On Torsday, the 1st of Sept, the Goblin Hunters were still trapped in the tunnels below the Goblin Lord's Hideout.  They had just killed a gelatinous cube monster (last session) when they heard a bump and a thump and some dwarven cursing from the hall behind them.  Retracing their steps, they found that Malus the Dwarf (who had been on the surface last session) had returned looking for them and fallen down the same hole that they had fallen down.

The heroes decided that finding a way out was their first priority.  The tunnel that they had been exploring turned north and ended in a dead end.  A quick search discovered a secret door in the east wall of the end of the tunnel.  They opened the door and found themselves looking into a 20 foot wide by 50-foot deep cave.  Small, bat critters with long beak-like noses that had been clinging to the ceiling began flying towards them.  Mace leapt into the room and began to fight the stirge monsters.  A sleep spell from Trygvie and attacks from the players soon defeated the stirges.

They found a secret door exit at the far end of the cave and this led to a narrow tunnel much like the one they had left.  As they proceeded down this tunnel, a nest of giant centipedes attacked their feet.  Despite the fact that several characters got bitten, the poison was too weak to affect them and they killed the vermin and moved on.

The tunnel they were exploring soon looped around and returned to the octagonal room they had originally started in.  The adventurers were growing tired of the looping, confusing maze of tunnels.  They chose another tunnel that led north.

After they had proceeded for a while, they noticed a reddish glow ahead.  Malus the dwarf snuck ahead with his infravison and found himself at the mouth of a larger cavern occupied by 8-10 beetle-like creatures about 2-3 feet long.  The beetles had reddish glowing glands on their abdomens; the source of the light they had seen before.  Malus returned to his companions and reported what he had seen.

The players elected to enter the cavern and wipe the beetles out.  They formed up, with their strongest fighters in the front.  They marched into the cave and the noise of their booted feet and clank of their metal armor alarmed the beetles that swarmed forward to meet them.  A sleep spell knocked out about half and the rest were defeated while the adventurers took little damage.  Mace cut a few of the glowing glands from the dead beetles and saw that these would be a handy source of light.

The players chose another tunnel that wound its way south.  The tunnel led to a small cave occupied by a huge and fierce bear-like creature with the claws and head of an owl -- a dreaded great horned owlbear.  The monster roared and came at them.  Fearlessly, Mace leapt forward and hacked at it with his sword.  The owlbear grabbed him in its claws and bit into him with its beak and Mace fell on the floor in a bloody heap.  While Philgo performed first aid on the dying Mace with a healing spell, Kane attacked the owlbear and was killed in turn as well.  As soon as Mace was back on his feet, Philgo began to resuscitate Kane.  Trygvie burned up a lot of charges out of his wand of magic missiles and most of the party was badly wounded and all of their healing spells were gone when the owlbear finally lay dead at their feet.

The players decided that they needed to rest and regain spells.  The owlbear's cave seemed a good place since they figured that most local residents of the tunnels would avoid it out of fear of the owlbear.  For most of the night they were undisturbed; however, on Mace's watch a single hobgoblin; unarmed, dressed in rags and with long nails and teeth, ran into the cave, barred his teeth and came at the human.  Mace figured he could handle a single hobgoblin and didn't bother to wake his friends.  There was more to this hobgoblin than met the eye, however.  It managed to wound Mace severely and several other party members as well before escaping down the tunnel.  The party used up several of their spells and healing potions in recovering from the attack.

Malus attempted to track the creature and failed.

The players then decided that they really needed to find their way out of these tunnels.  They went back to one of the two "nexus" rooms with the eight doors and tried previously unexplored tunnels.  One tunnel looped around and went right back to the nexus chamber.  The next one they chose meandered south and ended at the bank of an underground river.  There were footprints in the sand on the bank leading down into the water.  Kane waded in and discovered that the current was not too strong and he could easily wade along since the water was only 2-3 feet deep so the rest of the party followed along, hoping that the river would lead to the outside world.
About 350-400 feet south of the point where they had entered the river, the party saw luminescent fungus growing on the walls and ceiling.  A sandy bank was seen up ahead with a mouth of a cave and some large boulders.  Malus spotted a lizard like creature hiding among the rocks and watching them; the creature was the same color as the rocks and thus was difficult to see.  Malus whispered that there was some sort of creature hiding on the bank --- since it looked like a anthropomorphic lizard, Malus thought it was probably a kobold -- but he didn't get a good look at it and had never seen a kobold himself so he could not be sure.   The party surreptitiously loaded crossbows and marched on, pretending that they were unaware of the lizard creature's presence.  When the party got closer, Trygvie cast a sleep spell centered on the bank and rocks, hoping to catch any creatures hidden there.

The lizard creature jumped out from behind the rocks and hurled a stone tipped javelin at the party.  Two more of the creatures ran out of the cave to reinforce their comrade.  Now that they could see the creatures clearly, they realized that it was probably too big to be a kobold -- based on the descriptions they had heard.  The party fired crossbow bolts and charged.

Kane got there first.  One of the creatures stabbed him with a stone tipped spear, wounding him severely.  The lizard creatures began emitting a nauseating stink as they attacked, but our heroes were made of sterner stuff than that and soon all of the creatures lay dead at their feet.

The players decided to press on down the river instead of exploring the cave that the lizard creatures had apparently been guarding and continued south.  Unfortunately, the ceiling began to slope down as they proceeded and soon it was so low and narrow that they could not proceed.  Reluctantly, they returned to the cave where they had just fought the creatures.  As they explored the entrance, they heard drumming from deep within the tunnel.  

The session ended here.