Ord defeats the assassin Raihim under the dome of Cold Comfort's refuge. Cold Comfort's books reveal that the Maker's rightful heir is the slave Gafur, the crowd's favorite gladiator at al-Watan's coliseum. Learning that assassins have replaced Gafur's next opponents, the party rushes to interrupt the fight, killing the assassins and leaving the coliseum in chaos.
At the end of the last game, the party was ambushed by assassins while escaping Cold Comfort's refuge and defeated them. Now they hurried again to escape. However:
When the characters re-enter the dome room, they see a figure sitting cross-legged on one of the caskets. His outfit is off-white with delicate embroidery. The pants fit his legs closely, with a kind of skirt that goes around his waist, and a fitted jacket that he wears open. He is shoeless. His hair is trimmed very close to his head.
Remaining sitting, he tells the players they have invaded Cold Comfort's refuge. He repeats this saying, "our refuge, man - 't the fuck!" Regaining a little of his composure, he says: "My name is Raihim, or in your language, the Showerer of Blessings."
If the players try to move toward him, they'll get one move in, then Raihim will leap off the casket where he's sitting, and will reverse the gravity in the room, so that the bowl-like dome becomes the floor. Raihim and presumably the flying Ord can then duel on top of the floating caskets.
Ord and Raihim did fight in the air, while the other party members tried to climb up to the edge of the dome and attack from there. Among other powers, Raihim used Interdimensional Air Strike, which called a jet fighter though an interdimensional rift to bomb the characters.
They did defeat Raihim, and Ord's sword Isra went to +3 as a result. With Raihim beaten, gravity reversed again, and they fell back to the floor. They finished their escape from Cold Comfort's refuge, and headed back toward al-Watan.
As the party is hurrying away from Cold Comfort's island, Ord's fellow runepriest Rana suggests they seek shelter at a former church of the Watchful, on the avenue from the docks to the Citadel, near the coliseum. He says he has friends there who can help hide them while they decipher Cold Comfort's records, which could take time.
The party took Rana's suggestion and went to the Watchful's church. Ord studied Cold Comfort's books there. Beowolf loitered around the church, but Kasskar decided to pass the time exploring al-Watan. Wandering the streets, he found the Grotesquery.
While Ord and the others dig through Cold Comfort's books, Kasskar is wandering the streets near al-Watan's docks and finds a curious shop whose name translates as "the Grotesquery." The Grotesquery sells many curiosities that sailors have pawned: shriveled heads and withered monkey paws, erotic chalk sketches featuring little people or amputees, masks with long bird beaks for a nose and hair from what creature there's no telling. But among the many quaint and off-putting items there, Jaris also discovers that the Grotesquery is selling several very valuable items for a few coppers, apparently unaware of their value.
Offline, Jaris should select a level 12 magic item from the Grotesquery, which will cost him a few copper pieces. Have the other players roll. The runners-up find an 11th level, 10th level, and 9th level item respectively.
In addition, this one time only, the players can find whatever other magic items they want there, and buy them for their book price using their accumulated gold or gems. If they want to sell any items there they can also do that according to the book.
Jaris was picked out to receive the Level 12 item because he'd been newly introduced. Kasskar rolled to receive the Level 9 item.
Kasskar also picked up al-Watan's news wandering the streets.
On the street, Kasskar discovers that the crowd's favorite gladiator at the coliseum right now is a recently imported slave named Gafur. His rise has been surprising and meteoric, although some say lucky, and until this morning everyone was placing bets for Gafur to win in his fight today. But this morning, the ticket and Gafur's opponents were changed, and folks on the street were not sure what to think. So, it's caused a lot of confusion.
Meanwhile, back at the Watchful's church, Ord and Beowolf got some interesting information from the Watchful's priests Kabir and Basit.
As Ord and the others work on deciphering the records, they notice one of the priests there, Kabir, watching Ord and Beowolf curiously. If given the chance, he'll approach Ord and say that Ord has a spirit with him, and he asks if Ord can talk to the spirit.
Ord cannot, and Kabir will offer to teach Ord and Beowolf a meditation ritual in which, once he's mastered the ritual, he'll be able to summon and possibly communicate the spirit. It will be a high DC roll that both will likely fail, but over their future travels in the desert, the isolation and monotony will increase their skill at this until they can summon the spirit.
If Ord will share some of his quest with the church priests, a scholar priest there, Basit, can give Ord some information on the the "long-forgotten allies" of the rightful heirs that Ishild mentioned. Basit says that when the Ninety-Nine came into the world, they entered it at the Well of Life. From their, they soon discovered that a kingdom of djinn ruled the desert, which mostly means ruling the wells, and held their courts at the oases. The Ninety-Nine conquered the djinn and made them swear fealty to the Ninety-Nine's families. But with the rightful heirs missing, the djinn no longer recognize their fealty. A rightful heir could travel to the main djinn court, and claim their fealty.
The djinn are beings of fire, and their high court is at the Well of Life, near the worst part of the desert.
Beowolf and Ord tried Kabir's ritual, but they weren't yet able to summon their animal spirits.
After a few mores days, Ord had digested Cold Comfort's books.
After a few days of working through the records, the party determines that most of the rightful lines have been completely destroyed. One exception is an heir of the nobles of the house of the Maker, named Gafur. Gafur's family had been living in a foreign land for many generations, and were recently conquered and taken as slaves by the Hasib "family" of slavers. From very recent additions to Cold Comfort's records, it is clear that this person has been brought to al-Watan as a slave. Further, Cold Comfort has decided that this person is already in imminent danger, and so instead of assassinating him, they will watch and wait.
Combining this information with what Kasskar had heard on the street, Keith immediately deduced that Gafur was going to be assassinated in his next fight at the coliseum - which was only about 20 minutes away! The party rushed to the nearby coliseum and pushed their way to the front row. There, they saw Gafur and his opponents emerging from gates on the opposing ends of the coliseum's dirt field. Cages with exotic animals - a chimera, guardian naga, legendary scorpion, and sphinx - also rose through the ground.
They jumped over the rail and onto the field, where they fought to protect Gafur and his allies from his opponents. While they fought, they'd occasionally step on a pressure plate that would open one of the cages. However, instead of attacking the party, the exotic creatures decided to fly into the crowd and attack, creating intense chaos. Keith pointed out that normally, creatures like that would be chained so they couldn't attack the crowd. Too late though!
The party and Gafur fled into the gate that Gafur had come out of, which led them into the coliseum's basement. The killers followed them there, but the party defeated them.
