The battle continues! The two fiends with the massive gaping maws immediately set upon the fallen Coriander and deliver a couple more terrible bites. Mishok quickly grabs her and pulls her away. Cycek steps in to assist and the two carry the bleeding half-elf, running with all possible haste, pursued closely by the horrific monsters. Davros, joins them, prepared to turn and fight if necessary. The three flee back to the cave entrance. Meanwhile, Sartan climbs up onto a massive boulder, and fires arrows at the pursuers. He immediately brings down one of the smaller creatures, and also puts a couple of damaging arrows into the others as well. Once the other combatants have reached the cave, Sartan leaps down and follows them. He kills another of the small creatures just inside the cave entrance.

Inside the cave, the party continues to run. They pass the staircase where they had their altercation with the guard, just over an hour ago. The guard has hobbled down the stairs and is sitting at the end of the stairway, clutching his broken knee. He is shocked to see the party running back his way, but even more so at the terrifying creatures that pursue them. They run past the guard, but the pursuers immediate attack him. They tear the hapless guard limb from limb, and in their bloodlust turn there attention away from their original quarry. Davros, Cycek, and Mishok lay Coriander down, and take up positions in the corridor where they can make ranged attacks against the monsters. Davros lands a devastating arrow shot, and Mishok brings down the sacred flame. Sartan in then able to reach the site of the fray. With a couple more arrow shots, he is able to finish off the vile monstrosities.

The group is bloodied and tired. They immediately attend to Coriander, trying to determine if she still lives. Cycek is pretty certain that here wounds and blood loss are so severe that she is beyond help. She is lifeless. Nevertheless, Mishok is helpful. He calls upon the power of his deity and casts a prayer of healing over all of his companions. The healing is immediately effective for the wounded, but not for Coriander. Mishok now realizes that she is truly gone.

The group is stunned and somber, but they realize they need to get somewhere safe. They take Coriander’s body and move into the larder. They investigate Coriander’s possessions, and discover a couple of interesting things, most noteworthy a pair of leather-bound journals. One contains notes on the Staff of Wizardry. It asserts that it is a very powerful item, which has the capacity to contain great eldritch energy, enabling even an inexperienced wizard the capability to cast complex, powerful spells. The drawback to this, is that a low-level wizard who leans too heavily on the power of the staff, can easily become consumed and distorted by that power. Furthermore, it describes a property by which the breaking of the staff will cause an explosion commensurate with the amount of power remaining in the staff. Anyone caught in the explosion could be very badly injured and, even more interestingly, be teleported to a random plane of existence.

The other journal is Wendella’s personal diary. It contains her entire story – how she has long been enamored with her innate spellcasting abilities. She has been visiting the library at the Visitor’s Center for years, and has discovered clues about the region’s history. Although she was unable to read the ancient Duergar, she has gleaned that the humans and dwarves here both became involved in demon worship, the undead, and dark rituals. Two years ago, she met Ekso as he was there to study the same subject. He was much older and much more knowledgeable, but he instructed her in the study of the Duergar language, and encouraged her to learn necromancy spells. He spoke of an important research project he was conducting in the blufflands. He was working with a crew to excavate an ancient subterranean sacred site. He needed a variety of materials, and he recruited Wendella, and made use of her contacts within the city and their network of bandits to comb the underworld black market for the material components for conjuration spells. Most importantly, he sought the largest, clearest Shadowfurst Sapphire he could get his hands on, for the power to trigger his greatest conjuration.

“We have had Hack’s people bringing in all kinds of items that we never would have been able to obtain otherwise. The golden skull, the ground elven bone, even the mandrake root would have been hard to find in this backwater town. Thank Orcus for the black market! But we’ve had no luck with the gem. Berniece prepared some smaller sapphires for us. It was was just enough to enable us to call forth some dretches, ghouls, and vulchlings. Even a death dog! But we need something more. Ekso sent the goblin crew to check into a lead south of town. We haven’t heard back yet. Those fools probably botched the job. I never would have trusted goblins to something so important. But, we also have to focus our efforts on the key. Our last ritual produced a ghast… an impressive and terrible creature. We sent it to the eastern tunnel., and our hopes are strong that it will retrieve what we seek.”

After spending some time thinking this over, and debating what to do next, they sense with foreboding the vibrating sensation again that seemed to precede the previous emergences of the mysterious anomalies. Davros, keeping watch in the corridor sees a shimmering of green light reflecting on the stone walls. He cannot see the source of the light, but he returns to the larder to alert his comrades