The three men are sent to investigate the disaster that has ravaged the kingdom. They find that the hole in the ground is too small for a meteor to have entered it. They also find that many of the priests and priestesses are believers in the god of the underworld, and they need to be careful not to take up an unnatural spirit and return it to the earth. The three of them discuss the possibility of the god's being responsible for the collapse of the city. They decide that they will take the bodies of the three men and use them as a shield to protect the kingdom from the outside world.