Cullen De Filch (Npc; Human Rogue)
Mace Blackstar (Mike D.; Human Fighter)
Wilbered The Silent (Bob S., Human Cleric)
Castor Bean (Steve B; Human Bard)
Trygvie (Npc; Elven Wizard)
Kane (Al G.; Human Monk)

players map of the dungeon from April 19, 2004

The last session ended with the players having plundered the sacristy of the amphitheater of the Toad God's Temple.  Trygvie had found a secret door in the northwest wall.   The players drew their weapons and opened the door.

The secret door gave access to a mosaic tiled wall of great age.  The mosaics had fallen away from the walls in places, but the players could see the designs portrayed humans parading around in front of a large toad statue.  Some of the figures wore robes and a green toad, about the size of a large human fist, was being carried around.  One series of mosaics portrayed a group of humans drinking wine, then the drunken humans drawing lots with one distraught human holding the short straw and a final scene in which the loser was being sacrificed over a fire pit in what looked like the amphitheater they had explored earlier.  Part of the hall appeared to have collapsed out and been undermined, revealing two large caverns.  At the end of the hall was a massive mosaic of a toad squatting on a pedestal with green eyes. 

Suddenly the ground shook and there was a distant, crumbling roar.  Bits of rock and dust fell from the ceiling and the players could hear stone shifting overhead... but the apparent earthquake passed with nothing more serious than a few characters falling down. 

Mace and Trygvie stepped up to the hole in the wall for a close look and the crumbled floor gave out beneath them, tumbling them down a slope and into a rubble filled cavern 16 feet below and to the northwest.  The rest of the characters climbed or clambered (or, in the case of Wilbered, fell) down the slope.  The cavern was filled with rubble, bits of wood and stone, fragments of mosaic, etc., and had two exits. 

The other narrow tunnel sloped down to a deep pool of clear, cold water.  Castor cast light on a stone and threw it in the pool and they could see that the water was clear and more than twenty feet deep.  Kane could see a passage on the other side of the pool.  He leapt across.  Castor tossed a dagger with a light spell on the tip to Kane and the monk disappeared down the small hallway, discovering a larger cavern much like the one that he had left his companions in.  It also had a crumbled slope up to the mosaic hallway.   There were several exits --- down one to the northeast, Kane could hear a loud thumping sound.  Since they didn't want to cross the water in all their heavy armor, Kane's companions asked him to rejoin them.

A second exit from the cave sloped down to the north, ending in a small, rectangular room with walls of stone.  The chamber was filled with a rubble of broken beakers, bottles, furniture and bits of shattered alembics, retorts and other laboratory equipment.  The place looked like a wrecked laboratory of some type.  The player poked around a little and failed to find anything valuable.  Mace spied two greasy looking puddles on the floor and jabbed his sword into one.  It dissolved with a greasy pop while the other puddle slithered under the rubble.  Castor thought he spied something moving in a corner but as he moved his light source closer to get a clear view, he failed to find anything.  The room was giving them the creeps, so they went back to the cavern they had come from.

They climbed up the slope back into the mosaic hall and back down into the second cavern which Kane had explored earlier.  They poked around a little and debated going down the hall from which Kane had heard a thumping noise earlier, but then chose the other narrow passage.  It wound down through the rock, past a formation of worked stone (evidently a portion of a collapsed wall) and ended in an iron grate.  The grate was fastened at four corners by four crude padlocks.  Beyond it, the characters could see a worked stone hallway lit by a burning torch. 

They set Cullen to work and he managed to pick two of the four padlocks, allowing the gate to swing free.  They crept through into a hall and saw a few wooden doors.  Listening at one, Kane heard the sound of hammers and chisels.  He peeked in and saw three goblins chiseling blocks from stone and arguing.  Kane closed the door quietly without being noticed, crossed the hall and carefully opened a second door.  This led to a small cavern lit by a single lamp sitting on the floor.  There was a small subterranean pool and piles of kegs and boxes -- this was apparently a food storage cave.  The party entered the cave and suddenly a row of humans armed with bows that had been hiding behind the rows of barrels stood up and demanded the group lower their weapons.

For a moment it seemed that they would come to blows but the players realized that the leader of this group was probably Cirdis -- a man they had heard of back in Feldspar.  The npc group included a man in spiked banded mail (Cirdis), a woman in chainmail (Gaia) and three thuggish looking mercenaries (Tom, Dick and Harry).  They had heard that Cirdis had visited Feldspar a few days before they had arrived and had asked a great many questions about the attacks the village had suffered.  According to the innkeeper at the Red Hen in Feldspar, a local woman named Gaia had been keeping an eye on Cirdis and told the innkeeper that she didn't trust him... but right before Cirdis had disappeared, Gaia had seemed infatuated with him.  They suspected a spell or a charm of some kind.

Cirdis suggested that they join forces against the goblins, saying, "Goblins are evil, no?  So, certainly we should all join together against them..."  The players were less enthralled with this idea but they seemed a little more interested when Cirdis mentioned that he was searching for a toad idol carved from a green gemstone -- as big as a man's fist and very valuable --- that was supposedly hidden somewhere in the burial chambers of the temple. 

Finally the players decided to step out into the hallway, leaving Cirdis and his companions in the room, and discuss the situation.  They were arguing over whether to simply go their own way, join up with Cirdis or attack when suddenly some arrows came flying down the hall out of the darkness, injuring a few of the players.  There was a loud cry of "Yi, yi, yi, yi yi..." and a group of goblins charged down the hallway.  Mace and Kane hacked up the goblins pretty quickly, but then both the goblin stone masons from the room across the hall, Cirdis and his crew and another goblin patrol from the opposite direction joined the fray.  The players were gratified to see that Cirdis and his minions seemed to be on their side rather than helping the goblins.

Trygvie webbed a group of goblins who were approaching from behind with his wand.  The players could hear another group coming from the opposite direction.  Cirdis' group formed up on the right and the players formed up on the left while Trygvie and Wilbered guarded the goblins in the web.  The fight was over pretty quickly --- but not before a goblin spell caster cast doom and cause fear on Mace.  The goblin leader was slain by Geia and Cirdis while Kane and Castor slew the rest.  Mace cowered in a corner, weeping like a schoolgirl.  Trygvie hid in the stone mason's room while Wilbered slew the goblins caught in the web (a less than lawful act --- I shouldn't be surprised if Cuthbert didn't punish him for that!).

After all of the goblins were dead, the players searched a little further, finding a few small "barracks" type rooms furnished with goblin bedrolls and clothes.  A long diagonal hall contained four statues of rather anthropomorphic looking toad/frog creatures.  One door opened into a large "council chamber" type room with a stone lectern and two long stone benches of ancient manufacture.  In the wall was an ancient iron door carved with runes and leering frog faces.  The iron door was locked.  Cullen investigated the lock and determined that it was of ancient manufacture --- very high quality.  He doubted that he could open it.  They also inspected the stone lectern but didn't find anything special about it.

They left that room and crossed the hall.  Opening the door, they saw a small room furnished with some moth eaten animal skins and
trophy heads (human skulls, cloven shields, old weapons, battered helmets, etc.).  There were two beds, a moth eaten curtain diving the room in half and four cowering goblin females.  Mace, Cirdis, Tom, Dick and Harry entered the room.
 "Please no kill," shrieked one of the goblin females.  Cirdis drew his sword and slew her on the spot.  Mace objected, and Cirdis replied; "Goblins are evil, no?"  Tom, who had an arrow on the string of his bow, fired at another goblin wench, killing her and Cirdis cut down another.  Mace had enough; he drew his sword and attacked Cirdis.
 
"No," Geia shrieked, "My beloved Cirdis!"  She charged into the room and joined the fray.  Dick and Harry got caught in a web that Trygvie cast in the doorway.  Tom managed to wiggle free.  Wilbered attacked the two fighters caught in the web, entered the room by passing through the web using his ring of free action and was almost instantly reduced to 0 hitpoints by Geia who was ferociously defending her beloved.   After Cirdis and the other fighters had been slain and Geia was knocked unconscious by Mace, Wilbered was revived by Castor Bean and the single remaining Goblin and the unconscious Geia were bound with rope and gagged.