The Temple of Ishtar in Xarame was a magnificent place. It dominated the temple square, rising from the eastern side of the wide expanse of sandstone like the moon on a clear night. Its sides were sheathed in white marble that had been imported at great expense from Aquillonian quarries across the mountains and then laid so precisely that the a knife blade could not have been inserted between them. Two great obelisks stood to either side of the main gate, through which the flickering oil lamps light the way into the sanctum. Sythemis walked easily to the gate, apparently heedless of the ever present threat of cutpurses and robbers in the torchlit streets. The Temple guards did not know her, but they clearly knew better than to interfere with a well dressed and mysterious woman approaching the Temple at night. They raised their pikes and let her pass without comment, eyes following her from behind their intricately wrought helmets.

Beyond the first gate was a courtyard in which lemon trees had been planted in profusion. Beautiful women stood or longued on marble benches infront of the bowers that that were artfully woven from the citris trees branches. The Temple Prostitutes were famed for their beauty, each selected for their voluptuousness and improved upon by regimes of diet and prayer until the resembled the bronze depictions of their mistress, with swollen busts and wide hips that gave them the aspect of beautiful but very slightly overripe fruit. Two of the girls approached Sythemis but she lifted her palm in a gesture which made the girls instantly abase themselves. 

"Mistress," the whispered as one, grinding their faces into the dirt in obeisance. Such whores had their place of course, but it was not their place to question the initiates of the deeper mysteries. 

"I have come to seek counsel, you will prepare the bath for me," Sythemis decreed. Both women sprang to their feet and rushed off into the temple. Sythemis turned abruptly, conscious of a gaze upon her and scanned the roofline, but there was nothing but moonlight. Shrugging it of as a passing foolishness she returned her mind to the task at hand. She needed to find a thief afterall. After perhaps ten minutes of waiting the two prostitutes returned. Sythemis nodded and led them into the temple itself. All three of them prostrated themselves before the bronze statue of the Goddess and then stood. The pair of initiates took up their positions to either side of Sythemis. The Stygian began to disrobe methodically, dropping her silken robe to the floor before adding her jewelry and undergarments until she stood naked before the statue. Her body was leaner than her escorts, darker also, dusky with the olive burn of the Stygian sun. In truth she was unusually voluptuous for her race, her bosoms and hips pleasing to Ishtar in the same way as her crooked mind was pleasing to her other patron. She raised both hands above her head.

"Eia, Eai Shub-Niggurath," she intoned, using one of the forbidden names of the Goddess, "Calliya, Calliyae, eian sun nyto!" For a moment nothing seemed to happen. Ten heartbeats passed and then a slow grinding sound shook dust from the temple walls. A section of the floor before the statues feet slid inwards to reveal a passageway down into the earth.

"Leave me," she told the wide eyed Temple prostitutes. The girls needed no encouragement to scurry back into the courtyard as Sythemis began her passaged down into the earth.