We rope up and Rob leads us across the narrow, slippery ledges that make up the only passable parts of this hellish cavern.

We pass several pools of boiling mud when suddenly several things happen at once. A hideous head with a tentacled mouth appears from a pool to our left, Varys starts to chant an incantation and Amber stabs Bael in the back!!

Quick to react, Morgan turns and punches Varys square in the face, knocking him out. Bael yelps while Minerva clonks Amber over the head with the flat of her sword. Rob looses an arrow at the monster, but misses.

Isis suddenly realises that the monster is her master and she must subdue Minerva so that she will recognise it as her master as well. She attacks Minerva, but fails to pierce the fighter’s armour. Rob manages to graze the monster with an arrow but Bael misses.

Now, Rob also realises that the monster is his master and he turns and looses an arrow at Morgan at point blank range. Morgam responds with a tasty left hook and Rob falls over.
Amber too is suffering at the hands of Minerva – she slips over and then takes a boot to the head which knocks her out.

At this point Bael feels it might be time to attempt an exit. Morgan feels the call of the monster but manages to resist. The party are all still roped together and luckily the three strongest members are still compos mentis. They are able to slowly drag the prone bodies and the struggling Isis through to the nearest ledge. Unfortunately this is not the exit and so our intrepid heroes must delve deeper into the mountain caverns… We bind the arms and gag our ‘charmed’ companions and wake the unconscious ones so that they can walk.

The path descends and and the first fork we take the passage on the level (the right hand passage). It soon turns back on itself and becomes worryingly steep so we backtrack.

The other path (the left fork) continues to descend and then we come to a three way fork. For want of a better method of choosing we take the left passage. It descends and ends in water… Backtrack.

We take the middle passage. It veers to the right and then ends at the opening of a huge fissure – no way through here. Backtrack.

We take the right passage. It leads to the top of a scree slope so we descend it. It goes a long way down but eventually we get to the bottom and figure it’s time for a rest and some water. Isis is indignant that we attempted to attack her master and curses us. She says she cannot hear his voice any longer but knows that she serves him.

Bael attempts his own Charm. Firstly on Varys and then on Isis. It works!! They smile happily at him. Varys says that it was the little statue that first spoke to him…

After some rest we press on and and come to a lake. Bael wonders if there might be a small pale creature with lamp-like eyes living on an island in the middle. There is no sound of anything however so he decides to don the cloak of manta ray and explore. After 200 yds the water is only up to his shins so the others all join. The water briefly makes it to knee depth and then gets shallower again. At the far shore the ‘beach’ slopes up and we appear to be walking up a dried river bed.

In the cavern wall we spy an archway. Not a natural arch but one carved out of the rock. Morale rises and we pile on through.

After a while we pass through a vaulted chamber with ledges on either side of the passage. At times it seems like the DM is making it up as he goes along…

We eventually reach a circular chamber with 8 exits. The passage 90 degrees to our right appears to smell fresher so we eagerly enter. It rises and turns to the left. A passage heads off to the left – it ends at a huge shaft that both descends and ascends into blackness. We continue to climb the sloping passage. After what may be another turn of the spiral we find another passage to the left. Again it ends at a shaft. Back to the spiral. After a while it strightens out and we see the glimmer of day light!!!

We reach the end of the tunnel and find ourselves about 500 feet up a sheer cliff. Looking out on jungle below and mountains in the distance.

While the evil in the mud pools must be defeated, we need to gather strength and hone our skills before we return.