28

Sterling takes Waah on his back, since she was returned by Clystrin. He tells Mal that things have changed, but they will discuss later. He says a prayer, and gets 10 temporary HPs! We continue into the dark tunnels of the citadel.
 
We have to start by going around the lair of a death dragon., and then we find a 30ft shaft to continue on our path. We see Leedara, the blue elf in there. She is smiling. I ask how she got here, and she is cryptic about this, and congratulates us. She says that Lord Soth lurks above. He is using the cataclysmic fire to animate the dragons. I ask how we can stop the fire? She says that we can't stand against him in battle because he is peerless, but in the chambers ahead there is a hidden elven relic, and those who view the mirror see glimpses of their past. She thinks that this could distract Soth, and that would give us a chance to extinguish the fire. That is how we would take away the power of the citadel, and cease the animated dragons.
 
How do we quench it? She isn't sure. She knows that the flames were created by the gods, so the power of the gods should be able to stop it. I ask how she knows so much about this? She has been watching us since Vogler, and then she fades. She was one of the attendants of his wife, the priestess Isold, whom he slay. She distracted him on his quest, and so she has been cursed to live as a ghost. She is also a curse on Soth, and wants to stymy his ambitions. Mal says that if we succeed, then the citadel will fall out of the sky like a rock. We all acknowledge this, but it is something that must be done.
 
She says that the flame are all where he can see out to fly it, not in the basement. But it sounds like Arinona has something to help us during the fall. She fades away, after telling us she knows nothing about dragon eggs, or any sort of promise made to dragons by gods. We have 2 ways, one by a small tunnel, that leads to a chamber with a raised dais and an alter, and I cannot hear anything. Nothing is moving in there. It is a crypt, and it looks like there are crypt alcoves that have been bricked up along the wall. But it turns out, there are some skeletal knights and a skeletal minotaur!
 
At least these guys are not powered by the violet flames. Mal goes onto the dais, and turns out it is for Chemosh, god of the undead, and is unable to climb it. We defeat these undead, and now there may be something to do with the dais. As this was the temple to Takisis, I don't feel too many qualms about investigating the crypts. In one of these, I find an intact leather armor. I try on the armor, and see what happens. I love it!
 
Next, I check out another crypt, but nothing of interest in there. Now is time to open the smaller door, which had a bunch of disintegrated robes in there, plus more broken things. I look, but find nothing of interest. In a pile of clothes, there is some black material that is not falling apart and gross. Mal finds it, and shows us. It is a portable hole, or better, a hole that leads to a storage room. I go ahead and put my old leather armor in there.
 
Behind the bigger door, there are 3 statues adorning the walls. One is a man reclining, and on the south a woman is reclining, but she has been pushed aside. Then there is one of a noble elf sitting. They seem to be hiding doorways. I go look at the statue that has been moved. These are the kind of elves that are more like Arinona. The room behind her looks like a crypt alcove, and there are shards of broken glass all over the floor. I look above, and there is an image of an elven woman, and we see a bat behind us. He flies down and transforms into a humanoid. He greets us, and notices that we are not part of the dragon army. He asks us if we are on a mission to disrupt them. I ask if that is good, and Mal simply tells him that yes, we are. They have been disturbing things down here if we can get rid of some of the problems, and that he could make it worth our while. He offers us treasure in exchange for getting rid of the gold-scaled leader above. Sterling asks if he would leave if we did this, but he says that he cannot, since he is from here. He says that he is the former high priest of Chemash for this temple. He offers the use of temple to place the head of our fallen enemies there to ask them questions. I ask why there is a temple to Chemash in the temple of Takisis. Turns out that she is the leader in the pantheon, of 6 other gods that would kneel to her if need be, and therefore her temple is the major one in the city. And he's been trying to keep the scaled creatures from desecrating the shrine. They have already defaced the statues of the other gods up there. I ask if he has seen Lord Soth, and he does not know who it is. He gives me a medallion, and I put it in my pocket. (Amulet has a goat skull) and he wants it back. He tells us that after we get rid of the golden scaled thing, there will be a huge statue of Tahkisis. If we rotate it south (don't stop on east or west), but if we move it all the way south, it will reveal a secret door that conceals the treasure. I tell him we have a deal.
 
Mal attacks him, so now I need to kill him. He ends up running away, which is good, because I did not want to have another battle.
 
I move the statue of the east wall, and there is a tomb much like the south one, but this one has a glass laying on the tomb. When I look up, there is someone in the mirror, positioned above the bones on the floor. I check to see if there are different sets of bones. I take the skull to the alter and use the amulet. But Sterling and Mal are objecting a lot, so I tell them we don't have to do this, but I do want to know more what this is about. Arinona points out that these bones are related to the statues, and nothing to do with Chemash. The mirror is there to capture the soul, as punishment for the people in there. I put the skull back on the slab, and Arinona is going to put the rest of the bones back on the slab. Once the bones are back on the slab, there is an image of a noble elf, looking down on us from the mirror, and he looks curious. He then says "I am Sicilian, of Sylvanest. I came here with 2 dear friends." He's aware that he is dead, but he was not aware that his friends were dead. He asks that we take their remains so they can rest together. Arinona does so. Before she is done, I ask why we are agreeing to put them together, but the east chamber is the only one with the intact mirror.
 
Once they are moved, he thanks us. But we cannot see the other two in the mirror, and Arinona says it is because their mirrors have been broken. I ask why he is here by the alter of Chemash, and he says that they were placed here under the ungently kind of the priests of the evil gods because the king priest disliked their gift. Of what? They came because, like many others, had grown concerned with the king-priest's arrogant behavior. When he heard that he had been desacrating the dragon burial grounds, he wanted to help persuade the king-priest to return the bones. It was the mirror of reflected past, and he did not like it. It was intended to help him reflect on simpler reflections of faith, but the visit ended tragically. He and his friends were imprisoned. I ask if there is a way we can help him. I think that anyone who was punished by the priest-king should not have been, and Arinona agrees to shatter the mirror. I go back to the crypts to look for the mirror.
 
We go up the stairs, and here there is more light. So we are more careful. Behind the door from the stairs, it sounds silent. I open, and there are 2 more skeletons, except their armor looks more polished/nicer than the other one. They are tough, and hurt Arinona and Sterling, and I pretty hard. After that, we go investigate the small door to the south. There is a small set of humanoid tracks that go into this room, and then they stop about halfway in there. The rat tracks go into a hole in the rubble. Inside there is a coffin with a kinder. She tries to scare me. I ask her who she is, and she tells me I am trespassing. She says she is bored. I ask who she is, and she says her name is Lori. How long has she been here, and she has been here about 200 years. She says draconians, hobgoblins, and others have been here these past few days. I ask if she knows that this place is flying. She said she was bricked up - a jerk bit her and then bricked her up, but now she is free. I tell her that there are footsteps, and she says to look out for a ghost that possesses people. She wants his job, which he doesn't know what it is.
 
She suggests we put her in the hole, which was her. We do, and then I go look at her backpack. and find a potion (yellow and foggy), a ring with arcane runes, a vampire-looking ventriloquist dummy. I take those, and we carry on. There are some other things, but we don't take the 200 year old rations. Mal decides to go and look at ALL our options, without regard to our safety or his. We find the staircase, and look at the doors from there.
 
We open the first door closes to the stairs. It looks like a storage closet filled with junk, including a painting, a bust, pottery, etc. The bust may be worth a lot, so I toss it in hole with the kinder. The next door is a small cell. Then we open a door, and 6 sivaks are working at a table with a map of knightlund, which is an area to the south where Lord Soth lives. There are also some sketches of individuals, circled in red!
 
Time to take them out. I tell them that the vampire downstairs is acting up again, but then Mal casts a spell. With some slowing spells, we are able to defeat them pretty easily. We decide to close this room up and take a short rest. We can't afford too many more of these because of our time constraint.