"My best guess," Agar is saying as he sucks reflectively on his lit pipe, "is that Kellharin used a gate spell to pierce the planar boundaries of the Calphas' Comfortable Castle. He must have scried someone here in the Castle, noted where they were, and then ripped a hole into it from the Prime. It wasn't me; my detect scrying would have told me." He looks around questioningly, and Tao looks disgusted.

"It was probably me," she says in a tired voice. "The thing appeared in my chapel. He must have watched me while I was praying." Everyone looks at her with sympathy.

"So what are we going to do?" Velendo asks. "That thing was horrible! If he can send something like that in here whenever he wants, we're in a lot of trouble."

"Indeed we are!" exclaims Karthos the sword in a metallic voice. "I myself was injured near unto death. If it were not for Sir Malachite's skill at arms and Commander Mara's miraculous healing touch, I would be nothing more than scrap metal right now." It's hard to tell, but it looks like the sword is gazing adoringly at the now-clothed paladin. Malachite sighs, perfunctorily agrees with the sword, and quickly sheathes it. Mara looks unruffled.

"That reminds me," she says over the muffled sound of the still-talking sword. "My mace Lightbinder is badly damaged. I'll need to try and get it fixed somehow."

"Well," snorts Splinder, "it's not like we have any shortage of dwarves, and there's got to be a good weaponsmith in Mridsgate. I've even got a decent one in my own ranks. I'll check tomorrow." Mara nods her thanks with a wide smile.

"How often do you suppose he can do that?" Malachite asks.

"Kellharin? I dunno," answers Agar. "Depends on how powerful he is, really. Only once, I hope." The group talks for a few more minutes about possible strategies for protecting the sanctuary, but doesn't settle on anything in particular.

"The question is," asks Raevynn, "should we take the fight to him? I don't know how long it will be before I slip back into another plane, but I'd like to get him if we can." She shoots Agar a dirty look, and he pretends to ignore it.

Kiri agrees. "With Shara and I here, we have a lot more arcane firepower than we usually do. The two of us can always return to Eversink later tomorrow. For now, lets find a way to teleport in and take him out."

Shara looks at her questioningly. "I was under the impression that it was impossible to teleport deep underground."

"That's true," agrees Velendo, "but we're not so sure he is deep underground. We've scryed him once; he's actually a dwarf, and he appeared to be asleep or projecting when we saw him. Let's take a look at all of our auguries, legend lores and divinations concerning him."

The group lays the transcripts out on the table.

The White Kingdom knows of the path, but the rotting dwarf is stalled by his own Kingdom's defense. - Nolin's legend lore on traveling through the abandoned dwarven city of Tuz'Zud.

Kellharin guards the ebon door, his evil stopped from doing more Cursed to stay beyond the day the dwarves were forced to go their way. - Agar's vision of the name Kellharin

As the group begins to tiredly look at the prophecies, Karthos begins to talk urgently from within Malachite's sheath. "This better be good," Malachite says as he half-draws the blade.

"There is undead nearby!" exclaims Karthos with worry in his voice. "I can detect them!"

"Knock knock?" says a familiar voice as an undead dwarf leans around the corner of the door. It holds out a bottle of blood-red wine in one hand and a bouquet of bone-white flowers in the other. "I brought a peace offering!" --------------------------------------------------------------------------