Go to the front of the Serpent Temple and climb up to the roof. From there jump on to the treetops below. It's a bit difficult to move around on top of the foliage (I find it helpful to hold down the jump key) but you can make it back to Ishad N'Ha much faster than swimming!

The ghost of rumphy found in the crypt gives a heckuva lot of exp for a creature so early in the game (nearly 7000pts divided among your PCs). Moreover, he respawns when you leave his room and come back. Even better, each time you defeat him he drops a wand of stars which fetches 500 of the shiny yellow stuff.

Happy playin!
--phantomwid

Looking a bit up helps when moving in the treetops.
You do need fair athletics skill with 1 character to do this.

You can "surf" those treetops, and the ones further west to the Isle of Sands, just like on water: hold down the jump key and look at about a 45-degree angle, you'll start bouncing (pretty far) in the direction you're pointed.

When I found that Rumphy ghost, the name reminded me of the Ghost of Murphy in the first Wizardry, Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord. Murphy was always in the same room and you could kill him over and over for exp just like Rumphy.

That brings back memories - the Ghost of Murphy!! How many thousand times did I kill him???

Was there a story behind his name, anyone know??

Wyv

The Murphy's Ghosts. There was always either 1 or 2 of them, in that little room that you had to walk through the trick door to get on Level 1 of the "Proving Grounds". They popped up in other Wizardries as well, including Wiz 5 (down in the Hades level (level 777). I must have killed a thousand of them. Yes, Rumphy reminded me of them, too, and that's probably a Bradley "time-warp" thing he threw in there...just like putting Smitty from Wiz 6 in Valeia! I never mentioned the connection to "Murphy" out of fear of being called an "old-timer"...heheh, I guess I need to be less concerned about that on this board...Not sure about the connection to the name, Wyv, I always thought it was like "Murphy's Law...always occurs." Anyway, the Murphy's (and Rumphy) are great trainers for your lower-level characters...including those who you've recently ascended. If you have a Paladin who got Crusader trait, and then change his class, take him back to the Crypt and let him fight Rumphy...he gets double the XP!

On the "Tree-surfing" thing...yes, it is definitely possible with a lot of patience, healing potions (when you're first trying!) and determination. It's also the only workaround I've found for completing all the Wizard's Guild quests in Brimloch Roon, due to a design error in the ordering of the quests (giving you the Living Seed quest before the Anephas Shrine quest..grrrr!!!)