36. February 18, 2012

The party closely examines the room they find themselves in. There is a mound of dirt in the center of the room, and the entrance to the tunnel goes up through the ceiling and is located about 40 feet above the bottom of the room. Shelby heals the minotaur while the rest of the party lies in wait for the Will-o-Wisp that is attracted by the use of the artifact. Darwyn is injured, but Shelby is able to shout the creature down to the ground where the minotaur is able to attack it. Kayla shoots and kills it. Meanwhile, Darwyn has noticed that the Will-o-Wisp entered the tunnel from a side passage not far above the ceiling. The group prepares themselves for the entry of additional Will-o-Wisps, but Darwyn is able to heal everyone fully without attracting any additional monsters.

Kayla is able to afix the grappling hook to the tunnel in the roof, and then Shelby clambers up to stabilize the hook and prepare for the rest of the party to follow. As it turns out, the hook is already very stable. Shelby is able to see daylight from the side tunnel and cobwebs capping off the rest of the tunnel. She shimmies back down the rope as quietly as she can and tells the rest of the group what she found. Darwyn points out that it is still nighttime outside the complex.

Kayla decides to clear the debris in the middle of the room. Under it is a diorama that shows the topography of what she believes is the land of the dead. There is one section where what looks like tieflings are forcing dark-skinned humans to push a giant stone up a hill. There is a desert area, an area where people were sacrificed to a lava stream, a putrid swamp that leads into a steaming chasm, and other areas. There are 6 or 7 areas, and all but one are horrible. The last is a pleasant grassland. Kayla decides to take some of the figures and a portion of the grassland area as components for a ritual that could help to lay the hybrid children to rest.

Kayla coats her arrows with Will-O-Wisp goo and shoots into the ceiling catching the webbing on fire. Some of the webbing burned away, and a huge spider soon came out of the tunnel. Shelby uses her voice to vibrate the web and while the spider is off balance Kayla shoots it in a leg and causes the spider to bobble further down the tunnel towards the party.

The spider webs the minotaur to the wall, and Shelby rushes over to use his torch to remove him from the webbing. Darwyn tries to lasso the spider with the rope coming down from the grappling hook, but instead manages to bring the grappling hook down. Kayla shoots an arrow into one of the spider's eyes, illiciting a high-pitched whine from the creature. The spider leaps off the ceiling and onto Shelby, hurting her and injecting her with poison. Darwyn attempts to wrestle the spider, but instead bounces off of it and onto her butt. The minotaur tries to punch the spider but instead hits the arrow remaining in its eye. Kayla shoots again and hits it in the joint between its head and body. Shelby tries to pull out her sword but is unsuccessful.

The spider bites the minotaur, wounding it and injecting it with poison. Shelby scrambles out from under it, pulls her sword the rest of the way out, and stabs it in the brain through the bottom of its skull. The minotaur follows through by smashing it in the head, killing the spider. Darwyn successfully heals Shelby and the minotaur from the poison. Meanwhile, Kayla removes the web sac from the spider's corpse.

Shelby climbs up into the spider's lair and finds that it is filled with spider webs and possibly egg sacs, and there are also the dessicated corpses of moles that may have been the creatures that burrowed into the complex. She notes that there is a metal cap on the end of the tunnel and thinks that the light is not actually daylight, but more like the light given off by Will-o-Wisps. The rest of the party joins her.

Shelby is able to move aside the metal plate and finds a room with two fountains. One fountain contains the gauzy remains of a crayfish, and there is a pewter basin which is the metal covering that Shelby moved aside. The rest of the party enters the room. They move on to the next room, which contains the withered preserved form of a centaur with treasure laid at its feet. When Kayla opens the door behind it, the centaur comes to life and attacks her. The party defeats the centaur, then covers the opening to the previous room with the basin before healing. Darwyn discovers that she and Kayla both have contracted leprosy from the centaur. Darwyn is able to heal the leprosy and she also blesses the remainder of the spear that the centaur had been holding.

The door opens to reveal a jade wall. Kayla touches this and the wall falls forward onto the ground. This reveals yet another room that leads to a corridor and a chamber with a corrugated floor. The minotaur says that the vampire maker is nearby. Kayla has the minotaur lift her up, and she opens a valve at the top of the room. This allows a hurricane force wind to enter the room. This wind knocks Kayla and the minotaur down and buffets them around the room. Shelby and Darwyn, waiting in the adjacent corridors on opposite ends of the room, assist Kayla and the minotaur to exit the room.

Shelby and the minotaur are on the West side of the complex, while Darwyn and Kayla are on the East side. They break a hole through an adjoining wall to meet up. They enter a new room that contains a curtain of beads and shells. Behind it is a statue of a man with a headdress. The face of this statue changes to match Shelby's when she approaches.

The wind enters the room and the ruddy faced boy appears, insisting that the group should leave the book and take the scepter from the statue. The minotaur is convinced that either the ruddy faced boy or the statue is the vampire maker. The ruddy faced boy offers to take the ax from Darwyn's hand and bear her curse for her. Darwyn does not give over the ax, but tries to cast magic. She ends up collapsing on the floor, while the ruddy faced boy hides a smirk.