Gnarsh passes out from pain and blood loss (and his player not making it).

Elmo dashes forward to shove a table across the door where the clerics are. Unfortunately, he can't move the table. And an enemy cleric casts Doom on him. Diren dashes up and drinks a potion of invisibility. Moth channels healing energy to heal us. Spit moves for a clear line of fire, but misses his shot. The other enemy cleric fires a dart of acid at Elmo.

Elmo screams and dives across the table, burying his axe in the guard in front of the clerics, dropping him. Diren slips by invisibly and buries his blade in a cleric. Slowly we move in hack the clerics dead.

Looting then proceeds. Diren almost gets pricked by a poison trap on a chest, but jerks his hand away. Inside were some scrolls (Animate Dead, Prayer) and a potion of Haste. We also find a variety of valuable disposables. Diren snags a silver flask of fine brandy as part of his share.

There is also enough stuff to furnish a house between linens, towels, couches, rugs, and tapestries. But we leave those below for now - maybe once we have a house in Hommlet.

A bit of poking around at the hallways, then we head for the surface. The men at arms are there, chatting and bullshitting. We head a little away from the temple and set up camp. Spit & Moth start the watches, with Diren and a man at arms on the last half. It's cold, with a bit of rain and a few minutes of hail.

Around 3 AM, Diren is chatting with a man at arms about the bat room in the moathouse. Then one of the sleeping men at arms screams as a wraith drains half his life away.

Diren dashes away from the fire, yelling about ghosts and looses an arrow which goes wide. Spit wakes and stands, loosing an arrow which also misses. Moth does likewise. Elmo gets up and panics, not knowing what to do. The wraith drains the life out of the injured man at arms. The other men at arms also stand around, uncertain what to do. Pire stands and yells - it's a wraith, we need magic to hurt it. Pire stablizes the unconscious man at arms.

Elmo charges in but misses, while a man at arms gathers Gnarsh's magic ax.

We eventually get our act together - Diren using Pire's magic mace, Spit using his wand of Cure Moderate wounds. The man at arms with Gnarsh's axe does some actual damage, but Elmo puts it down just before a new wraith rises from the corpse of the man at arms.

We surround the corpse and start swinging just as it appears, but it's still a lot of work and danger. In the end, Elmo is down 2 Con and will be until we can find a high level cleric.

We talk to the minion - he's named Jason, and we let him have Gnarsh's old axe. We'll have to get some plate mail fitted for him. He's officially the man in charge of the other men-at-arms, Sgt. Jason Axeman.

We get settled back in and finish resting for the night with no further event. And after a meal the next morning, we decide to head back in. (Gnarsh is up with the wagon, unconscious).

Back down we head to a nearby door, listening at it we hear people behind it but no details. We throw it open and mix it up with Elmo and Diren heading in after Moth tosses out a sleep spell. A lt dashes from a door and takes and arrow from Spit. Then the boss steps out and uses a javelin of lightning which wipes out some minions, does a lot of damage to the PCs, and knocks down Lush (Moth's dog).

Pire responds by tossing out a Sound Burst ("Lightning? Thunder!"), stunning many of the important enemies. We continue to fight with Diren exploting the stun to kill a lt. When a wave of guards run in, Moth drops most of them with a sleep. We maneuver around and end up surrounding some. The combat wraps up with the major damage being from the lightning bolt and Spit getting stabbed just before the last enemy is put down.

We have four sleeping guards at the end and debate what to do with them. It's not conclusive - but Spit is slitting throats and no one is stopping him. Pire regrets that he couldn't convert them; he even travels with elves and they don't have souls.

Pire does try a channel energy but St. Cuthbert, but to little effect. "Apparently St Cuthbert doesn't like it when we kill the helpless." Joel, cheery: "My dog wakes up."

When searching the room, we find a scrap of paper: "Remember to check Augury Chamber to see if Belstro was lying!" Not that we know who Belstro is. Sean: "We could ask those guys... Oh."

We head down the corridor reinforcements came from, Diren sneaking in the lead. It's an empty guard room. We gather up some dominos along with a bag of biscuit and dried apples for the horses. Heading into the hall outside, Diren is shot at with a crossbow from a slit. It misses and he charges across the hall, throwing up open the door. It's a heap of gnolls.

Diren steps in and stabs a couple in the throat while they're still surprised. Moth and Spit come in with covering fire. As the gnolls converge on Diren and Moth (they miss), one wounded one heads to a door and throws it open, calling out in the gnoll speech. We start hacking into them, and then more pour in from the door.

It gets thick with a group of Diren, Elmo, and Moth cut off from the doorway. But their blades along with Spit's arrows winnow the crowd. Eventually only the bugbear is standing (along with an archer gnoll) and Spit comes into the room and kills the goblinoid in a single shot with his bow.

Moving on, we pass through an L-shaped bedroom that's empty and then find a room with an ogre in it. Diren dashes in and stabs it from behind before it knows what's happening. Moth follows up with a lucky shot in the throat. Then Elmo comes in to finish it with a blow from his shield.

A quick looting provides some coin and a chest with a pile of gold and two fine agates.