Finally! We’re out of the City of the Dead!

After our short break in the massive tower in the City, we made our way to the temple. Drusilia, Ghelt and Fafnir had all been there before, but the rest of us had yet to travel there.

We entered the temple and immediatley went into the basement, where we stopped before a seal marked with a visige of Nerull. Drusilia said the seal would steal health from whoever crossed it, so rather than walking across it. I used Mage Hand to send the small key across the seal and into the door. On its way across, the key began to glow, to the point that Drusilia was complaining about the brightness from her Detect Magic spell, then the light faded. Drusilia walked across the seal, and anounced that she didn’t get hurt.

We then came upon three corridors side-by-side with an inscription in the split:

The bold shall be crushed The righteous thwarted The sinister flayed The path best known Is never as it seems

I puzzled about it a bit, and figured that the bold would go straight, that Righteous had a base of right, so the right passage was for righteous. And Drusilia pointed out that sinister also means left. I wondered if we would be immune to effects from a hall that didn’t describe us, so I went down the sinister tunnel, followed by Aramil. Winds started through the passage, and we were nicked by small grains of sand, hence being “flayed.” So, either I was wrong or Aramil is evil (neither is really beyond reason).

Ghelt and Fafnir solved the puzzle, though, realizing that the passage we had just come through was the one we would know best. They went back to the seal and dissappeared, and the rest of the party quickly followed suit.

We teleported to a large room with two altars, one that was surrounded by treasure and a moat of disgusting green goo, and one at the far end of the room that was fountaining blood onto a small black object. The Heart!

Four mummies barred the way, though Drusilia was able to make short work of them. Then, the Lich, Arkon, showed up with several henchmen, and the now distorted body of the halfling Korin. Drusilia used her holy symbol to blind several of the henchmen, and I took off sprinting for the heart. I managed to grab it and started to sprint back. The lich roared in rage and motioned his slaves to attack me. Ghelt managed to block their path, hacking them down as they tried to pass.

Aramis suddenly appeared, attacking the lich with righteous fury. The duel only lasted a few seconds, the lich cast what seemed like 10 spells, then Aramis shreding the lich with his silver greatsword. When the lich died, the power that held Arun-Tosa togather corroded within a few seconds, and the room began to shake itself down around us.

Aramis opened a portal, which we crawled our way through. It teleported us back to the town of Smallville, a blessing for the weary adventurers we were. Aramis restored our health, and we set off back to Smallville for a few days rest before we head to the Temple of the Void to destroy the heart.

I had to gave my cloak to Drusilia, who had fallen into the slimy green moat, and as a result had had most of her clothing eaten away, along with some of her skin (ouch). Fafnir seemed only interested in waving gold pieces at her the rest of the day.

For now we are back to a quiet town, hopefully it will stay that way for a few days, even if we are here....