The Temple and the Morgue

Mace Blackstar (Mike D.; Human Fighter)
Wilbered The Silent (NPC; Human Cleric)
Castor Bean (NPC.; Human Bard)
Trygvie (NPC; Elven Wizard)
Kane (Al G.; Human Monk)

A photo of the battlemat at the end of the session.

Over the course of the last two sessions, the players had defeated thirty slinks, three ogres, a human female cleric and captured an invisible spell caster.  The spell caster had been bound and gagged and had a set of manacles clamped around his wrists.  Wilbered took a blanket from one of the cots in the room and put it over the man's face so that he could not see.  Taking their captive with them, they proceeded back to the small secret room in which they had found some small treasures hidden under the skeletal remains of a long dead beast in an earlier session.  They heard rustling and scampering under the bones and trash, but found nothing after a short search.  After roughing up their prisoner a bit due to his insubordination (and, incidentally, trying to extract some information from him), they spell caster told them that a man named Dutch had laboratories downstairs in which he conducted the work of "summoning slinks from another world."  Wilbered demanded to know what had happened to the prisoners but the captive claimed to know nothing.  When the invisibility spell finally wore off, they saw that their captive was a young man with a brown beard dressed in a loose fitting scholar's robe.  They gagged him again and rested for eight hours.

After resting undisturbed in the secret hall for eight hours, they returned to the room where they had fought the slinks, the ogres and the clerics and went downstairs.  They left their prisoner bound and gagged in the secret room.  They went down the stairs, passing over piles of dead slinks, and found themselves in a hallway with three doors in the north, west and east walls.  This looked a lot like the map they had found during their raid on The Earthsblood Miner's Guild (which they had removed from the office of Grisson Oyle).  Looking at Grisson's map, they chose the west door since it was marked as leading to "the chapel"  and Wilbered wanted to have a look.  They opened the door and saw a large vaulted hall.  There were mosaics of angels on the wall much smudged with soot from many years of torches burning in the place.  There was also patterns of swirling green and blue circles on the floor in a path leading to a large set of corroded bronze doors in the south wall -- the enterance to "the chapel" according to their map.  There were smaller wooden doors on the north and east walls, each of which had a small sign beside it.

Mace tried to read the sign beside the north door and it obviously had some sort of magical effect upon him.  He stood in front of the sign, neither moving or talking, staring at it until Wilbered cast Bull's Strength on himself and forcefull dragged Mace away.  In a few moments, Mace blinked his eyes and returned to normal. 

They proceeded to the chapel doors, carefully avoiding the path of swirling circles on the floor.  The key that Wilbered had taken from the cleric's body fit the lock and the door opened easily.  Inside they saw large pillars and rows of stone benches.  The swirling circles on the floor continued in a path up the middle and side aisles.  Mace walked forward and avoided the path.  When he passed between the front two pews a burst of flame erupted in the air around him, burning him.   He leapt back and the flames were extinguished.  Kane recalled that upstairs, in the captain's room, they had found some written notes, one of which said, "Heard that the Boss's last apprentice didn't walk the true path in the chapel."    Wilbered proceeded forward, walking on the path of circles and the same thing happened to him.  He leapt back and the flames were extinguished.  They decided to return later, after they had figured out how to bypass the magical wards.

They left the chapel and went back to the hall at the base of the stairs.  The door was locked so they decided to bash it down.  Mace and a magically enhanced Wilbered threw their shoulders time and again against the door and finally the lock broke and it flew open.  They were in a 60x60 square room.  The air was cold and there were 20 cot sized blocks of stone that seemed to radiate cold.  Twelve of the blocks held up what looked like corpses covered by sheets.  A table at the side of the room held various implements.  Wilbered pulled back one of the sheets and felt a biting chill on his fingers as he did so.  Under the sheet was a dead human man, very cold.  An obvious stab wound in his chest had been repaired by crude stitching.  Kane investigated the wooden table and found various tools (knives, scissors, thick thread and needles, etc) as well as a pile of 12 amulets.  The amulets did not look particularly valuable, but they recalled that when they had originally been following Grisson Oyle back in Bramwald, Grisson had placed an order for amulets at the local jewelers.  Thinking they might prove valuable or at least help solve the mystery of the slinks, he took them.  Wilbered went to the next stone table and pulled the sheet back and found a dead human woman; her throat had been cut and crudely stitched up.  Since his hands were getting quite numb with cold and he feared frostbite, he asked Trygvie to pull off the sheets using his staff.  Most of the bodies were of humans and most of them appeared to have died as a result of violence.  In all cases the wounds had been crudely stitched up post mortem.  Two of the bodies had been recently disturbed; the sheets had partially been pulled off and the bodies appeared to have been gnawed by some sort of creature.

As he walked around the room, Trygvie noted a secret door in the west wall --- it was right next to the place where the two bodies that had been partially eated had been found.  Castor listened carefully at the door and heard scratching and snarling on the other side.  They got into ranks and Kane opened the door.  They were looking down a short rough tunnel and two  ordinary looking slinks were coming down the short tunnel towards them.   Since slinks were normally peaceable and fairly inept at combat, the party didn't worry too much but the two slinks hurled themselves upon Mace with a fury that surprised everyone and attacked him with sharp nails and teeth.  After they wounded Mace, the rest of the party surrounded the slinks and cut them down.
 
Here is a photo of the battlemat at the end of the session.

The session ended here.

character/player:	class / level:	XP total at start:	XP award:		XP needed for next level:	XP at End:
Mace (Mike D.)	human FTR 8th	33,836	136		36,000	33,972
Wilbered (NPC)	human CL 8th	28,136	272		36,000	28,408
Castor (NPC)	human Bard 7th	22,920	136		28,000	23,056
Trygvie (NPC)	Elven MU 7th	24,269	136		28,000	24,405
Kane (Al G.)	Human Monk 8th	30,806	272		36,000	31,078