date: 2026-07-06
date_solaris_start: 1267-09-15
date_solaris_end: 1267-09-16
role: public
summary: "The party finished the Colosseum maze in triumph, only to be outed at the High Magisters' celebration when they let slip that ancient Khasim's Crown fell to its own rulers, not Solara. Sentenced to death by desert, they followed a dragon-shaped landmark and Lirielle's divination to a tower that rose from the sand, where they recovered The Star-Road of Shahzir, killed a stone bull that nearly ended Landor, and escaped a Medusa with banishment as the palace sank behind them."
scene:
  description: >-
    A burning orange desert at dusk. An elf man in worn battle armour, dark hair to his
    collar, is sunk to his chest in collapsing sand, one arm outstretched, his face set in
    grim effort. Behind him a stone tower tilts and sinks into a spiralling sand vortex, and
    a huge dark bull with heavy horns charges out of the dust toward the viewer.

The party pressed deeper into the Colosseum maze and tracked down the last two relics one by one. The crowd found its roar when Ferinthria turned a lightning bolt off the stadium wall and disintegrated a doppelganger where it stood. Landor, who had wagered on his own team at fifty-to-one, walked out of the first trial rich enough to buy himself a Sunblade and a Decanter of Endless Water.

Their victory earned an invitation they could not refuse: a private celebration with the High Magisters in the Hanging Gardens. There Hadrek Vohn and Rashid Indo-Karr circled them with questions, probing at their names and their ties to House Anuvesh. The party answered well enough, until they let slip a truth no citizen of Khasim's Crown should hold: that the city had been unmade not by Solara but by its own ancient High Magisters. The room went cold, and the Magisters called for their arrest and sentenced them to death by desert. Momeline salvaged what she could, bargaining to keep their belongings and winning a promise: if they survived the sands and made their way back, they could enter the city as guests rather than enemies. Aleyna Sokari rolled her eyes, laughed, and said "deal." On the way out Landor bet the bookie a thousand-to-one that they would be back. The bookie pocketed his 35 platinum with a smile.

Stranded in the middle of the desert, the party wandered for a few days. Momeline took a dose of Dreamvale and dreamed of a dragon in the sand, its gaze fixed on a far tower. Lirielle cast divination and learned the dragon looked straight at what they sought, remembering old stories of Zephyr, the dragon of the north winds, whose constellation points the way, and Milo guided them across the dunes to the sleeping dragon's shape. Beneath its petrified wing they found magical traps and two mimics. Landor tried to blast one back with his decanter, with predictable results, then insisted on wrestling the second himself to the party's dismay. Momeline drew off a vial of corrosive green liquid from a cauldron, and they pressed on the way the dragon stared. As they neared a mound of half-buried roof tiles, a tower shuddered up out of the sand.

Inside stood a statue of a bull. While Lirielle pored over a book she found there, The Star-Road of Shahzir, written in ancient Khaladi and read through comprehend languages, the bull tore itself loose and gored Landor nearly to death. Spells rang ineffectively off its stone hide until Dravencoles charged in on a summoned divine zebra, healed Landor with a touch, and cracked a horn clean off. Momeline slid in behind and finished it with a killing strike of her nine-lives dagger. The book told Lirielle their road led back to the city, to the statue in the basement of Shahzir's Library.

But the main hall was not empty. A Medusa waited there, asking what knowledge they had come to seek, certain they carried the Crown of Judgement since the palace had risen for them. Lirielle answered with banishment, and the party fled as the tower began to sink. Landor's decanter snagged on a stair rail and he would not let go, tugging as the sand swallowed the room, until Talan wildshaped into a bull and hauled him bodily away from it.

They spilled out of the tower within sight of the city gates, ready to make good on their bargain and walk back into Khasim's Crown with their own faces.