Seacrock and I rounded the corner, charging after Riyou’s kidnappers. Seacrock was unable to put the necromancer or the mongrel to sleep. The mongrel ran off carrying Riyou, who started to struggle. As the mongrel ran out of sight, I saw Riyou heroically stab the mongrel. The necromancer ran off, and I followed him into a small room, where he’d turned into three of himself. I shot, and one of the images disappeared. Seacrock cast magic missile, and the other image disappeared. The necromancer actually walked by me instead of attacking me, and failed to cast a spell at Seacrock. I dropped the bow and swung my sword at him, wounding him. Then the coward ran into the dark. We pursued. I hoped the dropped bow would show Bancroft where we went.
The necromancer tried to stab Seacrock with his own dagger, and missed, then ran again. I swung at the necromancer and it would have killed him, but he had images up again, and one disappeared. I noticed that Seacrock had dropped ball bearings on the ground for some incomprehensible reason, which was going to complicate my pursuit. Although I did see Riyou, live and well, having killed the mongrel. She didn’t need saving, she saved herself. The necromancer ran again, and we chased, but lost him. We encountered three more mongrels on the way back, but they groveled and were in awe of Riyou for resisting the necromancer. We left them be and made our way back to where Bancroft was still paralyzed. Riyou poked at the spider corpse, and the shadows swooped in and snuffed all the lights again. Once we had light relit, I grabbed the pouch on the skeleton and found money.
We carried Bancroft to the ropes. I pulled everyone but Riyou up, because she didn’t need help, and we headed for town. Bancroft started to move on his own along the way. He was upset that he missed the necromancer, thus completely missing out on his mission from god to kill the guy.
Card in the morning was the 6 of cups – good things from the past are coming up for you. I can’t imagine anything good coming for me from the carnival I told fortunes at. Maybe it means something good for one of the others. After hiring henchmen, we approached the main barrow, but felt an unnatural cold. Since we had Riyou with us, we inspected the Nergal gate (D15), to see if she could pick the lock. Seacrock said the door was magic. Riyou said every time she got halfway through picking the lock, it reset. So, we decided to go back to the skull door and go in that way.