In the Court of Otto III in Mainz

After chatting with Eorl in Chrysopolis Harald decides to check out some apple stealing plans. God says "woe" to everything we can think of, but gives us some hints about how to get a Limited Wish from Despuare, and that there might be a magical sword we can get in the Court of Otto III. Also, Harald's Space AIDS gets worse, taking down his Str and Con. Harald and Ailyll teleport to the Castle of Despuare, aka the dumb sleepy bird castle. Despuare seems depressed, and she says she has realized recently how much time has passed. She has decided to go to Tinglymymon. Harald knocks her socks off with his awesome wisdom and knowledge of her past, so she agrees to hang on a little more and let Ailyll try to keep up her bird. In response to Harald's constant chatter she reveals that Tinglymymon is not really a place; it is oblivion. Ailyll suceeds in keeping up the bird with the help of a potion of vitality, and she wishes for info on how to cure Harald. We are told that we should ask the Greyae of Libya, in the plains of Sistheny, aka the land of moths. To find where that is we should ask the Psillae, a Libyan tribe that everyone knows how to find. We thank Despuare for these direct answers, and bid her farewell forever.

Harald, Sunflower, Ailyll, and Gwyn teleport to the Ayesha, and then they grab Gretchen and head to Mainz, with Ailyll transporting via plants.

The court greets Gretchen happily, and our heroes are welcomed. However, there is strife in the court. There are three problems:

• One, Ingrid wants to run off and rescue Bishop Adalbert of Prague, who has requested assistance. The trouble is that Amethyst wants her to leave behind the Sword of Mars, since Ingrid already has Durendal and the Lance of the Empire. Ingrid says she, as Champion, has to keep the Sword of Mars until Otto III is of age.
• Two, Hagen is quitting as warden of the Tomb of Fredrick's Park. For the first time in living memory an undead has been trying to come out of there, and Hagen is too old for this crap. So, they need a new tomb warden, and right now it is Ingrid. She thinks this is boring, stupid, and beneath her, plus she wants to get to Prague ASAP.
• Three, Willigis is building this boss cathedral, but work is stopped for now because they opened a hole into a dungeon while digging. None of these high level badasses wants to deal with it.

Well heck, we say, why not let us help out. We'll hack the cathedral dungeon while they argue about swords and such. All say this sounds good, so off we go. On the way there a little comes up and starts chirping. Ailyll talks with it, and it say "Kill Ingrid and you can have her stuff. Everyone will love you for it, since she's such a bitch. Etc." We pay him no mind, but continue to the dungeon. There is a hole that leads into a short corridor ending in a room. The room has a circle of pillars with a big sarcophagus in the middle. Vandal graffiti is all around, and there are a lot of skeletons, inculding 30 or so Roman skeletons that come out and attack us. We take them out with no trouble. The Sarcophagus has a name partially chipped away and replaced with CODCSL, likely a misspelling of Crocus. The original name was Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus, brother of the Emperor Tiberius, father of Claudius, grandfather of Caligula. We open the tomb and out pops a spectre. In bad Latin he says "We didn't defile the tomb, the body just fell down a hole." Then he attacks. He drains Sunflower, and then Harald Chill Touches him, causing him to flee. We find a body in the tomb and a hole in one end, with a deep shaft. The shaft is trapped, but Harald is able to ferry the ladies down without incident. We find a warren of tunnels, and are missed by some piercers. A small troupe of Kobolds threatens us, saying that they are slaves to some Salamanders who will kill us, or them, or both. We talk them down and get some directions, then go after these salamanders. On the way in we see a kobold hanging from the ceiling. We cut him down, and he tells us that sometimes a hooded human man comes here, or else a badger. Weird. He runs away.

We go a little further and then start fighting some salamanders. Some of them have weird scrolls inscribed on oblong rocks, and they are happy to use them on us. They cast Fumble, Demi-Shadow Magic, Wall of Fire, and some stuff we saved against. It's a tough fight, and Ailyll almost dies. Two of the salamanders surrender when they see that things aren't going their way, and they try to get us to buy into their business plan. It seems that they force the kobolds to mine gems, which they then trade to some guys who come here for scrolls. At least one of them is a shapeshifter, and he eats the gems. Weird again. Harald doesn't want to kill these guys in cold blood, so he talks them into failing a save and Polymorphs one into a kobold. He rolls a 20 on his "change completely" roll, so he thinks he has always been a kobold. The other one fights, and loses. The polymorphed salamander goes off to become King of the Kobolds, as he has ten times the hp of any other Kobold. We loot some gems and a Roman skeleton with a sweet gladius (short sword +1). We drink some healing potions and go down a hall that the salamanders said was rented out to one of the humans. We're low on spells and hp, so Harald summons up some poisonous giant toads to take the lead. They hop into a room with a Giant Slug and a guy chained to the wall. We fight, and the dumb slug misses everyone with its acid, twice. It dies.

We check out the guy on the wall, and are shocked to see that it is Herbert. He says he's been here about a week, and that he was kidnapped. Sometimes a guy comes in and casts a spell which gives him Herbert's face. We decide to tell the Court, and wander in the tunnels for a while before getting out. The Court is in an uproar when they get the news, and Harald accuses Amethyst of acting fishy. She had just been given the Sword of Mars, but it is taken from her for the time being. Fake Herbert is gone from his room, of course. Ingrid still wants to get out of there, so we volunteer to guard the tomb tonight while she takes off. We get healed up and then head to the tomb, wishing that this busy day was over.