legacy
The Impossible Eye 

Beyond the Vault of Souls


The Soul Gems 

While lounging around in the City of Brass waiting for various magic items to be be created for them, the Party was approached in their lodgings one day by a ragged looking man, who introduced himself as  Taibhill the Mystic. Taibhill, seemed to know each of them by name and knew exactly what they were about. He explained that he was a cleric of Pharasma, and the goddess had sent him to them via a vision. Several soul gems had been stolen from the Vault of Souls and he believed that at least one of them had fallen into the hands of agents of Jhavul and that Jhavul was attempting to use the power in the gems to help him raise an entity know as Xotani the Firebleeder. The goddess had requested that they retrieve the soul gems and stop this abomination being reborn, for which the Church of Pharasma would render one service each to the members of the party.
 
Once the party agreed he gave each of them a small stone inscribed with Pharasma’s holy symbol and told them when ready simply to walk out with the token held in their hands and they would be taken to the Keepers of the Vault. That veryafternoon they set out, walking down the heat-hazed  twisting streets of The City of Brass holding their tokens. As they walked they had the impression of passing through a tunnel and then they found themselves walking through a very different city, where wide boulevards led past marble buildings in dead straight times to a central spire above which a gibbous moon hung. Art and Alyssa both realised that they were now on the plane of Axis. They were met at the base of the great spire by one of the Keepers, who confirmed the Church of Pharasma’s deal with them and offered them a scroll which she said would take them to the location of the stolen soul gems, all they had to do was touch one of the symbols on the scroll and a portal would appear to take them near to the missing gem. 

Without further ado, they triggered the first symbol and stepped through a portal. They found themselves standing beneath a whirling crazy sky, a shifting kaleidoscope of nauseating, viscous colours that exuded malice.  They were standing on a dusty plain dotted here and there with thorny trees, in the far distance they could see what looked like a small city,and the air was filled by a sonorous groaning.  Art and Alyssa barely had time to identify that they were on the Abyss before they were attacked by a huge spider-like demon. Fortunately the party were able to handle the beast, Raschid and Gromranda moving in to close combat while Aludrin peppered the demon with arrows and Alyssa and Art with spells.After the demon was disposed off they began walking towards the city.

As they got closer they could see it was surrounded by a palisade and guarded by vaguely humanoid looking demons, some of whom carried vicious looking long-spears. Two of the demons guarded the gateway overseen by a vulture-headed demon that Alyssa identified as a vrock. After a brief discussion on tactics to get into the city, the party decided to follow Arts suggestion for dealing with demons and act like the owned the place and had every right to be there. Alyssa, after casting Tongues, took the lead in the negotiation which consisted of bluffing an intimidation the guards until they were permitted entry to the city of A Taste of Aguish. 

The city itself proved to be a slovenly affair, the roads within little A Taste of Anguishmore than muddy tracks and the building a chaotic riot of poorly constructed wood and tents. The centre of the city was dominated by a massive twisted tree surrounded by a great keep. Everything was pretty slovenly and some of the buildings were little more than ruins while others showed recent signs of damage with little sign of any attempt to repair it. The area immediately beyond the gatehouse appeared to be some kind of bazaar, and Alyssa was able to browbeat a passer-by into telling them where to find an inn. As they left the bazaar, some of the party noticed a female demon watching them carefully – though she made no move to approach them. 

As they wandered through the city they could see many signs of preparations for war – huge siege engines were arrayed and babau sergeants attempted to drill platoons of dretches. As they passed one area of rubble, Art noticed a vrock regarding them patiently. This vrock, Ahatsil, seemed to exude an aura of great age as well as great evil as he turned and greeted Art – describing him as a “little cleric of the sun goddess”. The elder vrock seemed to be amused by their presence and was happy to pass on information – telling them that the current ruler of the city The Usurper – and presumably that which they sought - could be found in The Tree. Aftertheir conversation with Aahtsil, they took rooms in what looked like the best of the local inns, The Split Skull,  and settled in for the night – once their rooms were cleared out of their current occupants by the hezrou bouncer that worked there! 

A Taste of Anguish 

That night, Art's rest was interrupted by an unexpected visitor - the female demon from the marketplace. Art found himself entranced by his visitor, who introduced herself as M'elaen. She had seen their encounter with Ahatsil and wished Art to secure an introduction. Art readily agreed.  Hearing the sound of voices from his room Alyssa and Raschid crowded in to see what was happening, much to Art's annoyance, M'elaen simplyvanished with a kiss! 
Next morning, while Art was waiting for M'elaen outside the tavern. He was accosted by a hezrou, looking to pick a fight. A crowd gather to watch the spectacle of the pint-sized cleric facing off against the giant demon that towered over. Initially the crowd seemed amused with soome cheering on the little cleric, but when Raschid, Gromranda and Aludrin intervened to assist the mood of the crowd turned ugly. Fortunately before things could get out of hand M'elaen arrived and quickly charmed both the aggressive hezrou and the crowd! 

Art then led the succubus to Ahatsil, with the others trailing along behind. The elder vrock seem amused to he him in the company of the succubus - welcoming the "little cleric and the little spy!" M'elaen moved forward seductively and began trying to charm the vrock. Art standing by anxiously sensed the succubus was way out of her league, and tried to warn her - to no avail as Ahatsil suddenly pounced and grabbing M'elaen in his talons took off over the city walls.

The party then began to discuss how best to retrieve the soulstone from the Usurper, protected as he was by guards and the walls of the keep. They decided their best option was to join the ranks of the daily petitioners who crowded the base of the tree entreating  The Usurper for favours. 

They duly joined the queue and, far above in near the treetop they could see what they assumed was the soulgem it's light shining out. Using the chaos only  a large assembly of demons could create, Alyssa used dimension door to get them near the top of the tree where the gemstone lay embedded in the trunk.

The Great Tree

In short order the party began the difficult process of navigating the thorn encrusted upper branches of the Great Tree. Alyssa decided to cast Fly and watch out for The Usurper as the others struggled. Art had particular problems and had to rely on his ring of feather-fall as he tumbled off the Great Tree.
 
Fortunately he was able to grab a branch and resume his climb.  Aludrin was first to reach the soul-gem and began trying to dig it out from where it was embedded in the trunk off the Great Tree. As he did so far below, Alyssa saw the Tyrant react and come flying up toward them at great speed – straight into a hail of lethal spells from Gromranda and the party’s other spell-casters. 

Not even summoning a glabrezu and some of his fellow vrocks could save the unfortunate Usurper and before long the party had recovered the gem and with the aid of some judicious fly spells from Alyssa were on their way or of the city. 

As they flew over the tortured wasteland they were ambushed by a group of effreeti – presumably sent by Jhavul to recover the soul-gem. However, another  dimension door  from Alyssa enabled them to evade their assailants long enough to activate the map-scroll and return to Axis.
  
On returning to Axis they met the same Keeper they had met previously – who had obviously been waiting for them acting she said in accordance with Prophecy. They handed over the soul-gem and then decided to head off to rest in a nearby inn. Next morning they were meet by the Keeper once more . She gave them several weapons she described as daemon bane and a small collection of potions before wishing them luck. 
 
Activating the map-scroll without further ado, they found themselves on the plane of Abaddon.  They were standing at the base of an obsidian-walled canyon through which the Styx flowed sluggish and black 

The Cauldron

Gromranda and Raschid led the way cautiously down the canyon, following the map, Alyssa cast Invisibility on herself and Art and Aludrin brought up the rear.. They were conscious always of the Styx winding its way next to them, above the lip of the canyon, soul-splintering winds howled, and streamers of dust and smoke whistled madly through the sky.  The map led them to where a massive lump of bone and rock had lodged in the shallows at a bend in the river, canted slightly to one side, its door opened onto a platform adjacent to the shore which connected to the bank the party were on via a narrow causeway. Behind it and just beyond the canyon a massive dead volcano rose with fortresses and battlements carved into its sides. Suddenly Gromranda and Raschid called a halt as they spotted to large frog-like daemons guarded the door. The party took cover in some boulders but they were pretty sure they had been spotted.

main levelAs the daemons didn’t seem to react, Art moved forward and stood at the end of the causeway and called out a greeting - only to receive a telepathic reply urging him to leave. The party briefly discussed options before rapidly deciding on a frontal assault as their best approach. A fusillade of arrows and spells were launched at the hapless daemons killing them. Raschid moved forward cautiously across the causeway, only to be attacked by two more hydrodaemons leaping out of the Styx. These daemons fared no batter than their colleagues and in short order the party were passing through the doorway. 

Beyond the doorway a tunnel led off – fortunately the way was well-lit and Gromranda led the way. The hallway beyond was guarded by two flesh golems, but they too were swiftly despatched. Several tunnels led off from this hallway and Art picked one at random which led them to a library. The only occupants of the library were a coupe of wraiths, who managed to attack Gromranda and Raschid briefly before being obliterated by the cleric’s turning ability. The library contain huge numbers of books, scrolls and tablets  that appeared to detail excruciating experiments carried out on all kinds of sentient creatures  from across the planes, but little of use to the party.

Moving on through a door in the far side of the library they discovered a couple of stairways – going up and down. Deciding to leave those till later they headed down a side passage which led to a room where masses of junk appeared to  stored haphazardly. Glinting in the junk they could see gold coins and gemstones strewn haphazardly. A casting of detect magic from Alyssa also told them there were several magic items in the debris. While Raschid and Aludrin kept a wary eye on the passageway behid them, it took the others, directed by Alyssa, about half-an hour of digging through the stuff to recover the various treasures scattered throughout.

The Torture Chambers

Raschid and Aludrin spotted a large insect-like daemon, a Derghodaemon. The daemon spotted them at the same time, but Aludrin and   got off a flurry of attacks before the daemon could react. The daemon dodged to one side, then cast deeper darkness. While the party readied themselves waiting for an assault the daemon summoned another of it’s kind which teleported in behind them and attacked Art. Both  Art and Alyssa were badly wounded before both of the daemons were finally despatched.

After this combat the party decided to continue their explorations, finding their way into what was obviously a holding area of the facility. The first captive they discovered was an axiomite captive held behind a crystal barrier. Alyssa freed him using dimension door¸ whereupon they discovered that he was somewhat confused due to prolonged exposure to Styx water. In they area beyond they found a series of rooms which contained scarred steel tables, with many chains and manacles attached. Mounted to the wall was a small rack of multicoloured flasks, and nearby was a dull black orb that shone with an evil purple light.

They found another room where three demons and three devils were imprisoned in magic circles but, though Alyssa proposed they may be able to make a deal with the devils to secure their aid, the others were not keen on the idea and they left them to their fate.

The next batch of prisoners were found resting in a hole in the ground -  twenty humanoid prisoners -  humans, elves, dwarves, and others. All of them looked like they had been starved and tortured for a long time.  As the party began doling out what healing and food they could spare, the prisoner’s leaders, a paladin who introduced himself as Hawkins and Mithini a rogue introduced themselves. Aside from Hawkins and Mithini who were both relatively recent internees, most of the prisoners needed serious medical attention and most had obviously been broken by their experiences. The party decided to stay and rest while Gromranda and Art doled out more healing. Raschid and Alyssa armed Hawkins and Mithini with what spare weaponry they had in party treasure.

Fortunately no daemons came to the prison wing that night and, next morning they set out again, managing to interrupt three hydrodaemons who were torturing some effreeti to death. Two of the hydrodaemons were swiftly killed but one fled using teleport. Alyssa chased after him to the main entrance only to run into two more of the soul-golems. In a short and brutal fight the soul-golems were despatched as was the last of the hydrodaemons.


The DrowningPools

The clerics doled out some healing and Art led the way to exploring the nearby rooms, most of which turned out to be torture/experimentation chambers. Only one was occupied -  by couple of hydrodaemons which were swiftly dealt with, Aludrin’s arrows proving particularly effective. In a dank cave nearby Gromranda  discovered a pack of barghests which, judging by what they were chowing-down on, were kept to get rid of the remains after the daemon’s experiments were complete.

In a nearby cave they discovered a huge lead sphere, and a huge sphere of fire. Something was  trying to bash its way out of the lead sphere, and hearing the voices of Raschid it redoubled it’s efforts. As the lead wall finally cracked water came pouring out revealing the “something” to be a water elemental driven mad by being polluted with Styx water. Unfortunately they had no option but to join battle - the elemental being beyond reason.

After the fray, Art approached the sphere of fire and he and Alyssa determined that there was something imprisoned within this one as well – an air elemental. Art cast tongues and was able to communicate with the prisoner, promising to free it as soon as someone in the party had access to dispel magic.

Moving on,they freed a bralani and an avoral from cold-iron shackles. After being asked by Art if they could help, the avoral offered to use it’s dispel magic  ability to free the air elemental, who in thanks,  offered to aid the party 5 times.  The party then escorted the celestials back to where the other freed prisoners were waiting.

The final room on this level was filled with thirty pools of varying sizes and colours. Near each pool were one or more shallow grooves with straps bolted to the floor, positioned so any creature held therein must touch the contents of the pool. Seeing this, Art speculated that the daemons were experimenting on the effect of the various liquids on the varied life-forms they had imprisoned. Alyssa meanwhile, having cast fly to get a better overview of the cavern, disturbed a number of wraiths luring in the ceiling. Badly damaged by their assault she used dimension door to escape, just as Art stepped forward, presented his holy symbol and obliterated them!

A Pestilence of Daemons

Retiring to join the freed prisoners for rest, they party settled down to sleep leaving Gromranda and Valothan to keep watch. All was quiet at first, but in the small hours, Valothan suddenly called out a warning, telling Gromranda to wake the others. The bralani transformed into his wind form nd launched into battle with what looked like small daemons with huge maws filled with fearsome teeth. After waking the others, Gromranda joined the battle only to be ambushed by a leukodaemon, who unleashed a cloud of corpse-bloated, biting black flies at her. As a second leukodaemon fired at her with it’s bow, Gromranda retaliated by casting Holy Storm. While Art, held back to see what to ensure all was well with the captives, Alyssa, still badly injured, cast spider climb  and headed for the relative safely of the ceiling. Raschid and Aludrin rushed to join the fray. Raschid immediately ran into another hail of corpse-flies while Aludrin hung back launching arrows at the daemonic shapes he could identify. Battle was considerably hampered by the poor visibility of the combined driving rain and clouds of bloated flies swarming the corridor. A fearsome battle ensured in which Raschid and Gromranda were both badly injured before the daemons were destroyed.
 
The rest of the night passed peacefully, and they headed downstairs to the lower level of the Cauldron. This area, a mass of groaning, leaky pipe work, was deserted, so they decided to head the upper level.  A short corridor from the stairs was blocked by a shimmering wall of electricity. After a protracted  discussion about how to proceed they decided that valor was the better part of discretion and the spellcasters began loading up with buffing spells.

The Ritual Chamber

Trusting to her protection from energy spell, Gromranda walked through the curtain of lightning while an invisible Alyssa used dimension door to get the others through. The emerged into a  domed area about 100 feet across, with buttresses holding up the roof. Strange pulleys hung around the perimeter, with chains and corpse-laden platforms connecting to various points on the wall. In the centre of the chamber a machine of dizzying complexity, smothered in tubes, gears, pulleys, wheels, and levers, suspended from the ceiling and shaped like an inverted pyramid. Beneath it were round metal slab with four humanoid corpses. The machine spat and flared electrical energy, with a beam of energy connecting it to one of the bodies. Barely visible in the centre of the machine was the missing soul gem. In front of them stood a jackal-headed fiend, as tall as an ogre but slightly stooped. It wore tattered robes and other accoutrements of alchemy and study. Oozing pustules covered its exposed flesh, and its eyes wept with a crusted mess of yellowish goo. As she looked at the daemon, Alyssa suddenly, inexplicably  felt faint with hunger

The fiend, a meladaemon, acted first, casting wall of fire at them. While the others moved to attack, Alyssa cast flymeladaemon and moved out to avoid the flames – unfortunately the meladaemon could see through her invisibility as he snapped at there with his jaws wounding her. The others move to attacked were thwarted as the four corpses on the slabs suddenly moved – revealing themselves to be Soul Golems.

As battle joined, Gromranda bought a little time by using disintegrate on the floor under the meladaemon, causing him to drop down to the room below! Raschid, Gromranda and Aludrin were whittling away at the golems when the meladaemon teleported back into the room, Alyssa hit him with a lucent lance and Art with a searing light.  One of the golems grabbed at the now visible Alyssa, grappling her. The meladaemon then user power word stun to take the sorceror out the combat before moving over towards the others – unfortunately for him this on serverd to draw Gromranda’s attention and she obliterated him with a bolt of glory.

Meanwhile the golem had taken the stunned body of Alyssa, placed her on one of the circular slabs and had begun inserting electrical probes. Art moved to help, but the golem grabbed him and placed him on another slab, inserting a probe. As Alyssa lay helpless she could feel strange energy coursing through her body, however it soon stopped as Aludrin scampered up the machine and managed to remove the Soul Gem from it’s centre - causing it to power down. While he did that the others quickly finished off the last soul golem.

The Soul Gem retrieved, the clerics doled out some healing before hey went and recovered the freed prisoners. Using the map-scroll they all returned to Axis where the prisoners were turned over to the Church of Pharasma for healing. After a night’s rest in a nearby inn, they decided to head out immediately to retrieve the last Soul Gem. Using the portal they found themselves at the base of an immense pit. Up the side of the pit they could see a winding stairway and there were signs of battle all around them. Ahead of them a golden light shone from a cave mouth.


Assault on the Crystal Cathedral

Passing through the cave mount the emerged into a massive cavern where the source of the golden glow quickly became apparent – a crystal cathedral dominated the cave. Art identified the holy symbol of Aroden surmounting the building. There were signs of battle here too, and they could see what looked suspiciously like one of the salamander patrols from Jhavul’s palace patrolling the forecourt.

Art, ever the optimist, stepped forward and greeted them. The salamanders withdrew into a defensive posture, but seemed to   take no offensive action, so Art stepped forward a few paces more- flanked by Raschid and Gromranda. Aludrin menawhile hung back and readied his bow. Suddenly a huge fire elemental appeared where they had been standing and launched an attack at Aludrin. Before the others could react, they were separated from the unfortunate archer by a wall of fire.  Raschid charged forward to attack while Art and Gromranda began loosing spells at the salamanders, while Aludrin went one-on-one with the elemental – taking fearsome  wounds in the process. When the salamanders were dealt with Art and Gromranda cast resist energy and charged though the wall of fire just in time to save Aludrin.

After some healing time, they approached the open doors of the cathedral - initially with caution. Art then decided to wander in first – only to be ambushed by two janni lurking either side of the door. As the others moved to support their comrade two further janni began firing arrows at them. Art, leading the way they pushed their way into the entrance hallway and engaged – two of the janni immediately enlarged themselves and two went invisible. Assuming that as Art had been first to brave the entrance way he must be the most dangerous, the janni concentrated their attacks on him – causing the cleric to be wounded near to death before their opponents were finally slain.

They barely had time to dole out a minimum of healing before another huge fire elemental appeared before them and attacked them. Though ultimately our heroes were triumphant, they were severely battered and bruised and had still only secured the entrance hall! 

If You Play with Fire, You're Gonna get Burned

The party barely had time to start healing ,when first one, then another, huge fire elementals appeared and attacked. As these were dispatched , not without some difficulty – especially for for Aludrin who was wounded near to death. Art, suspecting another invisible janni somewhere began searching the room casting invisibility purge, before they suddenly realised there was another salamander patrol out in the courtyard attacking them. Alyssa despatched the noble salamander with an orb of cold but they decided to ignore its two escorts, Gromranda shutting them out by closing the huge crystal doors.
 
After Gromranda and and Art had doled out healing spells from their rapidly diminishing supply, Art began exploring the area. Two side doors from the entrance hall led to what were obviously once cloakrooms , and now apparently used to store weapons. Eventually they felt  recovered enough to brave the double doors that lend into the cathedral. This rapidly proved to be a bad move as three noble salamanders waiting there immediately summoned more huge fire elementals to attack them. As battle was joined with the elementals, the salamanders launched several fireball spells into the mix.
 
One of the salamanders was taken out by a combination of arrows from Aludrin and a barrage of spells  from the spellcasters. The battle was not going well however as first Aludrin then Alyssa fell beneath the onslaught for the elementals – only being kept alive thanks to efforts from Art and Gromranda. In desperation Gromranda bought them some time by casting a wall of stone across the entrance, blocking the noble salamander’s attacks. This allowed the still-standing party members to focus their attacks on the elementals who were destroyed.
 
Art and Gromranda began dishing out healing, when Aludrin heard the sound of someone beginning to smash through the wall of stone. As a small fist-sized hole appeared, he loosed an arrow through it. However he was unable to check whether he had hit anything before two more elementals appeared and attacked them. They fought these elementals off as well, while while one of their enemies cast occasional spells though the hole in the wall of stone at them.
 
Eventually, deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, they withdrew from the combat. Aludrin cleared the way through the surviving salamanders in the courtyard with a flurry of arrows allowing them to retreat back to the scene of the battle in the pit. They took refuge in one of the makeshift huts that had  been built by the besieging force.

The Second Assault

 
After much deliberating in their makeshift camp , the party eventually decided on another frontal assault as their best option. This time however, they proceeded more cautiously, Alyssa casting invisibility and fly and scouting ahead. She found the scene much as they had let it yesterday – the bodies of the slain lying where they had fallen and the wall of stone still in place. When Gromranda and Raschid moved into the entranceway, it was apparent that someone was still observing them as another of the huge fire elements appeared and attacked. This time the party were ready and the elemental was quickly despatched.
 
Still invisible, Alyssa peeked through the hole in the wall of stone and could see a noble salamander moving about in the darkness beyond – she immediately cast an orb of cold  at it. While she did so, Gromranda used shape stone to make a doorway and they charged through. There proved to be a second salamanders in the room as well, but both went down before the party’s furious assault – especially once Art and Aludrin arrived to help.
 
Across the massive hallway in which they found themselves, a huge set of crystal doors – presumably leading into the nave of the cathedral. On either side were two antechambers and a couple of smallish staircases led away to wards an upper level. They decided to explore the antechambers firs . One had been set up a  a makeshift dormitory, presumably for the janni they had slain yesterday. The other was still occupied by the corpse of a cleric bearing the holy symbol of Aroden. Using the Rod of Alertness Alyssa discovered a secret door from which a passageway  led off into darkness. Following this passageway they passed through what was obviously  the temple treasury – to which they helped themselves (despite some rumblings from the more ethical members of the party), before they emerged into what the clerics in the party immediately identified as the presbytery.  There was a single door in the north wall, which would lead onto the altar, while Alyssa, still using the Rod of Alertness found a secret door. She was in the process of opening it, when Art opened the door that led out onto the altar.
 
After opening the door Art saw the interior of the cathedral – which had been defiled and was apparently in the process of being  re-consecrated to Rovagug. A janni cleric was in the midst of some terrible sacrificial ritual observed by an audience of effreeti.

Shouting out “Defilers!”, Art cast a sound burst and slammed the door. Alerted by Art’s actions, the others immediately took up defensive postures and waited...
 
The expected assault was not forthcoming however, and Raschid was somewhat surprised as he herd a loud scraping sound from outside the door. Opening the door a crack they could see that the altar – a single huge block of crystal - had been pushed against the doorway – completely blocking the exit. They were even more surprised when Alyssa and Aludrin standing near the passageway heard the rumbling sound of a roof-fall from the passageway they had just traversed – they were trapped!
 
Their only possible exit being the secret door Alyssa had found – Raschid went to investigate. A short passageway led to a cave where a huge symbol of Rovagug had been inscribed on the floor. On the far wall in a niche Raschid could see the soul-gem glowing in the darkness. Raschid moved cautiously into the cave – trying to hug the side walls. As he entered however, two  towering monsters with  horrible, vertically aligned mouths and arms that split at the elbows into twin clawed hands appeared.

The Final Gem

Raschid called out a warning to the others, who quickly rallied to their comrade’s defence. The battle was complicated when it transpired the huge unholy symbol of Rovagug on the floor turned out to be some kind of dead magic zone. The towering gugs launched a bewildering flurry of blows and bites their claws rending and tearing.

Raschid and Aludrin took the brunt of the damage, through Gromranda and Art were badly wounded as well. While Alyssa stood by helplessly, Art and Gromranda tried desperately to keep their colleagues alive darting round the edges of the unholy symbol. The first of the gug’s fell to Gromranda and Rashid’s assault. The second, already badly wounded by Aludrin before he fell beneath its fearsome blows, fell to Alyssa’s spells as it moved out of the symbol to try and finish off the archer.

janni clericAfter a brief rest and healing from the clerics, Art retrieved the soul gem from where it rested above the altar. Aludrin also found a sealed casket  sitting in a niche on the far wall. There were runes inscribed on the casket wheat seemed to squirm uneasily as he tried to read them. Art cast comprehend languages and discerned that it was some kind of warning. The casket was arcane locked, so Art took it into the dead magic zone where it sprang open.

Within the box was a book – it's title proclaiming it to be volune four of  the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan. From his brief perusal it appeared to be some kind of cosmological text - but it was not a cosmology that Art recognised.

Deciding they should deal with the janni cleric and his congregation, the party then gathered round Alyssa who used dimension door to take them from the presbytery into the cathedral.

They were greeted by a massed array of noble salamanders and effreeti, behind which the janni cleric floated in the air. A frantic melee ensued, made worse as two of the noble salamanders summoned huge fire elementals. The spellcasters targeted the enemy cleric while Aludrin and Raschid began clearing out the salamanders and effreeti. Alyssa summoned the greater air elemental they had freed from The Cauldron to help even the odds, but the janni cleric retaliated by summoning a gug!

The battle raged on for some time, but eventually the tide swung in favour of the party – especially once the enemy cleric fell to a fusillade of spells.