The party descends the stairs spiraling down around the black column. An alarm wails, but no one remains to summon. The stairs land in a chamber dimly lit by fluorescent lichen seemingly activated by the prevailing magic. Theridan remains behind to guard a door south as the rest of the party follows a center-pivoting stone door to the west.
This chamber is stale and thickly coated in dust, distinguished otherwise by two ore cars parked on a section of track. Meega chooses one of two doors that opens into a short hallway and Theren stacks up behind her, ready to depart this clearly abandoned area. Four grimlock specters emerge from an unexamined ore crack and mob Lefty, leaving her permanently less robust. The party quickly frees the specters to eternal release and resumes exploration of Meega’s hallway.
The hallway opens to a purple crystal-studded room housing a pair of hill giants indulged in a game of chance. Although the two groups share no spoken language, the hefting of bags of gold pulled from the hill giant’s loincloth is universal. The gambling begins. Unfortunately for the hill giants, Theren, Meega, and Bromsby outmatch them in cleverness and luck so team Quastarte dominates in winnings. Bromsby taunts the hill giants until they become inconsolably agitated despite Theren’s generous refund policy. A fight breaks out. Although formidable with their great clubs, the hill giants are again outmatched by Meega’s enthusiastic application of her Giant Slayer, Theren’s boosted rapid-fire crossbows, Lefty’s blendering claws, and Bromsby erupting earth through Iron Oath. Bromsby heroically loots the defeated hill giants’ loincloths and comes up with 160 gold, 22 platinum, 3 red spinels [100 gp ea], an amethyst [150 gp], and a mummified human head [hopefully].
Bromsby picks a door to the southwest and finds an oily, black fog that seems to block sound and light across the passage. It is not a creature. Theren waves a purple crystal enticingly at Lefty and tosses it into the fog. Lefty follows compulsively and experiences some psychic trauma and nausea, but otherwise comes through the fog into a chamber. She retrieves the shard thrown by Theren but of course does not return with it. Theren wonders if Bromsby has any recommendations for Lefty’s feline replacement, but Bromsby is not ready to give up on Lefty just yet and attempts to dispel the fog magically. The fog persists. Meega and Theren go through the fog, experiencing the same psychic and nauseating effects, but also do not return. Bromsby conjures a warding wind which ripples into the oily fog but does not disperse it. Bromsby goes through the fog with reduced negative effects but does not return. Haerelben sits on the foot of the hill giant’s bedroll lamenting the meaningless loss of all his mates. Windy Bromsby pops back in and beckons Haerelben to join him. Oh, well, back to work.
All entrances to this chamber are shrouded by the oily fog. The reunited party turns its attention to a centrally located statue with large tentacles posed in a stooping bend. Its single eye is a large purple crystal. Smarmy Haerelben positively identifies the subject as the obscure drow god Ghaunadaur, god of oozes. In an attempt to decode the statue’s relevance, Bromsby thorn whips the crystal eye. It shatters. Bromsby is gone. An ochre jelly oozes from the eye hole. Meega and Theren reflexively attempt to murder the jelly, but it moves away from them defensively. Haerelben experimentally casts greater restoration dispelling the curse on Bromsby and prescribes a short rest to bandage his wounds.
The short rest is interrupted when Marlos Urnrayle himself, attended by a pair of gargoyles and a pair of monks, strolls purposefully through one of the oily fogs. He locks eyes with Meega in mutual recognition. She shakes off the impending sense of petrification. He shakes off the impending future of axe gashes. The gargoyles strike out for Meega and Bromsby. Haerelben attempts to banish Marlos along with one of his monks, but only the monk departs. Marlos closes within snake hair distance of Meega. Meega has the misfortune of finally discovering where Iron Fang is: sticking out of her neck. Haerelben makes a second attempt at banishment, bringing back the banished monk. Fortunately this time the spell removes Marlos from the fight. Haerelben is pinned down by a monk and wastes no time complaining about the possibility of concentration-breaking personal injury. Lefty swoops to the rescue and drops the monk. Haerelben patches up Bromsby and retreats while his cohorts finish up the remaining foes with axe, shillelagh, bolts, and claws.
Theren digs out the muslin face shields for those who want to minimize the risk of petrification. Bromsby and Theren both sternly warn the others not to be in their respective paths of destruction. Positioned and ready for violence, the adventurers receive Sehanine’s blessing as Marlos is released back to the plane. His first trial is a barrage of daggers flying from Theren. Merely a flesh wound. Next is an enormously powerful eruption of earth through Iron Oath, one of the most powerful Bromsby has ever conjured. Marlos chooses to avoid the worst of it. Meega makes a charge for Marlos, a run that takes her the long way around the statue for all the piles of earth. Lefty elects no running and pops off some magic missiles from her wand so she doesn’t have to actually look at Marlos. Marlos closes with Lefty and buries Iron Fang into her. His gaze falls on Theren. Theren begins to petrify but gets off some excellent parting crossbow shots as he turns to stone in a heroic crossbowing pose. Bromsby has another go with an Iron Oath earth eruption, but again Marlos decides to forgo that particular outcome. Lefty cuts Marlos down with good old martial trauma. Meega, chasing Marlos around the statue, arrives in time to watch his body disintegrate into mud ruining her plan to cut off his head and point it her enemies like in a play she once saw.
Bromsby boops statue Theren on the nose with Iron Oath and Theren is back to his old self again. In fact, after scooping up Iron Fang out of the Marlos mud, Theren feels even more disposed to breaking things than before. Iron Fang goes into the bag of holding for safekeeping returning Theren to his regular disposition for breaking things.
Bromsby points out that their approximate location in this sub-subterranean paradise places them more or less in the center of the four cult areas. Then it hits Haerelben like a voice in his head that they have found themselves in the Feign of the Eye which Simon first read about in Marlos’s journals at the Stone Monastery. With the realization that it might not be safe to be found resting here, the party resolves to sterilize the scene and return Iron Fang to Quastarte lest it be taken from them by whatever has orchestrated this elemental incursion. The bodies are arranged into an apparent gambling session gone wrong with the hill giants stabbed by monks, and the monks smashed into forensically unhelpful pulp by Meega with the hill giants’ clubs. Theren tosses around gold and spinels to add authenticity to the staged scene. Haerelben mends the crystal eye back onto the statue and the party beats feet back to Quastarte.
