Day 6-10

After finally being able to enjoy some uninterrupted rest we continued our exploration of the ancient tunnels we had stumbled onto beneath Sharn. Having no idea which way would lead us out we decided to see what lay behind the doors Tam and Raznian had been examining earlier. The same ones that had lead to the strangler attack and a further disruption to my sleep schedule. Raznian, being the most trusting rogue I have ever met, assumed that the doors were neither trapped nor locked so he simply tried to push them open. This time his luck held out and the doors swung open without dire consequences revealing a magically dimmed room with ritualistic emblems carved into the floor. These symbols surrounded an apparatus that lowered a chain into some sort of shaft that was filled with an impenetrable darkness. As we slowly advanced into the room, more of the strange statues representing aberration creatures that we had seen earlier came into view. We also saw two other spots of impenetrable darkness against the far walls.

We had spread outwards from the entryway to this room when we heard a shuffling, rasping noise that emanated from another passage. I immediately went on guard considering that almost everyone we had met in the depths of Sharn had tried to kill us. A commanding voice called out from the passage and inquired as to our purpose in its chambers and we replied that we were simply trying to find a way out of the sewers. As we conversed a procession of Sharn nobles emerged from the passage led by another noble who was clearly their leader. Oddly enough it wasn't his voice were hearing... the source remained out of sight which made me slightly suspicious, to say the least.

Trying to avoid another confrontation we decided to see how long we could talk to these people without them trying to kill us. Through further discussion with the leader of the nobles, whose name I forget right now, we learned that we had entered the domain of The Queen, the source of the voice from the passage. The nobles were worshiping her and had given up their lives in Sharn above for some reason. Upon closer inspection these nobles were all covered with the same fine cilia that the mutilated elf woman had been covered with. With a little enticing The Queen revealed her face to us and we were surprised to find that it was about four feet across and seemed like it might have been connected to some snake-like body. The elf woman had apparently not survived the transformation that the ritual room was used for and had been dumped there to die, which we had been all too happy to assist her with.

During this time a group of kobolds led by one with giant dragonfly wings had entered the room and taken up position next to us. They hadn't drawn their weapons and seemed confused by our presence but because they didn't seem hostile we did nothing. The Queen said that there was a way out but tried to entice us to transform and stay with her in her chambers worshiping her. All of that sounded pretty terrible to me so I continued to watch the nobles and kobolds for any signs of treachery. The nobles were still slowly entering the room and were forming into some sort of ritualistic formation when Alric excitedly decided to take The Queen up on her offer. I could only shake my head at his assumption that this transformation would be a good thing when we found out that part of the requirements were to enter the metal cage in the center of the pit and be lowered into the darkness for some indefinite amount of time.

If all of that wasn't enough cause for us to leave, while Alric descended giggling into the darkness the two survivors of the band that had tried to capture us earlier showed up outside the room glaring at me. I realized that they might not have been working for the Cannith wench and so we might just uphold our bargain after all. Sneering, I advanced on them and brandished my great spear forcing them to fall back. While I pointed out our additional guests, Aramel decided to join Alric in the pit. When the cage was raised to allow Aramel to join him we could see that Alric was unconscious and covered in a clear ooze though this still didn't stop Aramel. While we waited for the so called transformation to occur, one of the noble cultists completely lost it and cried out screaming, demanding to know why we allowed our 'friends' to endure so much pain. Apparently the pit darkness also blocked sounds so we couldn't hear any screams. A grimlock emerged from the side passage and and dragged the gibbering noble out of sight. I decided to further taunt our would be captors and apparently that was a bad move. The kobolds immediately drew their crossbows and were preparing to fire on us when Lia and Kaellana opened fire with their bows.

With everyone else in the room apart from out party designated foes we immediately leaped into battle. I charged our two friends from earlier out of the ritual room only to discover three more of their friends waiting. While this happened, Tam decided to use a slightly unconventional approach and threw our unfolding boat into our enemies, crushing them as it attempted to expand. During the next moments of the fight we tried to whittle down our enemies to level the numerical playing field. We were left with the winged kobold, cultist leader, and some strange aberration I faced that had two tentacles sprouting out of its upper back. Unfortunately Raznian had almost suffered another combat mishap by deciding it was a good idea to investigate one of the areas of darkness near the walls. More grimlocks appeared from the areas of darkness but the attacks that really concerned us were the magical multicolored blasts of energy that also emerged from the dark areas. We hadn't seen The Queen since the beginning of the fight so we assumed she was the one behind the attacks. Arad summoned some sort of magical weapon to aid in the fight against the new grimlocks and then commanded the flying kobold to fall. With his advantage neutralized the kobold was killed in short order, as was my tentacled enemy.

With the grimlocks, cultists, kobolds, and humans dead I gave the order to pull Aramel and Alric out of the pit. I figured whatever was going to happen down there would be bad and that we should vacate the premises before The Queen reared her gigantic head. Apparently this upset Alric in particular as he had felt the changes beginning and was sad that I had made him remain the same. We then gave a cursory examination to the room next to the ritual chamber and then tempted fate by plunging into the dark areas on the walls. We found that they functioned like one way glass. On the other side we were faced with a quickly rushing flow of water. Having no other real options, Tam unfolded the boat again and we were carried along with the flow. After riding the water for a time the flow started to lessen and we found ourselves drifting out on the Dagger River below Sharn. Having to row hard against the current to prevent being taken out to sea, we headed eastwards upstream. After a hard half day we were able to beach the raft and succumb to our exhaustion.

We spent the next few days making the trek back to Sharn, having had to row far upstream past the cliffs that lined the edge of the river. Those of us infected by the ghouls managed to recover on the way and upon reaching Sharn we decided to offload some of the items we had recovered on our expedition. With those matters settled, we headed to an inn where we could recuperate and wait for Aramel to identify the magical items we had appropriated. I also cursed our stupidity for not searching the rest of the area and corpses of those we had slain for anything valuable.

We obviously have to go back.