DM’s note:  After a four month hiatus, we finally got the game started up again.  Some new faces have joined us at the game table.  A big welcome to Bob and Al G., who joined us for the first "new" session on the 2nd.  We started the session by reviewing our character sheets and familiarizing ourselves with Marshville and the current situation. 

Having attempted to visit the Baron of Marshville and been refused entry, the players decided to head back to the inn.  They returned to their room and spent some time looking at the robes and crowns they had found hidden in the attic of the inn earlier.  Since they were uncertain of the significance of these items, they decided to see what would happen if one of their number put on the robe and crown and showed himself to the locals.  Being a natural performer, Castor the Bard was elected for the job.  Mace, Trygvie and Whisper entered the bar room and took up positions around the room.  Castor came down the stairs dressed in his finery followed by Kane and Wilbered stood at the top of the stairs to guard their backs.

An audible gasp and muttered curses came out of the locals as the bard entered the room dressed in the pointy silver and gold crown and robe.  The bartender, Gunko Divlop, shouted, "take that off!" and the chairs were heard scraping the floor as the angry people began to get up and approach the bard.  Mace stepped between the bartender and the bard and told the bartender to calm down while one of the townsmen grabbed the bard and got him in a bearhug.  The bartender reached under the counter and came up with a club and began shouting, "Hestal!  Hestal!"

Meanwhile, Trygvie unleashed a sleep spell on the majority of the townies in the bar and about half of them fell back into their chairs, snoring. One of the locals pulled a knife and stabbed the halfling rogue.  Upstairs, the inkeeper's daughter attempted to force her way past Wilbered the cleric and join the growing fray downstairs.  Wilbered grabbed ahold of her and prevented her from getting past.  

The bartender's wife ran out of the kitchen with a kitchen knife and stabbed at the monk while Mace began to beat the bartender on the head with the flat of his sword.  A door to the back room opened and a bizarre looking creature, like a half man half fish, emerged and with claws and teeth ran at the monk, who stood closely.

The villagers all fought fiercely.  Kane the monk went down under the claws and teeth of the fishman and a villager and the inkeeper's wife were tken down with magic missiles by the elf as they tried to alert the rest of the village.  The innkeeper's daughter broke free from the cleric,  stabbed the bard with a knife and was killed, in turn, by the cleric.  When the inkeeper was rendered unconscious, the fight was over.  The strange fish man ran out of the room and the cleric revived the monk with healing spells and potions.  The villagers who had been put to sleep by Trygvie's spell and the unconscious bartender were bound up with rope while the bard locked the front door.  A quick search of the area found a cashbox with a few silver and gold coins, some scattered copper and silver as well as six small blue bottles filled with a mysterious liquid.

They revived the bartender and he resisted their attempts to interrogate him, attempting to shout for help.  They stifled his cries and Mace intimidated him into cooperating.  Gunko, the inkeeper, revealed that the crown and robe were garments worn in religious ceremonies and that they were sacred -- they had been required to attack the unbeliever when he profaned the garments by wearing them.  Gunko could not tell them the name of his god but did not explain why he could not do so.  The fishman, Gunko explained, was his brother, Hestal.  There were no elderly people in town because when they reached a certain age they underwent a change and became more fishlike.

The players explored the room that the fishman had run into to escape.  They found a door leading to the cellar and a door leading to the outside as well as food supplies and a large wooden bathtub full of water.  They didn't think it likely that the fishman had escaped out the back door since they hadn't seen fishmen showing themselves in public in town.   The rogue made a half hearted attempt to check the door for traps while the cleric and mace bound the protesting inkeeper to a chair, intending to use the chair to hold him in front of them as they proceeded down the stairs.  Castor reported that he heard some sort of noise from downstairs, intensifying their suspicion that the fishman was waiting for them.

The party proceeded down the stairs, the inkeeper bound to a chair in front of them.  Suddenly, there were multiple little "twang" sounds  and four crossbow bolts flew out of the darkness.  The inkeeper was killed instantly (friendly fire?) and Mace was wounded seriously.  Hestal the fishman and three other fishmen leapt out from behind piles of boxes with tridents and attacked.  Although the party took serious injuries, they eventually prevailed and the fishmen were cut down.

A search of the room found lots of common inn supplies (blankets, firewood, candles, food, ale, etc.), as well as six large tubs of water.  There were wet footprints on the floor, leading the players to believe that the three fishman who had joined in the fight with Hestal, the inkeeper's fishman brother, had emerged from those tubs.  Trygvie found a secret door in the corner.

The party debated the merit of hiding in the inn to regain spells and hitpoints but thought that if the rest of the village discovered the secret of the fishman was known, they might attack in greater numbers.  They decided to see if they couldn't use the secret door to escape.

The secet door led to a dank 5 foot wide hallway of stone that ran south about eighty feet and then turned east and went down a slimy set of stairs.  The hallway was damper and water dripped from overhead once they went down the stairs.  After about another one hundred feet, a set of stairs went up and ended in a wooden door.  The lock of the door was crude and old; the thief opened it easily.  The door opened onto a 10 foot wide hallway with a door to the east and a short passage to the south.  An eerie greenish light was coming from the south passage.

The party went south and saw that the hallway opened into a large, pillared hall with a floor of soft sand.  The walls and ceiling seemed to emit the greenish light.  A stone altar stood at one end with a large silver chalice encrusted with pearls and two candlesticks with unlit candles.  Behind the altar was a small stepped platform with the statue of a disturbing fishlike humanoid with a tentacled head like a huge octopus.

The party gave the altar and statue a wide berth.  A five foot wide passage in the west wall led to steps up.  Mace and the halfling followed a ten foot wide passage of rough stone at the far end of the temple over 100 feet and then came back to rejoin the rest of the group.

After short debate, the party elected to try the door.  The halfling pressed his ear against it and reported hearing someone speaking in an unknown language...

The adventure ended here for the night....