The hobbit stuck his head out the window to see who or what was waiting for them on the battlements.  One of the four fishmen that was waiting out there fired a crossbow bolt at him and missed; Whisper ducked back inside.  Since the hall they had come in was full of webs and hostile fishmen, the party decided to pick the lock of the door that they presumed led to the battlement outside and fight their way out, hopefully making is to the stairway in the tower that they came up. Since the fishmen were apparently burning the webs in the hallway, Trygvie used another charge from his wand to web the whole hallway and the far end of the room, intending to further slow them down.

Whisper used his lock picks to unlock the door and mace opened it, only to find himself facing four fishmen with tridents.  A sleep spell from Trygvie put one of the hostile fishmen to sleep.  Mace chewed his way through the ranks of fishmen with his sword, Darkcleaver.  His comrades followed, Castor slaying the magically slept fishman with a thrust of his sword.  Human guards on the other end of the castle began shooting crossbow bolts at the party; Trygvie used his wand to create a web blocking the parapet between the guards and the party.

They ran down to the tower which contained the stairs which they had come up.  Several parties of fishmen guards could be seen emerging from the towers and doors  all around them and converging on their location.  The brave adventurers ran to the tower where they had found the stairs up, entered, and slammed the door behind them.  Kane looked down the stairs to the floor below and saw more fishmen coming up... so the players climbed the ladder into the open air of the tower.  Mace slammed the trap door shut and stood upon it.  From the top of the tower they could see the entire village of Marshville, the swamps surrounding the village and most of the castle.  The battlements protected them from crossbow bolts, but Mace could hear them (and feel them) thumping upon the underside of the trapdoor.  It was obvious that before too long the party would have to fight again -- despite the fact that they were outnumbered, out of spells and half of the party was badly in need of healing.

The heroes had found a magical transportation device in the goblin caves earlier in their travels.  This consisted of a long fine copper chain that formed a circle, a small wax candle and a scroll that instructed the user to lay the chain in a circle on the ground, place the candle within the circle, stand inside the circle and light the candle.  What was especially troubling was the fact that the instructions did not say where the teleportation device would take them!  After brief discussion, the heroes removed the magical chain from the cleric's backpack, set it up and lit the candle.

The walls and Marshville began to fade as the candle burned brighter and the chain began to appear to dissolve.  It grew darker.  The heroes found themselves standing in a circle of rapidly dissolving chain, a burning candle at their feet, within a huge cold temple like structure of black stone.  Rows of huge pillars, ten feet in diameter, held up the ancient ceiling.  A huge round pit, twenty feet in diameter, could be seen just north of their position and they could detect the sound of running water from deep within the pit.  Two stone braziers, burning brightly, stood to either side of the pit and a broken altar of the same black stone could be seen on the opposite end of the pit.  A large eye within a triangle decorated with flame was carved in the wall above the broken altar; the carving appeared to have been partially obliterated and smashed.  There was a single bronze door, streaked with verdigris, in the east and west walls.  The west door was slightly ajar.  The south part of the vast room was shrouded in darkness.

The flaming eye symbol resembled that which had been carved upon silver rings and a medallion that they had found, along with the transportation device that brought them here, in the caves of the goblin lord.

The players began to step out of the magic circle in order to investigate their new environment.  Once Mace stepped out of the center of the circle, three surprised looking fishmen suddenly popped out of the floor.  Apparently the magic circle was still active; as soon as mace had stepped out of the center of the circle, the fishmen had been able to open the trap door and had been transported by the lingering magic.

A brief melee followed.  Thinking fast, Trygvie used a magic missile to knock over the magic candle and apparently this shut off the device; the chain abruptly disappeared and no more fishmen emerged out of thin air.  Within a few rounds the fishmen lay dead.

The party was very nervous about their current wounded state.  They began to hear a slithering and slopping sound from the darkness in the south part of the room.  A blob of brownish black goo slithered into view.  Since it moved fairly slowly, they were easily able to run through the open bronze door and close it behind them.  The door seemed to fit tightly; a fact that comforted them.   Castor the bard mulled over what little he knew in folklore about such creatures and recalled that over a hundred years ago, an invading army from a place to the north known simply as "Coot" had captured Blackmoor castle and subjugated the surrounding countryside.  The Cootians had later lost Blackmoor again; but folklore said that the Cootians worshipped a formless god and strange creatures that appeared as puddles of slime were held in esteem by them.  Castor's story spurred Wilbered's memory; the cleric recalled that a flaming eye was also a symbol of an ancient enemy of the people of Blackmoor.

They found themselves in a small 20x30 chamber.  A pile of dissolved looking bones and a half ruined sack were in the middle of the room; a flight of stairs led down.  Most of whatever had been in the pouch was ruined; the group found a pair of alchemist fire flasks and a brass scroll tube with a tight fitting brass plug.  The tube contained a scroll of the burning hands spell and  a crude map of the building they were in with a map of the lands that surrounded the temple on the reverse side.  The players were excited by this because they could see a means of escape --- apparently a large cave beneath the temple led to an underground tunnel of some sort and that led to an underground burial cave... and from there to the outside.

Eagerly, they proceeded down the stairs and found themselves in a small room similar to the one they had just left.  This room exited into a huge room similar to the temple room above.  The pit continued -- but on this level there was a set of stairs leading down.   When the players began to explore the room,  first one and then a second blob of slime attacked.  Castor and Mace shot arrows and bolts at the creature without apparent effect.  The players were able to easily evade the slimes due to the fact that the strange creatures moved so slowly and they were able to run around the room, pelting the creatures with flaming oil.  Trygvie got close enough to one of the creature in order to use the burning hands spell on his scroll.  The brightly burning slime turned on him and both Kane the Monk and Trygvie were knocked unconscious and severely wounded when the slime managed to catch them.  One slime creature was finished off with oil and fire while the other was destroyed by Mace wielding Darkcleaver. 

The party returned to the staircase room and rested up, regaining spells and healing their wounded.  Thanks to the use of the cleric's healing skills and the use of the last of their healing potions, Kane and Trygvie were saved.

After rest and healing, the party headed south, between the large pillars in the cellar room.  A short flight of stairs  led down to a pair of locked brass doors.  There was also a crude repair job in one of the corners; a hole in the wall had been patched with rubble and mortared shut.  Whisper listened at the door and began to work on the lock.  It was a sophisticated lock and his first attempt failed.  Kane and the cleric went over to the plastered up hole in the corner and began scraping at the mortar between the rocks of the patch in the corner.

Whisper finally managed to open the lock right around the same time that Kane and the cleric cleared a hole large enough to crawl through.  They say a narrow, rough tunnel that sloped gently upward.  It was fairly tight -- two to three feet at the widest - so they gave the halfling a torch, tied a rope around his waist for safety and sent him in the lead.  

The tunnel snaked gently upward, curving first right, then left.  It ended in a fairly large cavern like chamber.  Whisper crawled up to the entrance to the room and peeked in.  He saw that the chamber had another exit and the roof was obscured by webs.  Three human sized figures were suspended in the webbing.  Huddled in the entrance, Whisper described what he saw to his larger comrades who were on hands and knees in the tunnel.  Suddenly the halfling shrieked and was yanked upwards, out of sight.  Apparently his comrades had failed to keep a tight grip on the rope.  The heroes crawled as rapidly as they could into the chamber.

An enormous spider could be seen on the roof, a weakly struggling Whisper in his grasp.  His horrified comrades saw the spider bite the halfling once again and then stuff him into the webs beside him; probably planning to eat him later.  They fired arrows and crossbow bolts and the creature leaped from it's perch and landed on Mace, knocking him to the floor.  The spider's bite failed to penetrate Mace's plate mail armor and the rest of the party began to hack at the creature.  Trygvie ran to the larger entrance to the room in order to ensure that they did not get attacked from behind.  The next chamber was dark so he cast a light spell on the end of his quarter staff and saw a finished and partially collapsed stone walled chamber with a set of stairs partially blocked by fallen rubble and rotted timbers.  Mace finally managed to pull his long sword out, and, from underneath the spider, slashed into the spider's belly, severely wounding the beast.  The monster ran from the room, knocking over Trygvie who was standing it it's path.  Trygvie saw the beast running through the next chamber and up the old set of stairs in the corner and out hole in the ceiling.

The party was taking a moment to gather their wits and their breath when they heard scuttling and scrabbling from the narrow tunnel through which they had entered the cave.  Mace used his magic sword to illuminate the tunnel and saw several feral looking humans, with long bloody nails and dead looking skin, crawling up the tunnel towards him.  "Ghouls," shouted Castor the Bard.  Since things seemed to be going from bad to worse, Trygvie used his want to fill the tunnels with webbing.  Castor speculated that the ghouls might have come through the locked doors that Whisper had unlocked but the party had not bothered to open.

Whisper and he three humans hanging in the webbing were all quite dead.  After a long struggle, they managed to get all four corpses down.  One human wore a robe and had a dagger, a wand and a coil of rope.  The second human wore a coat of chain mail and had a masterwork great axe and a backpack containing four torches and some food.  Despite the fact that the food had been found in a dead man's backpack, Wilbered took the food and packed it in his own backpack, intending to eat it later.  The third human was dressed in studded leather and had two daggers and a short sword.  A large, valuable looking gemstone was in his pouch.

The adventure ended here for the night.
Experience:
Castor Bean (Steve B.) went from 4995 to 6815 (+1820; level 4!)
Trygvie (NPC) went from 7159 to 8069 (+910)
Mace (NPC, normally Mike D.) went from 9526 to 10,436 (+910; level 5!)
Wilbered (Bob S.) went from 7610 to 9430 (+1820)
Kane (Al G.) went from 7610 to 9430 (+1820)