Trying to Keep the Calpih Alive

We find ourselves in the City of Pain, aka Tartessos. We are in the old city, the one that no one goes to because it is full of monsters and such. We see a big old Hercules statue in a temple nearby, so we decide to check it out. It's labeled Melkart in Greek, which is a Phonecian name for Hercules, and it has another label in a language we can't read. We see some stairs going down, so down we go. "Wow this is keen" says the Caliph. We go down into a corridor that has a circle of blood going around it. Careful not to disturb the blood, we continue onwards into a room with some statues labeled Katharos and Chasis, as well as the idol from the 1st ed players handbook, complete with firey bowl (but lacking eye gems). A disembodied creepy voice says "Look out for the ghouls", and sure enough, Ghouls attack. The Caliph handily turns half of them, and then the rest start paralyzing the crap out of us. We keep enough people up to prevent them from eating us, and things are going OK until the voice says "Beware, their leader is coming". Sure enough, a gaint ghast shows up, and we fight him for a while. Ailyll's giant bees save us, and we take the voice's advice and rest a little. The voice tells us his name is Arithrios, and he is the spirit of the city. He warns us of Phoenician mummies up ahead, and he gives us some background on the city. Hercules had sex with a girl near here and she had a snake baby. Then he went east and bedded some kind of snake woman, making more snake kids. All these snake kids got together in the City of Pain, where they slither around and shoot people with Hercules' terrible pain arrows. Also, Geryone's kids are imprisoned here, just past the mummies, in fact. Arithrios also tells us that there is a portal to the Garden of the Hesperides here. Ailyll whips up a gigantic fire elemental which then burns the hell out of a bunch of mummies. We check out Geryoneo's old jail and see some giant chains. Arithrios tells us 5 tailed men came here about a year ago and set him loose. What jerks. One of the mummy coffins is full of magical water. Arithrios says we need to go in with all four elements in order to be transported to the Garden. Harald has Airy Water, so this sounds feasible. However, we decide to Augur, just in case. The Caliph says "Woe......No wait, weal. Totally weal". Ailyll checks as well, and she gets "Woe" from the Big Tree, followed by a familair disembodied voice saying "Lie to them. Say Weal." She makes her save, however, and we start to leave. The Caliph freaks out and throws up a Wall of Fire to block our exit. Mamun fails to sap him, and then we fight. Wow, those Rings of Elemental Control are awesome. After much battling Harald takes him out, but manages to avoid killing him. We get out of the dungeon, past the blood ward, and heal and rest. The Caliph is sheepish about his attempt to get us to jump into Hades or whereever, but we let him know that being possessed and trying to kill the party is just part of the adventuring life.