In the City of Silence
Harald, Ailyll, Agav, and Mamoun are the only party members who are feeling hale enough to continue hacking the City of Silence. Mamoun skillfully employs his sneaking talents to knock out a Cynocephalus guard and brings him up to the cliffs so we can pull his teeth, putting our first check-mark on Ikulu's List. We tie him up, and then fly down to the temple which houses the lion-headed statue whose head we need to trade for princess Miriam. Mamoun scouts out the temple and finds stairs leading down and a bunch of sleeping dog-heads. He leads everyone to the lower level, but Harald tries pouring some green slime on the statue via Unseen. The slime disappears to who knows where. The party goes down stairs into the sub level. It seems to function as the sewer for the local dog-heads, and before long we are wading in shit. An Otyugh and Neo-otyugh pair pop up out of the filth and we engage in a brief battle, trouncing them quickly. The battle churns the crap, and some gold comes to the surface. The coins are rather old, and come from far and wide.
Further into the dungeon we are attacked by some Serpopards. We kill them, and then find three cubs in an adjacent room. Ailyll and Agav adopt them. In another room we find a Naga skeleton, along with a magical tooth on the floor and a long sanskrit message on the wall. The message seems to be instructions for the sleeping naga to read when it wakes, followed by a much later postscript. The gist is that most of the naga went to find Ayesha and the "fire that is water" that grants eternal life, while some stayed behind to guard the "relics", which we deduce to be the teeth. The postscript tells how the Cynocephali betrayed the Naga and forgot their duties, and so the city was cursed to be a graveyard for the faithless dog-heads. We take the tooth and leave, returning to the cliffs. Harald has Agav pull one of his teeth, and he implants the new tooth. It grants Levitation at will, 3 times a day for one hour each time.
The next night Mamoun goes back into the city to explore the buildings in which we have located subterranian levels. In one building, made prominent by its tall bell tower, he finds a room which is barred off and full of bones. Something seems to have burned or bored a hole in the center of the bone pile, but it is too far past the bars, and Mamoun can't reach it to investigate. The bars have no opening mechanism that can be seen, and no lock or handle. In another building he finds a small underground room that holds three cages. One has the skeleton of a Siren, one is empty, and a silver cage holds a Banshee, who firghtens Mamoun so strongly that he flies away in terror, alerting the dog heads.
After that we have trouble sneaking into anywhere for the next couple of days. The exception is the bell tower building with the bone room. Careful investigation reveals that the hole in the bones was made by green slime, leading us to deduce that touching the statue leads to one being teleported into this room. The dog heads are on high alert. Harald turns Ailyll's pet jenet into a tiger for fun while resting, and various plans are attempted. Eventually the dog heads unleash the banshee and Harald and Agav take it down before it can leave the silence. After that we decide we need to get that statue head soon, so Harald tries flying high above it and dropping a large rock through the ceiling of the temple. The roof is broken, but the statue is unharmed. In addition, Harald, sans all clothing and equipment, is teleported into the bone room under the bell tower. He bends the bars and escapes. Meanwhile, his stuff has all fallen into the temple, and the rest of the party flies down after it. Harald joins them and gets dressed while the others battle with the hordes of dog heads. After all equipment is recovered the party flies away.
Harald then tries casting Lighting Bolt on the statue a couple of times from the cliff top. This has various results, including one where Harald and Agav gain control of one another's bodies in alerating fashion. Each time the statue is touched or attacked it counterattacks, and one of its arms moves down. A different counter is employed with each arm movement, until finally the empty hand moves. When that happens the other arms all drop their items and the statue starts moving towards the cliffs. It climbs up and a very tough fight ensues. Agav and Ailyll go down, but the statue is finally defeated just before it kills us all. We take the head and celebrate.
After a last brief exploration of various buildings that yields nothing we begin our return journey to Axum. On the way back we meet again with the Sabu, and delvier the head of his rival. He scents the Serpopards and demands that we leave one with him, which Ailyll does with great reluctance. We have an uneventful return, finally arrving in Axum on the first of June.
