Escaping the coliseum, the party is attacked by Gafur's owner Alim and the Directorate, the inquisitors who exiled Ord. Ord meets his animal spirit, the djinn temptress Waifa, and she offers to make Ord the Caliphate's king if he will betray the party to her. At the Sun's Anvil, djinn tell the party that Krohn and the djinn high court have imprisoned Krohn's father and god, the Ninety-Nine's Malik.
At the end of the last game, the party saved the Maker's rightful heir Gafur from his killers in al-Watan's coliseum, defeating the last killer in the labyrinth under the coliseum's floor.
Then all hell broke loose.
As the players are wrapping up the fight with the assassins, they hear intense, horrified screaming coming from the next room. After it subsides in choked whimpers, a person comes through the door. He's unshaven, wears rusted chainmail and a filthy cloak, and has a menacing driftwood staff. Beowolf and Kasskar immediately recognize him as Prosper.
This was the third Prosper the party had met. While they were trying to figure out why he had appeared, more trouble arrived.
A man comes into the room with some gladiators and surveys the situation. He is dressed well but seems like someone who's been hardened by a difficult life. Gafur, the slave you're rescuing, brandishes a dagger in front of himself, and takes a few steps back.
The man says coldly, "I am Alim, Gafur's owner. I cannot begin to calculate how much you have cost me by interfering in the fight today. I don't know where you think you're going with Gafur, but you will turn him over to me now."
Alim's gladiators brandish their weapons, but some of Alim's gladiators were friends of Gafur, and the party can do Diplomacy checks here (DC 20) to turn each one from Alim's side to Gafur's side.
Alim's men:
The party's Diplomacy checks brought Maher and Tamim to their side. But their troubles were just beginning.
As Alim is threatening you, another group of men comes in, this time older. They are wearing long, closely fitting white robes and they have closely cropped, finely kept white beards. Some wear short cylindrical hats, and those who don't have closely cropped, finely kept white hair. Ord recognizes them as inquisitors of the Directorate - the Caliphate order that exiled him after he testified against Krohn a few years ago. You notice that the Directorate members have exotic looking inquisitors' weapons. They look over at the weapons Alim's gladiators are carrying, and Alim's gladiators look back at the inquisitors' weapons. The two groups' weapons are pretty much the same thing, and they curtly nod at each other in approval.
The inquisitors focus on Ord immediately, and one of them, Hadi, calls out to Ord by his real name, Talib Abd al-Batin, calling him a blasphemer and heinous for returning from exile. A second inquisitor, his brow furrowed in worry, steps up. He points at Beowolf, and adds, "And also Talib Abd al-Batin, you harbor an abomination." A look of doubt crosses his face, and he looks a few times between Beowolf and Prosper. He then points at Prosper and says even more insistently, "There's the abomination!"
Hadi says that the Directorate will now sanction him. Ord can take 10 on a Religion roll for that, which will tell him that sanctioning would eliminate his rune powers.
Then turn their attention to the party and attack.
Hadi's inquisitors were named Ummul, Simrah, Khalil, and Jasham.
Alim had these statistics and his gladiators had these statistics. Hadi had these statistics and his other inquisitors had these statistics. The party and their gladiator allies defeated Alim's men and the Directorate, and Ord avoided sanctioning.
They emerged from the coliseum into the street to find the city in chaos, with the flying chimera that escaped now rampaging through the city. The players said they would like to stop and fight the chimera, but their own situation was too pressing. In the chaos, they were able to make their way to the river unnoticed, where Burns and Ord's fellow runepriest Rana were waving from a felucca, a fast river boat with sails.
In the last game, the scholar priest at the Watchful's church, Basit, gave Ord information on the Caliph's long-forgotten allies. He'd said that djinn in the deep desert owed the Caliph's descendants their loyalty, but that the djinn no longer recognized any rightful heirs. So, the party and Gafur headed up the river, toward the djinn tent city at the Sun's Anvil, the worst part of the desert.
Rana now told Ord that, according to legend, you could reach the Sun's Anvil by leaving the Asad River after its third rapid, then following the dry riverbed of the former Imam River east. As they sailed south on the Asad, they saw a narrow, fertile ribbon of land on each side. The farms there had green plants, often cotton, and every farm had a donkey. Occasionally they would pass through a small village or town on the river.
After they passed the third rapid and found the Imam riverbed, they left the felucca and bought camels in a nearby village. They headed out along the riverbed.
Ord and Beowolf continued to attempt the ritual that the runepriest Kabir had taught them for summoning their animal spirit. Mediating alone in the desert, Ord succeeded.
When Ord succeeds at the meditation, he notices the wind picking up, and soon he has to shield his eyes from flying sand. The wind and flying sand become a sandstorm surrounding him. When it subsides, Ord can see a beautiful woman, actually a djinn, with bluish-white translucent skin and dark curly hair. She wears a light fabric sash around her waist and golden armbands - only. Ord recognizes her as his "animal spirit."
No one else is there, including the party.
If Ord asks her anything, she answers, and Ord can see that wisps of steam come out of her mouth and nostrils when she talks. She'll tell Ord that she is Waifa.
Waifa touches Ord on the arm, and a wisp of steam rises from that spot. She looks Ord up and down. She says that he's princely. She says that she can make Ord a king, that he'll re-enter al-Watan a conqueror, and that other kings and emperors will bow before his splendor. She says she can transport him anywhere, and that he'll see the wonders of Balaal, like the canals of Blackwells, but also the restful plane Hereward and more heavens beside.
For her to do all of this, Ord needs only consign Beowolf, Kasskar, and Jaris over to her, to do as she pleases with them.
Ord declined, and Waifa argued that sacrificing the party would save the Caliphate and serve a much greater good. But Ord stuck with the party.
The party continued on through the worst part of the desert. Eventually, Rana pointed out an unusual natural stone formation that appeared the horizon - a four-sided pyramid whose sides were scorched black. He said that it was the Sun's Anvil, and as they got closer, they saw a large city or colony of colorful satin tents surrounded the base of the formation.
They entered the tent city, and the scene was not unlike the Inkeri's temporary tent city in Hollin's Gibb park. They were welcomed into a central tent, where they met the djinn leader of the city. The djinn leader told them that Krohn and the djinn high court had conspired to imprison Krohn's father, the Ninety-Nines' king or "Malik," at the Well of Life near the djinn high court.
