Haunted Battleground

The party ran into a group of Tovagian soldiers who yelled out some words such as, spy, Cavitius, kill them.  The battle was soon waged as the soldiers moved forward and some shot crossbows at the party.  There appeared to be a couple of leaders, soldiers with swords and halberds and crossbowmen.  As the battle was engaged the leaders of the Tovagian patrol did much damage to Pretis and Mara.  At one point Mara was knocked prone and when she tried to stand up a soldier knocked her down again.  Demin stayed at range and fired his crossbow into the battle while Gofin found herself engaged with a halberd bearing soldier.  Lythandar threw a fireball at the advancing group to soften up the soldiers.

Blood...Blood...Blood

As the party moved out of the Library of Kas they were soon surrounded by a group of black robed, knife carrying, face painted figures.  The figures had the same leering face painted to look like a one-eyed skull.  The Cultists were chanting "blood...blood...blood" in Common. The battle was on as they cultists attacked moving swiftly around the party.  Melisana used Curse of the Divine Plague to again daze and confuse several of the cultists.  The party then tried hurriedly to move away from the infected cultists before they were also affected.  Several cultist minions were soon eliminated and a few of the cultists were bloodied but the kept using "Dance of the Knife" to apply multiple attacks and dance around the party.  

The Library of Kas

As the party continued into the passage under Castle Xiphos they came upon a twenty foot square shaft that bisected the tunnel.  It rose up towards the Castle and led deep into the earth.  Darkness in both directions quickly swallowed up the parties light source.  The sides of the shaft were even more slick with moisture and yellowish slime than the passage itself.  A narrow one foot wide ledge ran around the sides of the shaft and on the other side a tunnel extended into the rock.  On the wall next to the shaft were three metals levers protruding from the wall.  The first and third level were pulled down and the middle lever was parallel to the floor.  As the party looked around a quiet sound rose from the depths -- some sort of wet, sloshing, slurping noise.