Date: 10/08/08

XP Awarded: 514 (Deivon, Kiria, Signore), 257 (Gob)

Start: The tunnels below Sandpoint, two weeks after the goblin raid.

Since the adventurers are badly wounded, they leave the tunnels and return to the cathedral, where Father Zantus uses his priestly magic to heal their wounds. He is alarmed by their description of the creatures they have encountered, but don't know what they are. The adventurers return to the Rusty Dragon Inn to consult Gob and rest. At the inn, they find Gob in the tavern, apparently finished with his studying, but he doesn't recognize the creatures by the description either. The party agrees to rest and return to the tunnels the next morning.

The following day after the adventurers finish preparing, they descend into the basement of the Sandpoint Glassworks once again. Following the smugglers' tunnels to the underground complex, they show Gob what they'd found before, then explore the large prison room they fought in the previous day. Apart from a handful of very old skeletons, and another passageway into the smugglers' tunnels, they don't find anything of interest. The next room is an ancient torture chamber, and attached is a room that appears to have once been a study of some sort. The study connects to three prison cells containing the horribly deformed skeletons of three humanoids.

Beyond the torture chamber is a large room with a series of covered pits in the floor. The adventurers don't have any time to look around before a freakish creature comes hurtling out of the darkness to attack Deivon. It appears to be a twisted parody of a goblin, with two extra twisted, stubby arms sprouting from its obscenely muscled shoulders, and ears elongated to the point where they look more like waving tentacles. It strikes Deivon with a large sword wielded in its two powerful arms, dealing a powerful blow, while its other two arms attack with a dagger and handaxe. The party move into the room to surround it and pummel it with spells and arrows, but it seems to heal wounds as they are inflicted. At one point it vomits forth a stream of acidic bile, burning Deivon and Gob and nearly nauseating them. Finally Deivon manages to land a devastating blow, and the creature crashes through the wooden lid over one of the pits in the floor. The party sees that the pits contain rotting zombies, and the one in the pit viciously beats the mutated goblin into a paste.

Moving on, the adventurers find a descending spiral staircase blocked by collapsed stone. At the end of the passage is a spherical room plated with sheets of red metal that ripple with a silent black electricity that almost seem to form runes or words. Floating in the room in a type of levitation field are a few objects. Gob tentatively enters the room to collect them. Afterwards, the party returns to the large room with the covered pits. Signore notices that the greatsword used by the mutated goblin seems to be glowing, and Deivon picks it up. Using bows and crossbows to kill the zombie at the bottom of the pit with the mutated goblin's body, Kiria climbs down to retrieve the creature's other weapons.

From here the adventurers return to what seems to be the central part of the complex, the room with the red marble statue. They proceed up several flights of stairs, coming to a closed door. Behind the door is a small room with a pool lined with skulls. Before they can investigate, a terrible creature that looks like a hideous human head with bat wings swoops down to attack. In place of hair it has writhing tentacles, and before the party can react, it lets loose a terrifying shriek. Paralyzed by fear, Signore is not able to resist when the creature flies down to deliver a filthy kiss to the stunned gnome. Deivon recovers and destroys the creature with a powerful blow.

Moving through the room, the group enters a door on the far side and finds a spiral staircase that winds steeply up. After following it for many turns, it ends in a pile of rubble where the stairway has collapsed. Turning back, the party goes down the last unexplored hallway in the complex, coming to what appears to be a shrine of some sort. On a platform of grey stone is a jagged block of black marble with a small basin of filthy water, apparently an altar of some sort. Gob decides to taste a bit, but it is so disgusting that he becomes violently ill.

On the far wall is a large pair of doors. Deivon throws the doors open to reveal an immense underground cathedral, the walls carved with strange, spikey runes. In the center of the room is a large pool with a ring of polished human skulls balanced on stone spikes arranged in a circle around the deeper midsection. At the far end of the room a pair of stone stairways lead up to pulpit on which sits a second pool, this one triangular and filled with a churning, bubbling water that looks almost like translucent lava. Although what look like wisps of steam rise from the strange orange liquid, the room is deathly cold. As the adventurers take this sight in, a high-pitched cackle rings out from the back of the cathedral...