I awoke on the fourth day and our group decided to examine the top of the hill itself. Along the way, I recalled a rumor that I had heard on my first day in town about a pair of dwarves that had gone up to the top of torch and, on a dare, decided to drink from the pool of liquid that had formed since the fire had gone out. The first fellow had seemed to fare well, claiming that his strength had increased; unfortunately, his companion had seemed to have had an adverse reaction to the liquid. The rumor went on to say that the liquid burned a hole through his gut and had required immediate clerical healing.

It was at that point as I was telling the story that I noticed the three dwarves that were also at the pool with us. It seems that two of them had been trying to convince the third to take a sip of the liquid when they overheard me mention the burning hole. Needless to say, the fellow had vehemently refused to try the liquid after hearing about that. Our group then went about our examination of the liquid and found it to be of an oily substance but it refused to alight when fire was brought to bear upon it. Naethan had managed to convince me to swallow a sample of the substance by claiming that we, as men of science, would never be happy with mere rumors. And so, with the claim of, “For science!” I imbibed the liquid.

When I next regained consciousness, I had a massive headache and learned that we had lost an entire day due to this foolish endeavor. My headache eventually faded and I then vowed never to experiment upon myself ever again.

Since the group was now sufficiently well rested from our previous misadventure, we decided to get on with the exploration of the caverns. We once again found ourselves in the metallic hallways underground. This time, however, we decided to examine the mechanical being that we had ignored on our previous foray. This one was different from the one we had previously encountered in that it had a metallic cylinder of some sort mounted upon its shoulder. Upon a closer examination, the being awoke and proved to be immediately hostile to us. I quickly found myself pinned down when the automaton fired a net from the mysterious cylinder. Naethan also ended up subdued before our remaining group was able to dispatch the automaton. Once downed, I turned my eye towards the netting it had fired at us while Naethan examined the cylinder itself. The net turned out to be made of metallic fibers, which explained why it had been so difficult to sever when I had tried to free myself of it. Meanwhile, Naethan was able to remove the cylinder from the automaton and he tucked it away for later perusal, perhaps with the intent of using the weapon himself later.

We pushed on and found a few more interesting trinkets in the rubble that we had ignored previously. Thus we soon came upon the remains of the tentacled monster that had waylaid us before. The cavern opened up beyond it and I fear that we would have been at a loss as to which direction to go in if not for the tracks in the sand from the Councilman’s expedition. We did not make it far before a skeleton arose from the sand and proceeded to attack us. Its appearance was that of a four-armed humanoid whose skeletal structure was unfamiliar to me. It was also wielding a pair of short swords. The fighting soon attracted more of its kind but, soon enough, my compatriots and I were able to reduce them to mere piles of bones. We found it curious that the skeletons had not impeded the previous adventuring parties but were more compelled to press on.