View source for Back to Where We Started, More or Less

Back at the monastery, a traumatized [[Harald]] suddenly appears along with a small portion of his stuff and way more harpy dung than any of us wanted to see.  We quickly heal him up and begin planning the recovery of everything he left behind.  We scry on his new staff and see it in the possession of a man and a woman who is also wearing most of his other stuff. They are surrounded by a bunch of wolf-headed seals. The tree god says "WOE!! Don't do it!" but that's probably just Demeter messing with us so off we go.

[[Harald]] cleverly teleports us to a secluded corner of the harpy room, and we are able to surprise them with a web and some missile weapons.  [[Walid]] apparently has a thing for nasty old ladies, but the rest of us are able to resist their charming song.  They are tenacious fighters and only one survives to be questioned.  She gives us a long and confused account of what has happened here, starting several thousand years ago when her ancestors were first placed here.  Highlights include those bronze Minotaurs showing up at some point forever ago, then leaving about a year ago to go on some mission.  They returned recently with [[Harald]] in tow.  About two hours after he escaped a man and a woman showed up to root through the filth and take all his stuff.  There were only two of them, but they had *sticks* so the harpies stayed clear.

We follow the harpy's directions down to some underwater caves where [[Ailyll]] can detect a faint feeling of staves.  We get ready and charge in.  The wolf seals turn out to be much bigger than they looked in the scry - well over 10 feet long.  They keep us off of the lady with [[Harald]]'s stuff while she shoots us with spells from his staff.  Turns out the tree god was right this time, and [[Ailyll]] takes one lightning bolt too many.  "At least it's not [[Harald]] shooting me from behind" she thinks as she falls.  The rest of the party heroically avenges her and kill the remaining wolf seals and lady.  Leaving the healthier party members behind, [[Harald]] quickly teleports [[Ailyll]] to the Fatimid Caliph to call in our last spell.  He even throws in a lycanthropy cure for free!  Things don't seem to be going to well for him, but at least he's got that cool necklace that keeps him from aging..

Having finally returned to our initial state (plus some xp, minus a bunch of staff charges), we all heal up and head back to France.