk in this world, for when the merchant offered one of his guards an expensive ring, the guard was willing to try to hold us off, though it did him little good. Gwarunga then tried to bribe Erasyne and I with another ring. But we took him prisoner and made him confess to Bijan that the whole speaking statue story had been his plot to steal the Teeth of Yabgu. Praise the gods he didn't succeed.Bijan ordered Gwarunga to give up all his worldly possessions and leave the area. He then took us to an inner sanctum beneath the temple where the relics were stored in safety and could only be reached by a priest with the proper tokens. After assuring himself that the Teeth of Yabgu were safe, he let us look at the true statue of Yaleah, which did indeedappear to be a genuine statue.On the following day, Bijan wanted to go to the Caves of Dagon, where Gwarunga had been set to meet his orcish confederates. We agreed to go along with him, leaving Gwarunga's remaining men and Bijan's acolytes behind. Thor transformed himself into a bat and flew into the cave to explore after we arrived. He saw a number or orcs in the cave, along with a human priest and some sort of undead thing. The orcs were in the process of hoisting a statue of Yaleah up on ropes, and appeared to have some special fires set up to illuminate it, presumably to continue Gwarunga's ruse.We slipped into the cave and took a side passage to explore. There we found the woman who had been masquerading as Yaleah, chained to some hideous idol. Erasyne released her. She claimed to simply have been paid to impersonate the priestess and that she knew little else of the merchant's plans, but she did tell us that he had another wagon hiddensomewhere nearby containing his true wealth. After sending the woman outside, we prepared to attack the orcs. They seemed to be in a well-defended area, behind a ridge with a pit before it to block easy approach. Thor blinded them with a burst of sleet so we could get near. I used my ring of levitation to rise up over the ridge. Unfortunately this made me an obvious target, and my intended foes simply moved out of my reach. The evil human priest began targeting me with some entropic spell that did me a great deal of harm.Thor was astride Beaker and had cast a spell that allowed the axebeak to climb up the wall, where the gnome could hurl lightning at the human priest. Erasyne was whirling about like a dervish with a scimitar she had taken from one of Gwarunga's guards, I believe. I couldn't see Ninad or Rose, for they had gone to the opposite end of the ridge. A skeletal form emerged at the priest's command, but before it could do anything Bijan destroyed it with divine magic. I landed, as the levitation was giving me no advantage, and Bijan healed some of my wounds. The area behind the ridge was so cramped that I was obliged to set aside my spear and use my large scimitar. Eventually I made my way past all of the orcs and could see that the rest of my friends were facing the human priest in a narrow passage. Rose had somehow managed to snatch away the priest's holy symbol, and he was left fighting with only his ugly, spiked sword. He was a difficult opponent. I took out my bow and began firing at him from a distance. All of my companions were furiously attacking him. Then I placed another arrow in him and he collapsed. We determined that the statue of Yaleah had been enchanted to speak with the voice of the woman who impersonated her; another step in Gwarunga's plan. After we had checked all the bodies for anything of value, Thor flew off in eagle form to seek the cave where Gwarunga's other wagon would be hidden. He reported that he had seen the merchant hurryinto a cave not far away.We made our way to the second cave, leaving Bijan behind. There we found the merchant and the orc we had released a few days earlier, involved in a heated argument. There was an ornate wagon in the cave, along with a pair of horses, but one of the horses appeared to be dead. We blocked the cave entrance and demanded that Gwarunga and his companionsurrender.It is strange to me that few people are willing to surrender even when the odds are obviously against them. The orc charged me and I set my spear against him. Gwarunga drew his rusty blade and tried to hide in his wagon, but Erasyne crept round behind it and forestalled him. She very nearly killed him, but we had decided that he must be punished, andRose healed him just enough to prevent his death. Just when we had eliminated the orc and thought all was well, the remaining horse panicked and fled down a side tunnel. We heard its scream of terror abruptly cut off, and then a horrible monster emerged from the tunnel. It looked like a huge brain with the beak of a bird and a great quantity of very long tentacles. I believe this creature is called a grell, though this one was much larger than what I had heard of previously. It caught hold of Erasyne and paralyzed her, then grabbed Ninad and began to drag him away.Thor had Beaker grab hold of Erasyne and eventually the axebeak was able to pull her free of the grell's grasp, but Ninad couldn't get free no matter how hard he tried. I shot at the thing while Rose and Thor used the last of their spells against it. Ninad kept determinedly pummeling the tentacle that gripped him. At last we were able to slay the monstrosity, and Erasyne recovered her mobility a short while later.I don't recall much of what we found in Gwarunga's wagon, other than a chest full of coins that weren't coins. They were some sort of creature that bit and used poison, but could be soothed with music. Rose was able to calm them with a golden harp she suddenly produced from her unusually capacious belt pouch.. There was actual coin in the chest as well, but I paid no attention to the amount. Now I presume we'll determine what to do about Illtud. Rose was very offended when she thought we might bring him back to life without his leave. She insisted on casting a spell to speak with his spirit and ask if he would like to come back. I believe he's chosen to remain in theafterlife. I'm not certain where we will go from this point, but I expect that Rose will be coming with us.Your sister, Lothiriel_______________________________________Quips & quotes:Devo: "Thor turns into a hummingbird. He'll be a hummingbird with80-odd hit points."Zora: "Rose is tired - it takes a lot to carry these limbs." (Rose has a4 Str)Devo: "Forty more rounds and you're toast."Zora: "If you want a game with no surprises, don't have any players."Jubilee (to Thor, who can't speak in bird form): "Bob once for yes, twicefor no. Where do you keep all those Bobs?"Devo: "Pinned on with a Bobby pin."Sniffles: "I have Handle Animal."Hedrin: "Good thing the animal has a handle."Jubilee: "We've got this nice shiny elephant!"patv: "When did the elephant become shiny?"Hedrin: "We buffed it."Zora: "Erasyne's been 'buffing' her elephant."patv: "You can go to the Caves of Dagon."Jubilee: "I want to go the to the Caves of Degas and see prettyballerinas."Devo: "I'm Bat-gnome!"Devo: "Thor poops on them."patv: "Don't you want to touch the idol?"Jubilee: "No! It's icky!"patv: "Don't you want to take the golden nipple rings?"Jubilee: (more enthusastically) "It has golden nipple rings?!"patv: (Making hooting noises while looking something up.)Hedrin: "This has been a test of the emergency DM system. If this hadbeen a real DM..."Zora: "What's this thing right here?"Devo: "That's his 'package'. Kick it."Jubilee: "I want a bag of many axebeaks!"sniffles: "Is that a bag of many axebeaks or mini axebeaks?"</blockquote>

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