Much discussion happens within the brass Kaer of Death's Tomb.  The
party questions Rhadamanth a bit, and get his permission to try
getting out in a reasonable way.  They forgo the easy way out
(Bigby's Knocking Fist), and instead put together a mishmosh of
escape methods -- Kenisha determines that she really can just bamf
through the door, since it's just a door, and she's good at those.

Lieke gets out first, by being shot out of Gilad's bow, then swimming
upstream while being banished by Steven.  A bunch of work follows to
get everybody out, then Kenisha in again to get the Throwing Scythe,
then get the various dead bodies back together.  Again, the party
does Lieke first -- jumpstarting him with hundreds of motes of
Essence and Emerald Countermagic and trusting in his natural regen to
keep him alive from there.  Once he's back, the rest of the party can
just use their rings.

The party returns to Camrish without incident, and after appropriate
preparations, conduct the banishing ritual.  Steven marches around
the city to banish it, leaving Lieke as an anchor with the Longing
Ring, and Gilad, T'Karish, and Kenisha guarding the map room.

A strange peddler shows up on the north road.

GASP!

He reveals himself to be Bernal, the leader of the banished council.

SHOCK!

He reveals himself to be a spider mage.

HORROR!

Actually, the party appears to have been expecting that last bit.
Bernal gets off some sarcastic repartee while beginning his powerup
sequence, so Lieke jumps him before he does anything painful.

The fight continues for a while, stretching the bounds of plausibility
for what Bernal could have learned in the year he's been gone.  He
demonstrates that he got Way Cool powers from his transformation to a
spider mage, and also appears to have gone to Martial Arts Boot Camp.

A long, long battle ensues.  Lieke can't break through Bernal's
parries and thread effects, and Steven's too worn out from the Ritual
to do much with Sorcery.  He does get in a few heroic blows with a
Fire Staff, eventually exploding it in Bernal's face to little effect.
The deciding factor in this all is the company of mercenaries brought
in from Travar -- Bernal seems to have optimized for this fight to be
against single big enemies, not against hordes of ranged combatants.

<blockquote>
	(For those who care, his intended strategy had been to crowd
	Gilad and tie him up with Nest of Living Strands, then eat
	whoever had the Longing Ring and leave Camrish banished
	Forevah.  He had a freely-cascading parry, which went from 23
	dice down to 1 die, but could only make 4, 8, or 12
	parries/turn vs. ranged attacks, depending on how much else he
	wanted to do.  He had no Perfect defenses.  Only the third of
	three successive Clinches worked on him -- you get one leg,
	then four, then all eight and he's pinned.  This mechanic
	shows up in a couple of other places, I believe.)
</blockquote>

Bernal takes a risk to dive in and inject Lieke with some sort of
soul-venom, rendering him swiftly unconscious -- but the mercenaries
drive the spider back.  This sort of thing goes on for a while, then
Bernal takes one last risk, running in while immaterial to eat Lieke's
soul, and it doesn't pan out.  The mortals pincushion him, Steven
slides into home and grabs the ring, and Bernal is crushed beneath
the returning city, eight massive legs sticking out from the side.
"Oh, what a world, what a world..."

Meanwhile, in vanished Camrish, the defenders repel wave after wave
of Horror attacks -- Tomescu to soften up the defenses, Blood Apes
trying to steal the map, then something Much Much Worse.

Have 7 XP for the run.  Next Camrish run, we'll be dealing with
the Much Much Worse for a bit, then moving on with the Spider Mage
Curse dealt with to look briefly at some of its ramifications.  Also,
receipt of a note from Thera.

-Brian