The party arrived at Istivin, and with minor incident found their way into town. They meandered around the square for a bit, noticing that there was a large brownish stain near the center of the square, which seemed to be avoided by the populace at large. Other than that, the city seemed to be a large bustling city, though teeming with guards.

While looking around, debating which shops to look at, and who to talk to to get an audience with the duke, they were interrupted by the sound of stone cracking. The base of a large statue of Pelor was breaking, and the stone piece was falling into the square, and looked like it would fall directly on a small girl. While the party was still getting their bearings, a nearby bard quickly cast some grease on the statue to try to redirect its fall, but it didn’t do much good, it still headed towards the girl. However, Shun was able to make a mad dash to the girl and shove her out of the way before the statue hit the ground.

However, as soon as the statue touched ground, it immediately seemed to change. Its eyes, which before had been just stone, now were a blue fire. It stood up of its own accord, and started laying waste to everyone around it. Shun still tried to protect the girl, turning his body into a shield around her. Blow after blow fell upon his back, as everyone else, along with the town guards, tried to find a way to stop the rampaging golem. After hitting it with an array of spells and weaponry, it collapsed into a pile of rubble, leaving behind two blue fiery gems.

After it was defeated, a priest came out of the temple, and was shocked at the state of affairs. He invited everyone inside, including the bard, whose name was Klandarian. While going inside, they noticed that the people of the town had returned to their normal business, with no real interest in the matter of the giant rampaging statue. Inside, the priest thanked them for their help in fighting the statue, and assured them that he was not the cause of it. He described to them the state of the city: Duke Killingsworth had disappeared 10-11 months ago, very shortly after he made known his intent to seek the crown. After this, his wife had taken over running the city, but strange events had started occurring since then. There were random deaths at night, along with strange creatures roaming the streets killing anyone out at night.

Smoth and Klandarian immediately took a disliking to each other, and exchanged some rude words. They left the temple in order to offer their services to the duchess. The priest offered to give them lodging in one of the nicer inns for the night. Klandarian opted to spend his time that afternoon auditioning for various taverns, and trying to make money performing. Eventually, they all stayed that night in the swank hotel.

That night, while sleeping, a loud boom was heard. Another building down the street from the hotel had caught fire. As the group piled out of their hotel room, they saw guards standing dazed in the street, while some figure flew around up above, cackling. Findail created a huge updraft, which put out the fire and blew back the flying figure. The figure ordered the guards to attack, and most of the party then spent their time trying to placate the suddenly vicious guards. Fin managed to polymorph the villain into a frog, which then tried to run (it still being able to fly, and now blinking thanks to a previous spell). However, Fin and Smoth were able to combine to track it down, using Fin’s flight and eyes in eagle form, along with both of them detecting magic to sense it.