A summary of what happened during the game sessions:

November 9, 2001 - Session 19

The group questioned Malavin. As he was reluctant to give them information, they were unable to get a lot of information from them. Margaret offered to cast a spell on him to get him to tell the truth. The spell would render the person it was cast on unable to lie, but they could evade direct answers to the questions asked. Also, if Malavin had strength of mind to resist the spell, he could lie with impunity, and Margaret wouldn't be able to tell. She cast the spell anyway, and they asked him a number of questions.

Malavin said that Nise was the one behind everything, she had been looking for something, but he didn't know what it was. The creature that they had been fighting yesterday was a ghost from the strange house they had all gone through. He said he assumed that the ghost was coming after them because of something Nise had done or taken from the house, but he didn't know what. He also cast a few insults in everyone's direction, but with special ones reserved for Rylan, and eventually taunted them enough that they decided it wasn't worth keeping him alive for information anymore. It was then that he revealed he had been able to untie the ropes they had been binding him. However, he allowed Rylan to deliver a coup de grace and kill him.

They then moved on up the mountain to the strange entrance. The entryway was over 80 feet high in an arch, and very wide as well. Jack crept up and looked inside, and noticed that on each side of the passage, there were deep alcoves about five feet in width and depth, and they appeared to continue farther along the passage than he could see. In the openings contained large stone statues in each of them. They inspected them from the entrance, without entering the passage. The statues were magical, and intricately carved and designed. They were very like stone golems, with the exception of the great amount of detail used in carving the stone. Most golems were crudely cut and created, not needing such detail in the magic. Hildegaarde said it was definitely dwarven work. Each stood about about 10 feet tall. Sana flew in over the heads of the golems, and got far enough down the hall to see that there are a LOT of them - 10 on each side.

Jon walked in, and as he approached, the golems began to move, and one of the farthest two spoke in some unknown tongue. They lined up, preventing further progress. Sana flew back to just over Jon's head. As he continued to move forward, the ones near the entrance closed in behind him. Jon asked for the token/compass given to them by Alvar. Sana fetched it from Rylan, and gave it to Jon, who held it out. The golems then retreated back into their alcoves, and the group entered and followed the passage, the compass still pointing west, which was the direction of the passage.

They decided to travel through the passage. There was no sign of any other tracks, so they weren't certain if Nise went this way. But there was no sign of any dust at all, like the strange house, though it didn't radiate magic as the house's floors did.

Later that day, they were attacked by eleven insubstantial creatures, who did no damage, but instead sapped the strength of those they touched. They were also difficult to hit, fading in and out of the shadows.

They fought them off as best they could. Margaret attempted to turn them, but they did not falter from her power. But eventually they were all destroyed. They went on further and then rested for then night. Margaret cast some spells to restore the strength of those who had been drained. While not back at full strength, those who were drained were somewhat restored.

They journeyed on again the next "day" (not being able to tell night and day from within the passage), and came to a strange thing. On the right-hand side of the passage, there was a filled stone archway, carved with vines and flowers, and in the left-hand wall, there are four more alcoves with those intricately carved stone golems in them.

The compass was still pointing west, not into the passage. The group paused, to consider their options.

No quote of the evening was recorded.