Freeday, Coldeven 7, 575 cy (cont'd)

The "Mighty" Jacobiz Quinn strode into the hall to confront the evil therein and the skeletal guardians rushed to meet his advance. The undead clawed at the living with talons of bone, rending Frate unto death's door once again, before the creatures ultimately fell before the Lancers' blades. After their battle with death, the exhausted crew slept on the benches in the hall, without even bothering to post a guard. By some small miracle, the Lancers' sleep went undisturbed.

Starday, Coldeven 8, 575 cy

The characters tended their wounds and prepared spells as quickly as they were able, before delving deeper into the Temple of Merikka. Beyond the hall they found the priests' library and a sitting room, which led into what was once a storage room, but which was now clearly a torture chamber, complete with a rack and iron-maiden. On the rack was the body of the priest Abramo, guarded by a man dressed in primitive furs and leathers, holding a javelin.

As the Lancers moved into the room, secret panels in the wall opened, allowing the man's javelin-wielding friends to surround them. After brief words were spoken in languages neither group could understand, thoughtful consideration of other options were quickly ignored and the Lancers attacked. Jacobiz narrowly escaped death twice at the hands of their javelins, if not for Enid's first aid skills and Frate's divine healing.. The barbarians were eventually defeated, as the last two standing chose to flee the area, and the Lancers pressed on.

Beyond that gruesome room, the Lancers found a tight turning passageway, clearly constructed for defense of the area, which led to an unoccupied bedchamber where the group could clearly hear muffled cries for help. A search of the area revealed a desk, the top of which had been scrawled upon in a foreign tongue and installed with a switch that activated a secret door into an adjacent room.

In this next chamber was the source of the distress: a woman dressed in rags, locked in a cage, surrounded by mostly terrible stone sculptures of various animals. After releasing the prisoner and getting her some water, the woman gives her name as Cirili, the daughter of the village storekeeper, and tells of her recent plight: from being abducted from Orlane by reptilian creatures, to resisting the charm of a wicked serpent named Explicticus Defilus in the swamps of the Rushmoors, to being imprisoned by Abramo for the past few months. Cirili can tell you how to reach that den of evil, but will under no circumstances go back there herself, though she admits that she is unsure of what to do, now that her husband is one of the charmed cult members.