I awakened on the second day of my journey in the common room of The Forge, Councilman Baine’s tavern, which the town was offering as a base of operations to any parties interested in searching the caverns. A little worse for wear after last nights celebration, I nevertheless mentally prepared myself for the day. Our group began the day by attending the funerals of the deceased that we had brought back up. The young man had appeared to be the son of a local craftsman, who afterwards offered to improve our weapons as appreciation for returning his son to him. Sadly, we appeared to be the only ones there to bear witness to the half-orc woman’s burial. After the funerals, we prepared ourselves to delve into the caverns once again.

When we reached the room where we had found the woman before, there was yet another dead body, this one had not been there on our previous travail, nor the monster that had appeared to be dining on his corpse. We dispatched the monster with little trouble and examined the body. There we found a couple of vials that appeared to be potions of some unknown make and, more curiously, a symbol of his religion that none of us recognized. We pressed onward but were soon accosted by a strange group of subterranean peoples that I had never seen before. They had blended in with their surroundings so well that none of us had even an inkling that they were there until they had had their weapons pressed up against us. Luckily for us, they were not in a more hostile mood or our adventure might have ended right then and there. They took Naethan to meet their leader and he explained to the rest of us that they were in need of our help against a group of gremlins that had been harassing them. Since we had not the strength to fight them and did not wish to abandon our quest, we agreed to help them. We made our way thru the caves in the direction they had pointed us in with Naethan in the lead. Unfortunately, the gremlins had been prepared for intrusions into their domain and we were caught unawares yet again. My attempt to hypnotize the creatures failed and we were forced to fight them but our weapons proved to have little effect against their toughened hides. Still, the failure of both sides to harm the other had caused them enough grief to eventually call a retreat.

We returned to the underground village and told the chieftain that we had driven off the gremlins that they might search for easier prey. In gratitude for our efforts, he gave Naethan some form of metallic card and told us of those that had previously passed thru. While we had guessed that Councilman Baine’s expedition had come this way, I could tell that Naethan was pleased to get confirmation of it. The chieftain also told us of another group of explorers that had been here before the councilman’s, this one led by a purple haired woman with strange blue markings all across her skin. Naethan recognized those markings as belonging to a race indigenous to the region known as androids. We were then led to the door that was the focus of our expedition.

The doors were unlike anything I had witnessed before, completely smooth and made of the same “sky metal” that was only common to this region. Also, unlike normal doors, they slid into the walls instead of being hinged. They lay partially opened and beyond them could be seen a room entirely encased in this metal. After passing several such doors, we come across another one of the automatons, this one appearing to be inactive. We decided to pass it by without inspection, seeing as how our previous experience with such did not go well. The metal rooms ended after that and we once again found ourselves in caves, though this one appeared to have a sandy floor instead of a rocky one. The sand revealed the footprints of those that had come before us and Naethan eagerly led the way. My memories of what happened next are vague after that. I can only recall that we were once again attacked, this time by a creature that had been laying in wait in the sand and had flailed at us with tentacles. I had lost consciousness at that point and can only recall awakening again upon the beach that was the entrance to these caverns.

I learned afterwards that the creature had nearly subdued our entire group and it was only by sheer luck that Naethan had not succumbed. After dealing the finishing blow, Naethan was able to revive Thoamros, and the two of them were able to drag Mehdusa and myself back. And thus ended our second foray into these dangerous caverns.