"I am happy to see you all here and be among friendly faces. So many people here on my account! The situation must be quite serious. Where on Oerth are we? I have no notion of where this is or how I came to be here.
"I remember receiving a Sending from Mishari Al-Khalifa. It did not come via my Musical Box of Sending that is linked to her own, which I thought was odd, but I was quite sure it was from her. ["Perhaps a False Sending" says Godratt. "Such a thing is known to exist."]
"She wanted to arrange a secret tryst with me in the isolated sea cave on the eastern side of the main isle of Luthian's Tears. The place with the sea-nymph statues carved by the sea-elf ancients [NB Sunaeco's theory, which might not be true]. We exchanged further Sendings, she did not want her grandfather the Vizier to know about this, he did not trust me and he had planted spies among my following to dig up some dirt on me, as you humans say, so I should tell no-one. She had fallen in love with me and wanted to meet with me away from her chaperones so that she could express that love more intimately.
"She was waiting there as we had arranged, and beckoned me deep inside the cave. We embraced, and I kissed her for the first time. I could barely contain myself, though she wanted to take things a little more slowly than I. After a while, though, she suddenly went strangely limp in my arms, as if dead. I was horrified, of course.
"Then...I fell into a dream-like state, very suddenly. It was as if I were within a ruby coloured chamber with many sides at odd angles. Almost like being within a huge gemstone. At the same time I felt very woozy and unable to think or act coherently. I hallucinated, I think...I saw explicit visions of anything that came into my mind. I thought about Mishari a good deal, and that helped me to pass the time pleasantly. Though I have no idea how long actually passed.
[This sounds consistent with some people's experience of their consciousness being stuck inside a Magic Jar gem, though people react differently]
"The next thing I recall is waking up here. I was standing before the thing that looks like a marble sarcophagus that had this man in [indicates Godratt] though it hadn't been opened at that point. I had my weapons ready and a golem was attacking me. I was taken aback at first, I had no idea where I was or why this golem was trying to smash my skull in, but obviously I fought back. Then some other creatures piled into the fight...a big, horrible looking undead creature and two weird things with blades for arms. I didn't know why these creatures were allied with me, but between us we managed to smash the golem up though I sustained injuries.
"The undead creature stepped back, and then I felt as if another sentience had taken it over. It pointed at the circle of arcane runes inlaid in the floor and commanded me to dig them up with my adamantine spear. [Godatt: "That was a permanent Magic Circle against Evil; your possession by Magic Jar was inadvertently ended when your possessor stepped over its threshold"]. The undead thing sounded annoyed and impatient. I didn't like its tone so I refused.
"Then it said 'let me show you something to help concentrate your mind a little'. Three armoured creatures with tiger-like heads came in dragging Wavesea and Foam and my children with them, all trussed up. They begged me for help. One of the creatures with blade arms loomed over them threatening to cut their throats if I didn't cooperate.
"So, I dug the circle up with my spear. What else could I do? Once it was done, I felt an influence come over me and I knew I was Dominated. I remained conscious of my surroundings but had no control over my actions.
"Am orc...sorry I mean Sharakim, I think...one of the nicer orcs Cerys brought back with her from another world, like the ones who are keepers at the Monster Zoo...well he came in and he seemed to be under a compulsion of some kind too. 'Tringus' I think his name was. Together we examined the marble box for traps, particularly magical ones. I could tell he possessed the skills for such work. We worked together, but didn't find anything. But we were fooled. When we opened the box, there was an explosion.
["That would be my Greater Sign of Sealing" says Godratt. "A most effective ward, and not easily detected."]
"Tringus and one of the blade-armed creatures were killed outright. I managed to duck and roll and avoid the blast. By a miracle, Foam and Wavesea and the kids survived. They must have been shielded by the body of the big blade-armed thing which took the blast.
[Though the actual reason, of course, is that they were never more than illusions]
"Well another blade creature was brought in to replace the dead one. Then I was ordered to drag the old man out of the box and hold him fast while he was manacled. I pulled him out but he twisted his head to free his mouth from my hand and spoke some magic words. I immediately felt very calm and uninclined towards violence. But the undead creature lashed out at him and killed him with a single blow.
"After that not much seemed to happen for a while. I could see the old man's features had appeared on the figure trapped in the undead monster's ribcage, which was very creepy.
"Then suddenly there seemed to be a lot of fuss. The cat-headed creatures were conferring with the undead thing. I saw a Nightmare appear in the chamber and someone loaded a sack onto its back and secured it. Then it trotted away I know not where. I was still Dominated this whole time but also feared for my family. I got the gist that "we" were being attacked by enemies and a defence was being prepared. I saw the Sharakim woman, Vamzirra being given orders. I think I heard the word "Neogi" which I think were some horrible creatures we saw at the Hubul Amir's summit where I first met Mishari. I think she was being told our attackers were puppets of the Neogi coming to enslave us. She looked terrified at the prospect. I was given an Invisibility spell (I have a ring that does that but I guess they didn't know) and maneouvered into an ambush position. But when they tried to force me to attack my friend Thorbjorn, a great anger welled inside of me and I threw off their mind-shackles. I could see the blade-arm creature threatening my family had been killed by Thorbjorn's spell so I turned and attacked the undead thing. The rest, I think you know."
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