Up the stairs we went, through the door, and of course onto the roof of the chapel I mentioned earlier. Curiously, there were still no entrances to be found; I'm no expert on architecture, of course, but even so, I don't really understand the point of building a chapel that no one can get into, so there must have been some entrance somewhere. Alas, the others didn't want to waste time looking for it, so I was reluctantly compelled to follow them back into the statue room and out the northern door. Sadly, there was absolutely nothing there! We wandered around for a few minutes, but it was just a bunch of bedrooms or something like that! I was rapidly growing disenchanted with this place; it was awfully boring!

In hopes that I wouldn't have to climb that long staircase (my legs were already pretty sore from all the walking and running and such that we'd been doing recently), I led us through the southern passage, but alas, it was just a storeroom, full of religious supplies. How exciting. Really, I mean it. And of course, the other exit from the original room (the one with the chapel in it) just led into a small room where they must have done the embalming, judging by the spices and bandages and so forth that were laying around. At this point, I was so bored that I was almost ready to go back out and avenge Sam's death rather than spending an eternity wandering randomly in such an ugly building, but the others dragged me reluctantly off to climb the endless staircase, and they would be utterly lost without me, so...

Talk about your boring climbs! I don't know what in the name of all that is holy those stupid humans were thinking when they built a staircase that long! But eventually, we got to the top and entered what must have been a treasury or something like that. Unfortunately, as Haley warned us, there was supposed to be a curse placed on any who took anything (I don't know why she was glaring fixedly at me when she told us about it!), so we decided it was best to leave it alone for the moment and just see if there was anything of interest. The same kind of thing happened in the next room, except for the mummy that rose up to greet us...

Fortunately for all involved, Tolec was up to the task (he's very handy to have around, and when there's monsters to fight, he's not even annoying!), so after a good long battle, the mummy was defeated and we were safe. Of course, Tolec seemed to have been infected with some strange disease (Al called it mummy rot; I neglected to ask him if that's what's been bothering his brain lately), but this was a small price to pay, especially since Al was able to cure it by using this scroll he'd found earlier.

That minor nuisance out of the way, we continued our exploration of this level, ignoring all the gold and jewelry and other such stuff, and in the next room, I found some small secret passage! Since secret passages are always worth investigating, I led the way in and was soon forced to crawl, and then to pull myself as I lay down; it was not a very large passage, obviously. At the end, I found myself looking through a small hole, and after thinking about it for a bit, I realized I was looking through one of the statue's eyes. How dreadfully uncreative these humans are! I was just about to leave when I heard a noise coming from the statue room! Unless I was mistaken (and how likely is that?), there was a secret door in that room too, and I thought I even knew where it was. Unfortunately, Tolec chose this time to follow me on in, making it impossible to hear. And to add insult to injury, the idiot had to get stuck in the passage. Sometimes I think I'm surrounded by incompetents! Puh!

Once I finished chewing Tolec out, and we decided that we'd need to get the others to pull him out, which meant that Haley would have to crawl in and attach a rope to him. She spent a lot of time arguing about doing this, but once I finished chewing her out, she reluctantly agreed, and in due course, we were rescued. While I waited for them to uncork me from my little prison, I came across a scroll, which I planned to give to Haley as an apology for losing my temper, but she rudely just snatched it from me! Acting quickly, Tolec grabbed me and pulled me aside before my temper got the best of me again, and after a bit more arguing (and after the men came back out of hiding), they followed me through the rest of this level. Eventually, we came across what Haley identified as Nephyr's tomb (although given that the sarcophagus was empty, I could have told her that myself), and with nothing to be found other than a piece of an ankh (which I knew had to be important somehow or other; one doesn't get to be a bard without some understanding of the way the world works, after all! Sadly, the others thought I was just babbling, but since I was right... And they never did apologize, either!), we headed back down the stairs.

Immediately, I led us over to the secret door that I'd identified earlier, and moving on through it, we found ourselves in a room with a pair of sarcophagi and a far exit. Of course, the sarcophagi started to open up, and although I tried to prevent it, mummies came out of both! A pitched battle ensued, during which Prihelm managed to throw his sword off into the corner (don't ask me how he did it!). And he came back with the other half of the broken ankh! I knew I was right! Al threw the first piece to Prihelm and beaned the poor paladin in the forehead, then had the temerity to blame Prihelm for this! Doesn't our foolish cleric realize that the paladin is a klutz and doesn't move so swiftly in that thick suit of armor he wears? But eventually, Tolec and I were able to defeat the mummies (small thanks to the rest of the group!), and I was just getting ready to deal with the ankh when I suddenly felt very faint and slumped to the ground!

Al came running over, took a look at the wound that the dog had given me, and realized that it had indeed been carrying some sort of disease in its slavering jaws! So he used the last of his spells to cure Haley and I (the latter had also fallen ill), then blamed us for making him waste a perfectly good scroll! Al isn't a very nice cleric...

Now that this difficulty was out of the way, I grabbed the pieces of the ankh, stuck them together, watched them fuse and become a whole ankh once more (I told them it was going to be important!), and then handed it over to Haley, in case it might be more useful for her than for me. Then we headed through the door into Anhktepot's burial room! Inside, there was a funeral barge or some such, with a great big gong and some writing on the wall. To make a long story not quite as long, the writing on the wall said that to break the veil to the underworld and free the spirit, one was supposed to strike the gong with a magic ankh. Inspired by true greatness, I grabbed our new toy from Haley's belt, smacked the gong, and promptly decided to run.

The reason for this last was that Dulcimae's spirit had appeared and told us to run before we were killed by either of the two great big mummies that were soon to be on the scene, and to not stop running until dawn, else our souls would be forfeit. Now, I didn't always see eye to eye with the woman in life, but it seemed to me that this time, she was exhibiting a sturdy common sense that I wasn't even aware she possessed, so I decided to follow her advice. Also, of course, there was the little matter of the rather outsized mummy crawling out of the sarcophagus next to me....

Well, the others followed me, making snide comments all the way and blaming me for being forced to flee. I don't understand why; I was just doing what we were supposed to do! And if I hadn't, someone else would have! But my loving companions seem to blame me for everything that goes wrong in their lives; I don't know why I put up with them sometimes!

Rounding the corner, I saw an even larger mummy just ahead of me. I didn't really have any desire to try to deal with it, so I dove underneath the outstretched arms, shouted a brief warning to my companions, rolled neatly back up to my feet, and kept on going towards the secret door back into the statue room, which was rapidly closing. Alas, Tolec and Prihelm weren't so fast, and it was only by sacrificing my precious harp that I was able to keep them from being trapped inside the temple! They owe me one! Actually, they owe me quite a few, but I've lost count.

Outside of the temple, we found ourselves in a swirling sandstorm, with the secret entrance to the valley closing also! We could do nothing but hope for the best, and were barely able to escape, leaving poor Sam's body behind. Soon, the mists rose around us, and next thing I knew, some strange figure was taunting us!