13 Lamashan 4709 AR
Absalom

As we run towards the Cathedral, the organ music starts to play, but then stops. Gill tells us it must finish the song. We arrived at a bloody scene. A huge organ with pipes that appear as big as the sewer tunnels we just left fills one side of the room. The floor is littered with bloody corpses and those ghostly creatures from the mill are lined up on the “keys” or platforms in front of each pipe, about 15’ off the floor. One of the temple’s keepers is still alive but surrounded by more of the undead. As I run towards the balcony to slice my way through the Black Echelon, I see Salma is exuding that energy that weakens the undead while strengthening us; Tythe has out her bow, and Zandu is taking off his gloves?

We easily dispatch the undead, and save the one living person left in the temple, but are faced with playing the rest of the song. I beg the girl we’ve just rescued to point to the right keys as my friends and I run up to the balcony to play the monstrous instrument. After a few tries, we deem it successful and are back on our way to the Pyramid of the Dog. I complain that we haven’t eaten, but Salma assures me that we can find “food on a stick” from street vendors on our way out of town.

After about an hour of what I’d call forced marching, we find a half-wrecked “pyramid”— it was originally four siege towers, but now only ones stands tall while the other three have fallen towards that one, hence the name. A guard dog stands in front of what might be considered the main entrance, and arrows slits dot the towers. I attempt to lull the dog to sleep with music, but of course, as soon as we start to attack the tower (my friends aiming arrows through the arrow slits in the wrong direction), the dog begins to make noise and the occupants of the tower begin shooting back.

Salma suggests that we try again later when we can be less obvious about our attack, and she and I make to leave. We get a few hundred feet away when we realize that Zandu and Tythe are not with us; turning to look back, we see them entering one of the towers! We run back in time to face some of the War Dogs who come out to defend their pyramid. We manage to take a few of them out (and the dog) while one that I’m having a lot of trouble seeing attacks me repeatedly. I keep fighting, with Zandu reassuring me he has more of those healing potions should I fall. I manage to stay up long enough to hit Nessiam (or whoever this obvious leader of this welcome party is) before I go down. I didn’t manage to kill him, but did hit him hard enough that he’s slunk back into the main tower. True to his word, Zandu gives me a healing potion and we stand here now, unsure whether to follow the last enemy standing or rest to fight another day….