The players began to search the temple.  They overturned the table in the back room so it covered the trap door in the floor.  The halfling and the elf checked inside the blue robes and vestments that were hanging in the back room while the Bard checked out the altar and the monk searched the front of the temple.  The monk looked out the small window at the front of the temple and saw an old woman wrapped in a cloak and robe coming up the path to the temple.  He alerted the others and the elf, monk, cleric, thief and fighter went into the back room and pulled the curtains in the archway closed while the bard ducked down behind the altar.

The players heard the door open and the woman entered the temple.  They heard her walk up to the altar, set someting down on the altar and then she began singing some sort of hymn in a low voice. The bard peeped up over the edge of the altar and saw that she had set a bowl of water upon the altar.  From his hiding place, the bard recognized the hymn as a prayer to Neptune.  They recognized the woman as Essie, the old woman who lived down by the docks in Marshville and who had warned them of the danger in the town previously.  Reassured, the players revealed themselves --- Wilbered stepping out into the main temple area and greeting her respectfully.

Essie seemed quite surprised to see them there and loudly declared, "I thought for certain you were dead!"  She praised them for having killed a fishman named Gurglflek, who was apparently one of the more feared of the bunch.  The players asked her for further details of the curse and Essie told them that the Marshvillers looked like normal (if somewhat unnatractive) humans when born but as they aged their bodies underwent surprising changes -- eventually becoming fishmen.  This was the reason why there were no old humans in town other than herself, Booral the merchant (who ran the trading post) and old Adok Guffle -- the town drunk.  Essie repeated that she did not trust the trader, Booral.  Essie stated that she remained in town to care for the temple of Neptune -- she was a priestess of the  benevolent sea god Neptune.  Many years ago, Essie told them, the fishing had been bad and the few crops the Marshvillers raised seemed to fail.  The people grew desperate.  The Baron DeMornay returned from one of his many sea travels with an apparent solution to their troubles -- all that was required was that the townspeople switch allegience from Neptune to a different sea god named "Dagon."  In addition, they had to intermarry and breed with some of Dagon's worshippers that the Baron had brought back with him on his ships. The desperate people, faced with starvation, agreed.

The people born of these marriages looked normal enough at birth, but as they aged, they grew less and less attractive as they transformed into the fish men.  When the transformation was complete, they became nocturnal creatures that lived beneath the waves.  Dagon was, in Essie's opinion, an evil and destructive god.  When the players asked her why she remained, she replied that she stayed behind to keep an eye on the temple and on the Marshvillers themselves -- and when innocent travellers arrived in town she attempted to help them and prevent them from running afoul of the fishmen.

She offered the party some healing spells and stated that if they remained in the village they would be caught and killed for certain.  "You can't stay in the temple," she repeated, "the Marshvillers will search here sooner or later.  They are out looking for you now."

Essie urged them strongly to leave the town.  The party stated that they didn't feel their work in town was done -- they had given the fishmen better than they had gotten in every encounter and didn't want to stop now -- they just wanted to rest up, regain some spells and heal their wounds.  She  offered to give them potions that would allow them to breathe under the water.  She said she would gow down to the rive and call her friend the nixie -- the players could sneak down to the river, drink the potion, and walk underwater -- along the bottom of the riverbed -- until they reached the ocean.  Since the fishmen were nocturnal, they would all be asleep in their fishy beds and since the party were known to be surface dwellers, the air breathing townspeople would never think to look for them in the river.  The party could walk up the coast under the water, and, when the potions wore off, they could surface and climb back on land out of sight of the town.  Essie then stated that she had to go -- if she spent too long at her morning prayers, the townies might become suspicious -- they always kept an eye on her since she didn't worship the new god.  She gave them 2 silver flasks and promised them that each flask contained sufficient potion to allow six people to breathe underwater for a number of hours -- unfortunately, once the potion took effect one could not breathe air until the potion wore off.  Also -- one should be care because once the potion wore off, the user would suddenly no longer be able to breathe water --- so one wanted to be near the shore or surface when it wore off.  To make the situation even more maddening, Essie was unable to say exactly how long the potion might last --- "a couple hours -- given the variations in body weight, halflings, versus elves, etc..."

Essie left, stating that she would summon her friend the nixie who would wait for them at the river and she would then go home.  She urged them again to leave town.  After she left, the characters debated what to do.  The Monk argued that Essie seemed truthful enough and voted to do as she reccomended.  Mace looked doubtfully at his armor and weapons and said that he preferred to take his chances on dry land.  Wilbered seconded Mace, stating that he preferred finding a place where they could hole up somewhere in town and then either trying to rescue the town or destroy the fishmen.  Castor the Bard recalled that there was a silver chalice and two candlesticks in the basement temple that looked to be worth some money.  Kane agreed that if the party left it would be very difficult or impossible for them to return in order to destroy the power base of the fishmen --- probably the best hing would be to remain hidden in town, refresh their spells and heal their wounds and resume the guerilla action.  Thus the party decided to return to the tunnels beneath the temple of Neptune.

The party returned to the trapdoor into the basement and went through to the secret door.  Lighting their way with Mace's magic sword, Darkcleaver, they went down the narrow stone steps into the hidden Temple of Dagon.  Castor walked up to the altar and picked up the chalice -- almost immeadiately two giant crabs burst forth from underneath the sand and ran at him, tearing him up with their gigantic pinchers.  As the rest of the party attacked the crabs, Castor staggered across the room and collapsed in a bloody heap.  Wilbered the cleric began ministering to the wounded bard as the rest of the group fought the crabs.  The crab claws bit through even Mace's full plate with ease and their thick shells turned most of the player's blows.  After a tough fight, the humans prevailed over the crustaceans -- but it took most of their healing to cure the wounded afterwards.    

Whisper removed the chalice and the candlesticks from the altar, half expecting more crabs to emerge but apparently there were only two --- no other creatures appeared to defend the altar.

The group proceeded down the hall to the northeast -- which went on over two hundred feet under the ground.  Castor heard footsteps in the hall ahead and he alerted the party -- Mace sheathed his sword to douse the light, leaving the group in complete darkness in order to hide from the unseen enemy.  Something whizzed past the monk's ear and the halfling shrieked in pain.  "Arrows!" cried Wilbered.  Mace whipped out his magic sword and, by the light of the magic blade, they saw crossbow bolts winging down the hall, one of which had hit the poor hobbit.

There was the slap of feet on stone as four fishmen ran into the radius of illumination.  Trygvie cast his Scare spell and two of the fishmen turned and ran back the way they had come.  The party quickly cut down the other two; a cursory search revealed that the fishmen carried only daggers and crossbows.  The cleric and the halfling helped themselves to crossbows and bolts and the party continued down the tunnel to the northeast, following the fleeing fishmen.

The players heard the sound of the waves and smelled the saltwater.  A ten foot flight of stairs led down to a sandy cave with a large saltwater pool and two smaller exits.  The players could see light from a tunnel in the pool that seemed to connect to the ocean outside -- they could see faint daylight in the tunnel.  Sharp eyed Trygvie saw two fishmen hiding at the far end of the room and used his web wand to web them before they could make a move.  Two more fishmen who had been hiding in the pool emerged and fired their crossbows at the party.  The players heart sank as yet another crab erupted from under the sand and attacked them as they stood in the doorway.  The fishmen from the water tumbled over the giant crab and into the player's midst, flanking Mace and the halfling both.  The players had superior numbers andeventually managed to defeat first the fishmen and then their heavily armored pet, the crab... but Mace got reduced to zero hitpoints in the fight and it took most of the healing spells left to restore him to the point that he was even conscious.

Afterwards, Mace attempted to use a magic trident he had looted from the fishman Priest of Dagon earlier to kill the fishmen in the web while the rest of the party set fire to the web with comical results as Mace blundered and got his trident stuck in the burning webs.  Wilbered plugged away at the fishmen with his crossbow as the fishmen attempted to slither through the sticky strands and escape.  After two less-than-clean kills, the players were alone in the cavern.

The cavern had four exits -- the tunnel to the southeast, through which the party had entered, a narrow tunnel with stairs that lead up to the east, another tunnel with stairs that led up to the north and the tunnel in the pool that seemed to lead outside to daylight.  The tunnel to the east led up to a small cave that contained two large stone chests.  The hobbit thief checked both for traps, failed to find any, and began to work on the locks with his lockpicking tools.  One of the chests had a poison needle trap that he halfling had failed to find -- it punctured his hand an injected a deadly poison.  The  hobbit  failed his save and lost six points of CON.  The bard gave him an antitoxin to drink and the hobbit managed to avoid losing more Con to the poison's secondary damage. 

The first chest contained 30 small pearls, a shortsword in an elaborate leather sheath and 3 silver flasks engraved with fishes.  The second chest contained 2 rings, 2 silvered tridents, 2000 gps and 6 larger pearls.  The bard "detected magic" on the lot and discovered that the sword, the rings and the potion flask contents were magical, the coins, the pearls and the tridents were not.  They packed up everything except the tridents, shoved the bodies of the fishmen into the chests and debated whether to push the crab carcass into the water or bury it.  After Wilbered worried about what the blood of the crab carcass would attract, the party just left it and set off to explore the north exit.

A steep flight of stairs led up ten feet to a finished circular stone room.  A narrow spiral staircase led upwards about fifteen feet and simply stopped at the ceiling.  The party climbed the stairs and found a secret trap door in the ceiling.  After they had determined how to open the secret trap door, Mace cautiously peered through, using his magic blade for illumination.  He say a circular chamber almost identical to the one that they were in with a similar spiral staircase and an unusually shaped alcove on the southeast side of the room.  The party entered the room and, after searching, Trygvie found a secret door in the unusually shaped alcove.  The players speculated that this might be a good place to spend the night.  

The adventure ended here for the night.

Experience:
Castor Bean (Steve B.) went from 2295 to 3395 (+1100; level 3!)
Trygvie (npc) went from 5009 to 5559 (+550)
Whisper (npc) went from 2076 to 2626 (+550)
Mace (Mike D.) went from 7526 to 8626 (+1100)
Wilbered (Bob S.) went from 4910 to 6010 (+1100; Level 4!)
Kane (Al G.) went from 4910 to 6010 (+1100; level 4!)