We headed through the darkened city to 13 Klux Lane � a squat warehouse with no back door and a heavily reinforced front door.
Although I sensed nobody behind the door, it did not mean that there was nobody there, and so we nominated the orc to open the door. And he bounced off it. Viet whipped out a set of lockpicks, which worried Friar Porpington and I no end. It took him a couple of minutes to finesse the lock, but he managed it�
Inside the house was a wreck. Veit found a wooden trapdoor in the back of the floor.
This opened up to find steps leading down, and I followed Hodash down a long series of stairs.
These went down 30 or 40 feet into a wine cellar, filled with big old casks. 5 of which were full, 4 hollow.
One cask, however, had a little mechanism on it which opened the whole front half of the barrel, revealing more stairs leading down.
At the bottom of the stairs was a T Junction, then with 2 doors both ahead and to the right, but nothing to the left of the "T". Although I investigated this, I could not find any sign of a secret door. Hodash contrived to fall down deep hole with spikes on the bottom. He was fished out using Friar Porpington�s rope, badly wounded before even finding the cultists we were looking for.
As we didn't hear anything through the 2 doors. I opened one.
This led into a black painted 30 ft wide walled octagonal chamber with a big pit in the floor, and some snake-like silver chandelabra. The ceiling was painted like a starry night, and there was a table with paraphernalia. We took the stuff, and looked carefully down the empty pit. Nothing happened.
We went back to the other door; the one which took out the orc due to the pit in front of it. I opened it, to reveal a corridor on the other side.
Down the corridor, there were two doors, one on the left and one on the right, and a set of double doors at the end. We chose to go through the left one first, which opened to reveal garish curtains and piles of bones. Suddenly, 8 skeletons leapt to their feet and attacked Huey! Backing away, Huey started singin�. I smashed one straight out. Then all of a sudden, Friar Porpington shouted �Cower, Corpses of Chaos!�, and all 7 remaining skeletons fell to the floor. Which was scary. And suddenly we were under attack from behind by 5 serpents on legs wielding shortspears.
They poked the cleric, but gouged heavily into the chain-wielding Veit. I killed the first one to come into reach, and then got ready for more. Their passage was blocked by Hodash, and his cleaving axe� Before he was dropped to the floor, and the cleric was critically wounded, clutching his guts. I got another snake, as they pressed their advantage of numbers. Hodash continued to bleed his life�s blood onto the stone floor. The last one was brought down by Veit, as Friar Porpington stabilised Hodash, but the orc didn�t awaken. He was left in the room with the skeletons for 'safety'.
Now down to 4 (we left the elf outside), we opened another door, to find a room filled with illegible books. Not written in a language our bard had ever seen before. About a hundred of �em. There was also a well maintained book, with a black leather and silver cover. �The Book of the Unspeakable One�. We take it and decide to burn it later.
Several letters were also found. Veit scans them; progress reports on the lighthouse. �Our preparations are almost complete. We shall arrive in Freeport on Schedule. Make sure that everything is ready for our arrival. The Brotherhood is counting on you. N�Tal.�
The double doors at the end of the corridor have no noise from behind them. However, I detected a good deal of evil sources behind the door � between 3 and 6 beings in there.
We backed off; not ready for such a fight, and Porpington and the elf headed to the Watch to seek some assistance. Either them or brother Egil. They were unsuccessful.
A passing woman in the street suggested that we speak to Moradon of Far-Amry. A paladin. I went to the bar and found him. Obviously a worshipper of Pelor. With a broken nose. I talked to him, and led him back to the group. He healed pretty much everybody and headed back to the three girls he had left in the bar.
Return to 13 Klux Street.
This time we found a secret door in the 'T' Junction, which led us to a cave with a body of water and a number of snakeskins, and a back door into what we thought was the room with the 3-6 villains in it.
3 of us headed around to the secret door, which did indeed open into a temple room. With 4 scale-mail clad temple attendants and a High Priest beside a black basalt altar to the Unspeakable One in it. Hodash and Porpington attacked from the front.
Unfortunately, although we had been gone from the complex for an hour or more, the people in the temple-room were all on guard. The High-Priest (who turned out to be Milos, the Deputy High-Priest from the church of Boccub!) even took the time to spout some rhetoric about how we would all be killed before his guards too action. And he cast some sort of spell at me, although as yet I haven't felt its ill-effects.
I leapt into the room and attacked the priest. An evil crackling aura of death suddenly blazed around his hand and came hurtling towards me. My last-ditch attack with my spiked gauntlet smashed his nose, and broke his concentration. I think had already started to see my life flash before my eyes under that spell!
The front door flew open, and Hodash smashed through the door, slaughtering the guard I had wounded in a thrice. A third blow from me to the High-Priest failed to drop him, before Hodash sliced him to the ground.
His skin and bones shifted, and warped. Milos was revealed to be a scaly serpent man.
We found a man tied up behind the statue � Lucius. He told us of his story. Milos recently kidnapped and tortured Lucius, asking him many questions about �the other plane�. Milos threatened to kill Lucius.
We rescued the man, and returned him (the next day) to Brother Egil. Since then, Freeport has been pretty quiet�