Flick of the Tail (Mihla 11-17)
Our heroes investigate a ruby fish and find a woman who talks backwards. They speculate that Yodfah threw his grandmother down a well. The fish turns into a pretty pahari named Salana and tells the heroes to drop by someday.
Suitable Donations (Mihla 30-Qawafil 19)
Our heroes help Anwar and Kalib loot their father's tomb and get haunted by a hawa for a while.
The Last Oasis (Safa 7-Dar 19)
Our heroes guard a caravan and end up dying in a sandstorm, whereupon they travel to the Last Oasis, meet a handful of unusual people and escape death. The map to the raiders' lair is sent to their older cohort to deal with.
Nine Flawed Sapphires (Dar 30 -Riyas 20)
Ayyam appeals to the janissaries to help raid Yodfah's hideout, and Bashar assigns our heroes to the mission. They are baffled by a waterfall, make an enemy of a fire mage, create wine elementals, and take the hideout as their own - but Yodfah escapes the city.
The Assassin Within (Rahat 8-14)
Professor Hakim's daughter is attacked in the market and her father receives a death threat. Our heroes take residence in the professor's house, discover unsavory things about the cellar and the chef, lose the pets but save the residents, and discover an assassin living in a carpet. Husam is puzzled by the idea of the Holy Slayers of Kor.
En route to Krak al-Shidda, our heroes discover the tomb of Shaddad, son of Ad, Terror of the Genies, and kill him and take his scimitar, Cyclone of the Four Quarters. The scimitar is taken to the Great Caliph, Fatin embarasses himself in court, and our heroes are granted a boon.
Back at Krak al-Shidda to look for forbidden rituals, our heroes discover a group of werehyenas and Husam and Rashad begin to giggle a lot until they're cured in Jumlat.
The Rose of Jumlat (Gammam 5-27)
In Jumlat, the priests who cure Husam and Rashad suggest that they guard a caravan bearing the infamous Rose of Jumlat to Gana. The caravan is ransacked by monsters and raiders, a tale of betrayal and death is uncovered, and our heroes attacks a powerful mage's cliff hideaway. They free an efreeti, save a fair maiden, and are puzzled by a number of oddities in the hideout. The gem is taken to Gana and the girl to Huzuz, where Fatin helps enroll her in the university.
Our heroes are voted "most likely to survive" by Zann and called to Muluk to search for the book The Eleven Baneful Gates. In Muluk they are accosted by a raving madman carrying stolen property and defend him from an invisible stalker. Then they discover that Ayyam is dead and attend her funeral, which ends in a ghul attack in the Mount of Forgiveness. After tidying up and getting Ayyam raised, our heroes head off to the ruins of Al-Anwahr, but before they get there they are sidetracked by rumors of lost travellers and a missing mystic. As they investigate, they meet a riddling and belligerent dao. They manage to rescue the mystic from the dao and delay the dao by promising to bring back great treasure to him.
They continue onwards and are briefly sidetracked by a invisible "air spirit" who tries to get the party to chase the evil vishap out of her cave, but the party ends up talking to the vishap and learning that the vishap has been living here for quite some time. Although unhappy about the vishap's presence, the party decides to continue on its mission. Rashad promises to return someday to do something about the evil creature.
The group finally reaches Al-Anwahr, chat a little with the janni who live there, and venture inward. They find a mysterious disappearing man, the remains of the failed group, and the ruin of Azaltin's palace. The group enter and various people start fires, eat poisoned food, fall in love with a succubus, lose their pet monkey to the flames, and so forth, but eventually the group succeeds in bringing back a scroll÷the Kingdom of Lions, instead of The Eleven Baneful Gates. They go back to the janni camp, and that night Husam has a strange dream of a white horse. The dream seems to indicate that the group must travel further east still....
The next day, led by Husam's vision, the group travels deeper into the desert. There they are met by an undead white horse that, to their surprise, radiates no evil. Deciding this is part of the vision, Husam and the group follow the horse until they pass through the Black Cloud of Vengeance and reach the ruined city of Sokkar. This great necropolis seems empty and abandoned, and the horse's spirit leads them through the streets to a tomb. They enter the tomb and discover that the horse's grave has been plundered. Our heroes investigate, meeting a mysterious flute-playing princess and lots of nasty ghuls, and nearly get slaughtered before remembering to ask the princess for help. She saves their bacon, they restore the tomb and the horse's shattered spirit statue, and convince the guardians of the necropolis to let them leave. After leaving, Husam and the rest of the group is very puzzled about why they came, but glad to have done a good deed.
Several days later, as they draw close to Al-Anwahr again, a magnificent white stallion gallops through the desert in wonderfully jeweled caparisons, pursued by a jann. The horse stops and kneels in front of Husam, and the jann catches his breath and asks what's going on. This is the janni's shiek's finest steed, and the jann in pursuit was the stablemaster. Husam doesn't know, and the group returns to the jann. There the sheik comes to the conclusion that this fine mount was meant for Husam÷indeed, it is a descendant of the spirit horse and has come to serve as Husam's Holy Steed. She gives it to the young paladin of Kor as a gift, and the group continues back, past the vishap lair (Rashad again says he will return to deal with it).
As they continue their trek back to Muluk with the valuable scroll, the group is waylaid by a gorgeous female djinni, Diliram, who begs their help in rescuing her lover, Namerad, from the nasty sha'ir who has captured him. The group agrees to help her (Fatin pretends to be shocked and apalled by this other sha'ir's callousness, while secretly envious) and she carries them up into the air to a small camp many miles away. There the group does some spying and Tanya discovers that her corsair fiance, who had proposed to her the very night before the Grand Caliph's genie came to take her out of Hawa and back to the janissaries in Huzuz, is there!÷Sato, an ivory-skinned, almond-eyed warrior of Leng, who had lived with the corsairs for many years after being shipwrecked and picked up out of the ocean by the freebooters.
The group manages to free Namerad and Tanya is joyfully reunited with Sato, who had come from Hawa to Muluk and then into the desert in search of his beloved. He is, however, horrified to learn that she is a jannissary÷the corsairs' enemies÷and sparks fly as philosophies clash between the ronin from Leng and the paladin from Zakhara. Tanya soothes Sato's ruffled feathers and makes vague promises to calm his ire. Diliram offers to serve the group for twelve months and a month, in gratitude for their having freed her lover, and the group takes her up on the offer.
Travelling much more comfortably with a djinni to create food and water and lavish pavilions, the group heads home once more (Diliram's lover, Namerad, also sticks close by, lending a helping hand once in a while out of friendship for his saviours). One evening they draw close to an oasis and discover an encampment of desert folk from the House of Hanif there. The party stays with the Sheikh Khaldun bin Hanif and his warriors, sharing salt and learning that he awaits a group of men from the Brotherhood of the True Flame, to discuss unknown business with them. He mistrusts this affair and asks the help of these praiseworthy jannissaries. The group gladly agrees to help.
When the Brotherhood of the True Flame's contingent arrives, our heroes are apalled to learn that Yodfah÷their nemesis, the man who killed Ayyam (whom Husam has a bit of a crush on)÷is among the group. Bound by the salt bond, they cannot attack until the group attacks first. Not surprisingly, the Brothers are indeed up to no good, and violence ensues. In the end the leader of the group, Jamal al-Yindan-nim, is slain, but Yodfah manages to teleport away to safety. Husam swears upon all that is holy that he will kill the "fat man."
At last, the group returns to Muluk and hands the scroll over to the Temple of Zann, hoping for a rest.
Weave of the Carpet
Our heroes go to a barber for some much-needed grooming after their travels, and while there, hear him tell about his neighbor, who is in much trouble. His neighbor had been working on a flying carpet for the caliph's daughter's birthday party÷in two days÷and it has just been stolen. Valiant jannissaries that they are, the heroes volunteer to help.
Alas, even though they search quite hard and come to the belief that there is a great fire planned, the group fails to uncover the mastermind behind the plot and end up arrested along with the carpetmaker. Tanya, who had fled rather than be arrested, and Sato, who had refused to get involved, carried out their own investigation as the rest of the jannissaries sat glumly in the caliph's palace, under arrest. The two found out that a fire mage was planning to destroy the palace during the party, but their attempts to stop the fire mage only brought about the conflagration that much earlier. In the end the heroes were rescued from the burning palace, but the palace itself was terribly damaged, and many were injured or killed. The fire mage escaped, cackling gleefully.
Unraveling the Pattern (partial)
Shamed by their failure, but annoyed at the caliph for not listening to them when they said that there was a threat of fire, the jannissaries aren't thrilled to learn that they are now under the command of a local mumluk leader, General Adun Abd al-Amin. There's something wrong about the general÷something about him makes them uneasy, above and beyond his brisk, unpleasant manner and sneering disregard for corsairs and ajami. Nevertheless, they dutifully listen to him describe their mission. They are to discover the secret route to Hawa's port, map it, and bring the map back to him so that the mamluk armies can attack Hawa and bring the corsair stronghold to its knees at last.
Tanya, apalled, worries about the corsairs she grew up with and came to know and respect. Although she'd been raised among them as a secret agent, so that eventually she'd be able to return as a janissary and pass herself off as a corsair, she'd come to think of herself as more of a corsair than a janissary. Now, learning of this mission, she decides to throw in her lot with the corsairs and sneaks off in the middle of the night with Sato, to warn the corsairs of the impending invasion.
The rest of the group awakes the next day and finally realizes she and her fiance are gone. They quickly guess where she's going and, furious, swearing that they will hunt her down to the ends of the earth if necessary for her treason, they give chase. The genies Diliram and Namered inform them that Tanya and Sato have taken an ajami corsair ship over the ocean, but Diliram refuses to bring Tanya back÷after all, Tanya had been one of the people who had helped her rescue Namerad. However, Namerad steals the wind from the ship's sails, slowing it while the janissaries requisition and ship and give chase.
Tanya jumps overboard and relies on her luck and fate to swim to safety, while Sato orders the corsair crew to stop and surrender to the janissaries, mostly in order to buy Tanya time to escape. The corsairs have other ideas, however, and don't want to give up to the Grand Caliph's elite guards. Instead, they attack Sato, and before the janissary ship can draw close enough for our heroes to do anything, Sato is slain. The janissaries board the ship and kill or capture the corsairs, but find no trace of Tanya. They do, however, find a signet ring around Sato's neck, and Nazihah, the janissary hakima, figures out that there is a strong likelihood that Sato is the brother of Princess Ngo, a Leng girl who had been rescued from a shipwreck by mamluks. The princess was sheltered by the caliph and eventually joined the Grand Caliph's harim. The group despondantly decides to keep Sato's body magically preserved, in case he is an in-law of the Grand Caliph.
After much discussion, they decide to give back all of the time Diliram still owes them in service in exchange for one limited wish. Diliram assents, and the group uses the limited wish to find Tanya. The ex-janissary is being carried by a friendly porpoise toward Hawa. Diliram takes the group to her, creates a small rowboat, and then vanishes to return to the djinni lands with her beloved Namerad. The group captures Tanya and returns her to Muluk.
In Muluk, the group discovers the reason behind the general's ill bearing÷the reason he carries the onus of the evil eye upon him÷and informs the caliph of Muluk, who investigates, arrests the general, and arranges to have him and Tanya carried back to Huzuz for trial before the Grand Caliph. Kristen, the janissary gnomish rawun, arranges to have Sato's body taken back, as well, in case the Princess Ngo is in fact his brother and wants him raised from the dead.
Pilgrimage
The janissaries have lost five points of station from two back-to-back embarrassments. A priest from the temple of Zann÷the same priest who has been translating the Kingdom of Lions that they brought back from Al-Anwahr÷tells them that his divinations have shown that the group is cursed by bad fate, and suggests they take a pilgrimage to a shrine of a holy man of Zann to help lift their dark luck....Selena, a janissary from another group, joins them on their mission.
Our heroes are intercepted close to the temple by a giant mason wasp who greets them and tells them that earthquakes are destroying the temple! They investigate and discover that a dao is sleeping in the crypt of the holy Suhail min Zann, his snores shaking the earth beneath the temple. In trying to gently awaken him, Satima is pulled into the sleeping dao's grasp and cuddles. Her brother awakens the dao to defend her honor, and the irritated dao tells them that now he's going to have to fight them.
Fortunately for Our Heroes, the sha'ir Fatin has a scroll of protection from dao found in Al-Anwahr, which he uses. Satima then casts a Reduce spell on the dao, who is quite annoyed to suddenly find himself smaller than the humans and unable to affect any of them! He bellows an alert to his masters, and the group throws open the cracked doors to the crypt. There they are attacked by two yakmen with magical staves, who put up a tough fight before finally being defeated and killed. The shair Fatin turns on the (still-powerless) dao and demands services in return for granting him his freedom. The hapless dao complies, fixing the ruined crypt, the tunnel to the crypt, and the damaged temple, and then taking a hasty leave. As the party restores the skeleton of Suhail min Zann to the repaired crypt, his spirit takes over Nazihah, the wise woman, and informs the group that they are the Lions of Tomorrow, fated to match wits against an ancient evil that has risen again. He heals the wounded and then leaves Nazihah again.
Excited by this prophecy, the mason wasp asks them to guard the temple for him until his return, and flies off, leaving our heroes to wait and wonder. While they do so, Fatin opens an iron flask he found with the yak-men and frees another genie, who is vociferous in his praise and does everything he can to help...including summoning a great feast...that unfortunately was summoned right from the Grand Caliph's palace. Guard-genies pop in to take the feast and valuable gold plate back to Huzuz, and snicker when they see the genie who'd brought it to Our Heroes. Our Heroes get worried.
In The City of Brass
The mason wasp returned and told the group that they needed to go to Dihliz, The Gateway City, to fulfill their destiny as the Lions of Tomorrow. The wasps would take them, but they couldn't bring their horses. Husam refused to leave his paladin's warhorse, Marzuk, and so they put their faith—and fates—in the hands of their newfound genie friend, who promises to bear them and their steeds swiftly and safely to Dihliz. Alas, the journey doesn't go very swiftly or safely, and with a jolt the group finds itself in The City of Brass on the Elemental Plane of Fire. The genie "took a wrong turn" and "got lost" and, very apologetically, says his magic is severely limited by being on this plane...
Our Heroes resolutely go to the city seeking help. There they run into a handsome efreet who takes a shine to Satima, the fire mage, and offers her and her group dinner at his "humble estate"—a fine mansion. The efreet is physician to the Sultan of all Efreetikind, and has two wives already. That doesn't stop him from proposing to Satima. Husam, Satima's twin brother and a paladin, objects to the match. The efreet physician ushers Satima to her sleeping chambers and takes a hard line with the party—they hand over the girl as his wife, or they become slaves.
The next day, the group gets itself beaten up by the household cook when they refuse to take their new job as slaves seriously. Satima, living in the lap of luxury while her friends are imprisoned, demands to know what's going on and is given, in sweet terms, the ultimatum.
However, the group learns that The Great Steeplechase is scheduled for a few days hence, and that the physician is hiding a vain young albino nightmare in his stables—a steed he believes will win the race for him and bring him great wealth and fame. They also learn that, typically, albino nightmares are signs of good luck and handed over to the Sultan at birth. The group wagers with the physician that if he wins the race, they'll let him have Satima ... but if anyone else wins the race, Satima goes free. The physician overconfidently takes the wager and lets the group go—without Satima—to try to get themselves into the race.
Our Heroes promptly go to the temple district, where they encounter many unpleasant deities of flame and are surprised to find one fairly harmless ajami deity, Freya, whose clerics are willing to help them find aid in this inhospitable city. In exchange, each member of the group accepts a geas to "further the cause of true love" in the next year. After swearing to this, they assist in a ceremony that divines that a certain Captain Soot might be able to help them.
Captain Soot is an ajami human planejammer, a bit of a rogue. He agrees to help them leave the plane if they'll steal the albino nightmare away, so that he can present it to the Sultan, instead (there seems to be a little difficulty between him and the Sultan right now that he hopes to smooth over). The group agrees, raids the house, steals the nightmare with surprising success, and steals off to Soot's friend's house to hide until the race the next morning.
Alas, Soot keeps poor company, and the friend—a triple agent and member of the Brotherhood of the Flame—decides to take the mare himself. He attacks the group, but Husam valiantly whales upon him, even blinded, until the skinny elven mage falls unconscious. The group binds him, reads his records, frees his slaves, and leaves the next morning to find Soot at the races.
Needless to say, things don't go smoothly. The physician sees them at the races and accuses them of theft. Soot takes off, deciding not to get involved. Little Kristen, the gnomish bard, hops on top of the nightmare and rides her up to the Sultan, where he puts his bardic charm to work weaving a tale of praise, intrigue, and lies. The whole group is rounded up, accusations are exchanged, and finally the Sultan decrees that the physician and one champion for the group should race. The group chooses Qamar, their desert rider, as its champion.
Qamar wins the race with ease, even though the physician tries to cheat several times. The physician is dragged off, the group makes it to the docks and climbs aboard even as Soot is casting off, and they all leave the City of Brass very, very quickly.
Birthright
In Dihliz, the group breathes a sigh of relief, waves goodbye to Soot, and looks around with curiosity. They've never been this far south before. Husam, steadfast paladin that he is, declares that they must "check in" with the local church of Kor before doing anything else. The group troops off and pay their respects to Kor and then to Zann. The temple of Zann is filled with adventurers searching for treasure in the nearbye Grey Jungle and Ruined Kingdoms, and as the group sits around watching ajami and Zakharans and mason wasps and even odder folk swap stories and lies, Selena begins to talk about their exploits in the City of Brass. This attracts some attention and they while away the time showing off until called in to see the priest.
The group presents itself as the Lions of Tomorrow, fills the priest in on events to date, hands him the mad beggar Adil and his talisman for study, and is told to come back in a few days. With time to kill, the group splits up. Qamar and Nazihah secure lodgings, Kristen gets into boat trouble in the canals, Husam and his steed Marzuq look around town and get lots of funny glances, and Satima and Selena sell off treasure. Satima is "recognized" as being familiar to one of the merchants, who says she bears a remarkable resemblance to a wealthy merchant in town. Selena eagerly presses the merchant to follow this up. Eventually, the group meets for lunch.
In their lodging house, the group finds itself under watch by a pudgy little lady with lots of shopping bags. The lady, summoned to them, loudly declares that the twins Husam and Satima are the very children she nursed ("with these breasts!" [hoist]), stolen from her master at birth. Satima and Husam exchange wary glances, but are eventually cajoled to meet their ostensible father. It's not impossible, of course—they were foundlings, raised by the janissaries in Huzuz.
After meeting their stepmother Mabruk, being sent away without food (to Satima's suspicion), getting shot at by a magical archer in the floating bazaar, returning to meet their father (ailing and sickly, but convinced they really are his children) and half-brother (a pleasant, naive young man who seems happy to have an older sibling or two to take on the family business so that he can go adventuring), the group looks around the house a little after everyone else has gone to bed. They find a secret door in the conference room that leads to a stairwell going up to Husam and Satima's father's (?) room, and down to their stepmother's (?) magical laboratory. After a bit of discussion, they decide to break into the lab, where they discover two large serpents (one is killed, the other driven off) and one talking, imprisoned serpent—Taj, the lisping Herald Therpent. The group learns that Mabruk has some unsavory items in her lab—like the same kind of poison used in the marketplace attack—and race back upstairs to call a family conference in the middle of the night.
Accusations fly during the conference, and finally Mabruk summons to her a servant efreeti, who greets her with the sour words, "Who shall I kidnap or attempt to murder for you this time, O mistress?" (even efreeti's honor can only be pushed so far!). There is fighting and Mabruk is eventually subdued and placed under arrest. Alas, the laws of Dihliz are harsh, and the next day the sultana has Mabruk sentenced to death.
The Serpent's Quest
Taj the Herald Serpent has a quest, however—Mabruk captured him while he was trying to locate heroes to help him out. Our Heroes naturally agree to aid him while the clerics of Zann continue to research their little mystery. Taj cheerfully leads them through a horrible crossing into the Grey Jungle to the Sultan of All Serpents, who is dying. The Lions of Tomorrow carry out the death ritual for the Sultan and bear his brain and jewel to the (unEnlightened) Temple of the Serpentine Goddess, wherein they must draw water and press the jewel to the serpent idol's forehead. There, however, the group is ambushed by segarran, Crocodile-Men, who have desecrated the temple in the name of Ragarra, another unEnlightened goddess. The Lions of Tomorrow try to defend themselves and eventually destroy the segarran, but not before the paladin Husam's chest is ripped apart by one of the monsters, and the wise-woman Nazihah has her throat torn out leaping to defend the mage Satima. Satima, seeing her brother slain and another killed trying to defend her, destroyed the remaining segarran in a firestorm of Fire Mage fury.
The group sadly completed the quest, restoring the temple to its former glory but not raising their friends back to life. Wrapping the bodies in fabric, they headed off to find the Sultan's heir, led again by Taj through the forest.
The group arrived at the heiress' ruins without much further incident. There the new Sultana of Serpents received her father's jewel-stored memories, giving the jewel itself to the desert rider Qamar who had borne it and Taj through the jungle, and earned the Gift of Speaking with Serpents for his actions. She then attempted to resurrect the two fallen Lions, but only Husam survived the journey back from the Last Oasis—Nazihah was not brought back to life. Grieved, the party asked the Sultana of Serpents for her advice. She told them of two wizards living deeper in the jungle, in the ruined city of Ysawis, who might be able to help. After some discussion and Husam's recovery, the party headed out, again led by their newfound companion, Taj.
The Court of the Necromancers
About halfway to Ysawis the group encountered a merchant's caravan, guarded by—to their great surprise—Husam and Satima's young half-brother, Omar! Omar introduced them to Barak, the veiled merchant who owned the caravan, an old family friend of the al-Reehans. Barak welcomed the group into the caravan, hoping the more experienced adventurers would help guard it against the Serpent-Men (or Yuan-Ti) who had been recently stepping up their attacks. The rest of the caravan was composed of very young men and women, because so many experienced guards were either taken or had refused to enter the jungle during the height of the attacks.
The Lions led the caravan through the jungle to Ysawis, encountering two cursed Jungle Giants who were trapped and eventually destroyed by the terrible magic of the Wizards of Ysawis, and fending off a yuan-ti ambush during a river crossing. When they neared Ysawis, Barak halted the caravan and asked the party to enter the city with him, letting the young caravan handlers and porters stay behind. He privately explained to the Lions that the two wizards were necromancers, and Ysawis was filled with undead. Barak also told them, as the group protested that necromancy was evil and an Enlightened merchant shouldn't dabble with such monsters, that he was seeking the fabled Talisman of Shahar in Ysawis. This talisman had a tragic history, but it was said to be able to Restore, Regenerate, and Resurrect. He hoped it would regenerate the horrible scarring that led him to keep his face veiled, and possibly restore his sickly friend al-Reehan's ruined health (al-Reehan being, of course, Husam, Satima, and Omar's father). The group also hoped the talisman might Resurrect their fallen comrade Nazihah, and so reluctantly agreed to join Barak in the undoubtedly cursed city.
Ysawis was, indeed, populated by undead, all of whom were busily restoring the fields, the walls, and the interior buildings to their former glory. The group passed through the streets and into the palace unharmed, where they were met by the undead vizier S. S., consulting his scrolls and maps regularly, led them on a roundabout tour of the castle in an attempt to find the guest chambers that were exactly where he met them.... (The party noted that the problem with being undead so long was that your brains must decay quite a bit.) In their chambers the group split up from Barak and enjoyed (or shunned, depending on the individual) the attentions of skeletal maids who bathed, scented, and clothed them in new silks cut in old-fashioned styles. The group had some time to talk when it met Netocris, the gorgeous, human-looking yuan-ti ambassador, who archly informed them that their employer Barak had sold the caravaneers into slavery and necromantic death to the local sultan, Sumulael—that he had, in fact, done this often before.
Shocked, the group confronted Barak, who simply said the young men and women had been well paid (in advance) for their services, and that he didn't have any chance of opposing the will of the powerful necromancer. Husam suspiciously detected for evil on Barak again, but again, Barak came up clean. Husam decided that he must have protective magicks. As they talked quietly together trying to decide what to do, the undead vizier S. delivered a note to them from the sultana, inviting them to join her after dinner—and saying clearly that their veiled friend need not attend.
At midnight, the group met the sultan and sultana at dinner. The Sultana Kazeribet greeted them warmly and carried out the Bond of Salt with them, but the evil Netocris declined. Later they were joined by the grossly obese and rude sultan Sumalael and his clinging, cackling pudgy little homonculous. During the dinner the Lions of Tomorrow were appalled when Sumalael called out the two dancing girls from their caravan, now undead, and the caravan cook, also undead. After dinner, Sumalael and Netocris retired to the Pavilion of Bone to play with more of their new stock, and Kazeribet retired by herself. The group had time to explore, and wandered through the gardens before the undead vizier S. escorted them to the sultana's harim.
Kazeribet treated the Lions well, although they were somewhat disturbed by her well-kept, handsome ju-ju zombie pleasure-slaves. Still, she talked frankly to them about her goals for restoring the city and her search for the Talisman of Shahar, which she hoped would help her understand life and death better. She bemoaned her husband's descent into depravity, aided, she said, by Barak's regular shipments of the soporific drug Dreambliss. When confronted about her note, she sighed and asked the Lions if they would help her put a stop to her husband's depravity by killing him. The Lions, already inclined that way by what they'd seen of Sumalael's character and hobbies, agreed.
A few hours later, as they discussed when to attack Sumulael, the group heard a knocking at their door. They opened it to find the undead vizier there. He asked them if they'd help—he told them that the necromancers had raised the dead of Ysawis without their permission and had enslaved them against their will. The vizier promised that he would help the group find a magic sword that would lop off a necromancer's head if the Lions promised to destroy BOTH of the necromancers and free the undead. The Lions of Tomorrow agreed, and followed the vizier to a lost tomb hidden in the walls of the castle.
It didn't take the Lions long to discover that this was the tomb of the Crocodile Princess, the woman who'd taken the Talisman of Shahar and hidden it in Ysawis. Freshly excited, they risked traps and fungus to descend into the tomb and break into the sealed iron door. There they were attacked by a skeletal warrior wielding a soul that screamed like a thousand lost souls—the sword they were after. The group dispatched the warrior with the Staff of the Teak Serpent they'd picked up in the Temple of the Serpentine Goddess and took its sword. The rogue Serena explored the tomb further as the group discussed its plans, and found a secret entrance under the couch upon which the warrior had been lain out. She opened the portal to find a long shaft descending into the darkness. With the bard Kristen's help, she used a rope to descend down into another tomb. Deciding to get some help (and a longer rope), she headed back up and reported to the group.
The Lions of Tomorrow wrangled back and forth a while, knowing that this was probably the princess's tomb and that the Talisman of Shahar was likely hidden within. However, they eventually decided to reseal everything and come back later, after defeating the necromancers. The Lions locked up the tomb doors and trudged back upstairs, pretty tired but now in possession of a wailing sword that should be able to help them quite a bit ... if the undead vizier could be trusted.