The party takes some time to recover from their battle with the ogre. They spend some time resting and tending to their wounds, while the ogre rampages outside, hurling rocks at random, hoping for a lucky hit. Once they resume their explorations, they notice old footsteps in the crust of snow remaining in the shadowed passage way. They wend their way into the center of the structure. Using their rope, they haul Cycek to the top of the wall, so that he can survey the scene. He sees the overview of the concentric circles comprising the structure. He sees the frustrated ogre still stalking about on the plateau. And he gets a good view of the object at the center of this structure. It is a carved, circular platform about 2 feet high. It’s stone surface is engraved with an 8-pointed star, set amid a series of concentric and tangential rings of various sizes. Returning to the ground, he and the rest of the party inspect this artifact more closely. They recognize the geometric patterns and runes as resembling the demon-head carving on the head of the key they retrieved from the narrow passageway at the back of Ursula’s cave. Mishok recognizes the runes as being dwarvish of origin, but they seem strange and are unreadable. They attempt to lift the stone. They insert the key into a slot in the center of the slab and turn it. This releases a handle at each point of the star, which flips up from underneath the lip of the slab. Again, they try and fail to lift what they assume to be a lid of some kind. Next, they try to rotate the slab. It takes some effort, but it does begin to move. As they rotate the object, fissures open in its surface and the lid divides into 8 panels which open iris-style, revealing a six-foot-wide shaft leading straight down. A bright point of light pierces the dark roughly 100 feet down the shaft.
As the party contemplates their next move, the ogre renews its attempt to connect with a rock, and they hear the grunting of the beast and the crack or stone as his hurled missiles smash against the walls of the stone structure. They decide to lower Mishok down the shaft to investigate. About 90 feet down, the shaft opens into a large room. An bright glowing orb hangs about 10 feet below the opening, and the room is filled with a complex web of rods and wires. Mishok, with his short statures, feels that although he might be able to release himself from the rope and alight on the wire structure, he could not do so without being disruptive to the structure. This is of particular concern because he detects movement among the cables. Mishok returns to the surface and reports his findings. Cycek, being taller and more nimble descends next. He sees that the movement Mishok reported are a number of spider-like creatures that seem to be attending to various adjustments and tensioners on the wires. He carefully climbs into the upper rigging, and lets go of the rope. He sees below him, and directly below the glowing orb, another circular pit in the floor. The light strikes a gem that is suspended in a cradle between the light source and the pit. Shafts of light emanate from the gem, striking other smaller orbs set among the cables throughout the room. A brighter beam shoots straight down the shaft. He manages to reach the floor without attracting undue attention from the spiders. However, as he gets his bearing, two goblins step out from a passageway to the east, and shout “Who the hell are you!?” They are shocked at the presence of this unexpected visitor. They order him to lay down his weapons and they will take him to their boss. He expresses a willingness to go see his boss, but will not relinquish his weapons. A moment later, two other goblins, equally shocked, emerge, from another passage at the opposite end of the room. They reassert the demands of the other goblins, and Cycek complies. He lays down his weapons, which ones of the goblins collects, and they take him into custody. Although they are unpleasant little creatures, and somewhat rough with him, they lead him without episode through the web of cables, toward the southwest corner of the room. In passing, he notices a couple of barred cells in the south wall of the room. One of them contains a creature resembling those that they had fought in the tunnels beneath Avita Ploughman’s barn back in Duskhaven.
Meanwhile Mishok descends into the web again. As he originally guessed, he has a more difficult time climbing from the shaft into the rigging. He falls, hitting several taught cables before he is able to catch himself. He takes injury and also sets the whole web to vibrating and shaking. As he regains his grip on the cables, he sees the spider-like creatures scurry about, attending to tensioners, but several move swiftly toward him. One one draws near, he is able to discern that these are mechanical devices modeled after spiders. He sees Cycek disappear into a passageway, in the custody of four goblins. He gets to the floor as quickly as he can, but is soon beset by mechanical spiders, attempting to bite him.
During this time, Sartan is moving down the shaft, and Davros is becoming aware of raised, hoarse voices outside the structure, and rocks continue to fly over the wall, sometimes smashing nearby and raining shards down upon him.
Mishok reaches the floor and begins moving toward the place he last saw Cycek. He is bitten by a spider and suffers not only piercing damage, but also poison damage from its venomous fangs. He manages to grab one of the creatures, and with his mechanical acumen, notices buttons on the top and bottom of its carapace. Depressing both at once, the legs and head retract into the body, and it becomes a motionless brass disk. He pockets this item.
Sartan, upon reaching the floor moves toward the northwest of the room. Here, he sees another cell with a screaming, haggard creature. One of what Mishok was able to identify as a ghoul. A woman’s voice cries out from another cell.
Davros is able to begin his descent after Sartan is off the rope. But not before he is hit in the head by a shard of rock. He hears more angry voices approaching as he climbs over the edge of the pit, and starts rappelling down.
The goblins have taken Cycek down a hallway into a room lit by oil lamps and set up as a library. There are tapestries on the walls, several chairs and tables, and about eight sturdy wooden book cases. Moving through this room, they take him into the private chambers of a tall, thin man who stands before them. The goblins tell him they caught this intruder in the “Gem Lab” and don’t know how he got there. He dismisses them, and engages Cycek in dialogue.
He speaks in a deep, deliberate cadence. He introduces himself as Ekso. Cycek is forthright in telling who he his, why he is there, and how he got there. Ekso expresses surprise that Cycek and his friends have arrived via the “Star Portal.” He also assures him that Wendella is safe and is where she should be, although he seems disdainful of Anton and Willa Strongbow’s concern for their daughter. Ekso feels there may be a place for Cycek on his staff. An operation such as this could use talented individuals like Cycek, and he offers to pay much better rates than anything the mayor and his wife could. Cycek wants to check on the safety of his friends. Ekso agrees to accompany him back to the “Gem Lab” and see if they can locate his companions. He puts a hand on his shoulder and leads him back through the library, the way he had come. One goblin remains in the library, holding Cycek’s swords.
Sartan has investigated the woman’s voice. He discovers that she is Coriander, the half-elf investigator that had preceded them out of Duskhaven. She tells Sartan that she was hired by Councilman Donnwald to find Wendella. She had interviewed Carver’s mother, and was sent on a similar trajectory, seeking Carver in the blufflands, but she was captured by Hobgoblins and imprisoned here. She has been here a day and is unable to use her magic because her hands are bound. She turns her back to the bars, so that Sartan can reach her rope-bound hands. He cuts them with a dagger. Immediately after this, he is attacked by a mechanical spider. Another spider is approaching the ghoul cell. Sartan hacks at that one with his axe, shattering it, and also cleaving through one of the wires. It parts with a sharp twang, and a small glass orb attached to it shatters. The entire web-structure shudders.
The other three goblins emerge from the hallway back into the lab. They see Mishok and are again shocked. Mishok is badly injured at this point, but he pulls out his crossbow and puts a bolt into a surprised goblin’s chest.
Ghouls are howling and raging. The light from the glowing orb is pitching and flashing wildly as the wire structure recoils from the axe blow. Goblin are yelling, and a bloodied dwarf is readying an appeal to his god for assistance. Cycek and Ekso proceed up the hallway and are about to emerge onto this scene of chaos as the session comes to a close.