In Which A Good Night's Sleep Proves Maddeningly Elusive

Man, this Chambre aux Dormans curse is Italic textroughItalic text. Whilst Gershom manages via the really-should-not-have-worked expedient of plane-shifting out of his own dream and then casting Remove Curse on his sleeping self, and Al beats down a chimera, Arben's insomnia proves harder to conquer. As in, five nights harder...meanwhile, his cohorts while away the days doing Zeus knows what (Marcella tames a field mouse, names it Alexander, and is teaching it to dance on its hind legs. IT IS SO CUTE), occasionally fighting Monsters From the Id bleeding over from the accumulated sleep magicks. But AT LAST AND HUZZAH, Arben rolls him up a rust monster and whomps it squarely, gaining back all his hit points in the process.

Then it's back to that ruined abbey with the freezing cold basement--a little Resist Cold takes care o' that, and a frosty fight with a couple of ice devils leads to the dungeon's final grotto and a chest encased in ice. SHATTER TIME! The chest contains not shiny treasure or magical weapons, but a...log? Arben tells us it's really the phylactery for a Danish lich-king. To burn, to whittle, to lug around till the king comes to kill them all? NEXT WEEK!!