Our path through The Bowels led us to another small room where we were immediately assaulted by a set of four goblin-esque creatures that moved in startling synchronicity. Dukek dropped Lord Baltron's prone body in the rear of our marching formation as we readied ourselves for battle, but before we could even effectively set ourselves in fighting positions these beasts blinked all around us, transporting around and through our ranks without lifting a foot. Novarg, Dukek and I found their resistance to cold steel to be a bit lacking, and soon lost our initial fright. There were two brief points in the battle where things could have easily gotten worse, but we managed to pull things out alright. Firstly one of the goblins managed to get in the midst of our formation, right next to Bariel, Kanar and Rufo. Thankfully Dukek was close by to render aid before things got out of hand. Secondly about halfway through the battle the beasts morphed in such a way as I have never seen before. Their necks and teeth both extended to supernatural proportions and they attempted to bite and poison a few of us. I didn't watch very closely, but I'm quite sure we all escaped this freakish attack. The only lasting problem from this battle came when Novarg found himself inexplicably levitated and moving towards the exit under a power that was not his own. He rose too quickly for us to get him down before he crossed the threshold into the next room.
We followed Novarg the brief distance down the hall, attempting to rescue him, but were ambushed on the other end by a swarm of orcs, as well as a creature leading them that defies description. My mind tries to wrap around what it looked like, but the only memories of its appearance I have are that it was not orc-like, and it was very tall. Attempts to identify this unique threat were made infinitely harder by the fact that it used magic to vanish from sight almost immediately. Upon seeing the score or more of orcs we went into standard battle procedure, Dukek and myself blocking the entrance of this large, featureless room, with Adderwood and Bariel immediately behind us, and Kanar and Rufo further back. Novarg, unfortunately, continued to drift along close to the pulsating black ceiling, still unable to control his movement. As we set ourselves many in the rear rank of orcs took shots at Novarg with their bows, but rarely hit despite his inability to maneuver. Adderwood saw an opportunity to use some of his spells to their maximum effect given the sheer number of targets standing across the room from us. A few seconds of muttering and gesturing and over half the orcs were entangled by writhing black tentacles that seemed to choke the life out of them with the merest of touch. A few seconds of struggling, and all who had been caught in the spells effect dropped dead. The orcs' leader, meanwhile attempted to damage and confuse us by casting a spell releasing a wave of ice at us while still unseen. Adderwood attempted to aim a spell at the origin of this spell, but the creature either moved or dodged as Adderwood's spell simply fizzled. As this wizards' duel was going on to my right, Dukek and I attempted to clear out the remaining orcs in an effort to clear a path to Novarg, who was now about halfway to a large passage leading from this hellish room into Tarimth knows what. The orc's leader continued his assault of confusion by bathing us in a supernatural darkness, which was a hindrance but not a tragedy as we had been working on barely any light to begin with. By this point enough of the orcs had been cleared that I saw an opportunity to try and save Novarg. I ran out to the middle of the room, skirting the black tentacles still twisting around in the floor, and pulled out the gift I'd been given before leaving the Allanelle, a vial of sunlight. In my haste to get this magical treasure of goodness to Novarg I apparently forgot to activate it, and it simply passed under his flailing hand and hit the wall. Various tentacles were reaching out from the fleshy wall by this point and found it to be an interesting toy, but then returned their attention to Novarg's approach. And then things went to hell.
The last things I remember clearly are Adderwood moving towards Novarg with a rope at the ready to throw to him, and Kanar casting a spell which I'd assumed was an attempt to see our invisible attacker. Everything for the next few minutes is recalled in a blurry haze as I found myself under the all too familiar effects of a Confusion spell. Details may be lost, but major events are accounted for, through discussion afterwards if nothing else.
Adderwood managed to get one end of the rope to Novarg, carefully remembering to hold on to the other end, but found it difficult to hold the floating barbarian with his fifty-pound frame. I turned to where Kanar had last been, but only saw Leptor standing there mocking us. I immediately ran at the wizard swinging my sword in broad strokes with little style, hoping simply to get lucky and decapitate the fiend. Much to my surprise, a moment later as he withdrew, the air shimmered around him and I saw Kanar there again, bleeding profusely from my assault. I stood, unable to comprehend this turn of events as Dukek rushed up and attempted to pin me, thinking me (rightly so) controlled by forces outside of my own head. Kanar began casting another spell, which I thought to be an attempt to heal herself but soon found it brought forth a plague of gigantic scorpions, surrounding Dukek and me. About this time on the other end of the room, Adderwood was holding on to the rope for Novarg's life, but found himself assaulted from behind by Bariel's mace. Novarg had had enough and through a combination of the rope and burying his axe in the fleshy wall for support, managed to get himself close enough to the magical tentacles to be grabbed and pulled in by them. The barbarian was finally free of the levitation charm and he was pissed. Bariel found himself outnumbered, but only briefly as Rufo ran up to join the fray on the side of the cleric, stabbing the gnome while trying to avoid Novarg. Adderwood couldn't stand up against either one of them in a fight, let alone both, and ran to the far end of the room, putting the large human between him and his attackers. Dukek released his hold on me to better defend himself against the scorpions as I found myself thinking clearly for the first time in nearly half a minute. I knew that somebody had ensorcelled either me or Kanar, and so I took a guess that it was her and rushed her with my shoulder and the flat of my blade, knocking her to the floor and into unconsciousness' soft embrace. The scorpions vanished as their mistress fell and Dukek was extremely confused at these turns of events and unsure who to assist next. Back at the melee Novarg was making Rufo very sorry he had ever stolen our horses in the first place, which unfortunately meant that his attention was off of Bariel. Bariel hefted his crossbow to his shoulder and with amazing speed and accuracy managed to plant a pair of bolts in the fleeing gnome's shoulders across the dim room, causing Adderwood to pass out. Dukek was unsure of which side I was acting on, thanks to the fact that he saw Kanar was alive if unconscious, but could clearly see that Bariel was acting against our common interests. He began his way over to subdue the cleric, leaving me with a fogged mind once again and an insane desire to butcher the sleeping Kanar like a pig in a farmyard. Around this time across the room Adderwood let out the sigh one becomes so familiar with in this profession as his last gasp of breath finally left his body. My attention was swiftly drawn back to Kanar however, as her pale dead body rose, and began walking towards me, most surprisingly with the gleam of intelligence in its eyes. Again I found my attention shattered as the end of this trial arrived in the form of the orc's spell-slinging leader appearing before us in the middle of this vast room. With a clear opponent to fight, Dukek, Novarg and an undead Adderwood assaulted the beast with all of their might, dispatch it handily. It should have ran while our attention was divided, but that's a mistake it won't soon be making again. While I cannot recall what the creature looked like alive, I do remember that in death it broke into dozens, if not hundreds, of shadowy bats and spread out like drops of water hitting a pan of hot fat. Each of these masses continued to split into smaller and smaller dark blobs until there was nothing left save a grim sensation that we were now breathing in this beast. A few seconds more and my mind was clear enough to assess our situation. I am sorely tempted to decapitate my allies who have been taken over the line between worlds and now walk about though they are visibly dead. I could probably even count on the cleric's help, although I'm not sure whether Dukek and Novarg would be so swift to try and save Kanar and Adderwood's souls. Were it not for the hostile voices coming from the passage to our left, I might have done so already...