05 - Escaping Hell....

After a quick trance, Alfonse woke up refreshed. He checked his gear, stowing the blades in favor of a single pistol. The goblin checked out the well, finding nothing special about it, and specifically nothing creepy. The sickly-looking elf, Lenore, lowered the bucket and found some rank but otherwise clean water that the goblin treated like champagne. They all decided to retrace their steps back to the statue room, where Simon found a hidden passage back to the first floor den. Talin opened the southern door and found a small living space, complete with another bedroom.
Alfonse opened the footlocker at the bottom of the bed, finding a decent amount of loot. As he pulled items out, the wall suddenly gave way, and two towering ghasts burst into the small room. The elf lit one up with lightning, the goblin ran in and knifed one and then disappeared, and the tentacle thing did something to the thing that seemed to really give the ghast and itself a headache. The human drew one's attention while the other used its stench and claws to attack both senses and flesh. Alfonse, from his crouched position, fired a single shot directly into the thing's face, dazing it, all while fighting back the bile rising in his throat from the awful smell coming from the ghastly creature. A few more blows from the group took that one down, but the human, Simon, looked frozen. Al took another shot at the ghast, but missed. The elf came in and blasted it with some kind of energy. Simon unfroze and they all started checking out the bodies.
The two creatures looked a little like the Dursts from the portraits upstairs. Tentacles started cutting them up while the rest of the group looted the room. Alfonse found some iron candlesticks that should help building some bullets. Everyone made their way to the staircase leading further into the basement.
The next floor was filled with a loud chanting, in common. The chanting says "He is the ancient, he is the land". At the bottom of the stairs, the group finds a room lined with 13 alcoves, each holding a strange and unique object:
 
A small, mummified, yellow hand with sharp claws (a goblin’s hand) on a loop of rope
A knife carved from a human bone
A dagger with a rat’s skull set into the pommel
An 8-inch-diameter varnished orb made from a nothic’s eye
An aspergillum carved from bone
A folded cloak made from stitched ghoul skin
A desiccated frog lashed to a stick (could be mistaken for a wand of polymorph)
A bag full of bat guano
A hag’s severed finger
A 6-inch-tall wooden figurine of a mummy, its arms crossed over its chest
An iron pendant adorned with a devil’s face
The shrunken, shriveled head of a halfling
A small wooden coffer containing a dire wolf’s withered tongue
 
The group pocketed each item and explored the passages leading out of the room. One ended in a portcullis that was dropped down with no visible means to open it. The other led to a long hallway lined with cells, each containing old rusty shackles, and one containing a secret entrance into the next room over. Once in that room, the chanting stopped until the altar in the center was approached. Then, the chanting changed to "One must die!" Lenore created a bonfire on the refuse pile and a large mound of flesh came charging out of the trash. At the center of the pile was an infant, presumably Walter, its face contorted into an eternal scream. The chaning changed once more, to "Morgoth the Decayer!" The thing howled and lumbered towards the group. Alfonse managed to daze it on the first shot, but Simon got trapped in close and the monster wailed on him for a couple rounds. Lenore tried hitting it with a lightning bolt, but that seemed to heal the monster. A few more rounds of blows and the creature was destroyed by a blow from Simon's morningstar, the child's body being ripped from the mound of flesh and pinned to the wall behind it. As the creature expired, the black figures ranged around the room vanished, the portcullis and secret door slammed shut, and the group was left in a room that was shaking and unstable, large chunks of stone and brick falling from the ceiling and threatening to crush the adventurers below.
Simon ran over to the portcullis and heaved it upwards, opening just enough room for everyone to scramble through and up the stairs back to the hallways in the catacombs. Alfonse sneaked the party past a ghoul that was lurking in the hallways, and they made their way to the secret ladder leading up to the den on the first floor. Here, they found the stuffed wolves had re-animated and were poised to attack. Aesigvarr used its mind powers to blast the wolves into submission while the rest of the group scurried into the main hall and headed for the front door. In the foyer they found the front door completely bricked up solid, and the doors behind them leading back into the house slammed shut so quickly that Simon was trapped in the foyer, which began filling with a noxious gas. Alfonse pulled out his crowbar and managed to pry the wooden doors apart just enough for Simon to break free of the room, but now the party was once again trapped inside the house, the chanting continuing to taunt them with "One must die!" over and over. In the dining room they found the windows all bricked up. Lenore tried to blast her way through, but the brick reformed as quickly as she could destroy it. They all decided to head upstairs, but found their way blocked by a group of armor suits, spears held at the ready to oppose any passage. Talin did a little kick-flip over the group that took them off their guard just enough for the rest of the group to slip by. Wasting no time, they ran directly upstairs, where they were greeted by a tsunami of fetid water running out of the bathroom directly towards them, threatening to wash them back downstairs. Simon lit up his morningstar with fiery magic, managing to divert the water into steam long enough for the group to avoid the force of the water rushing towards them and make their way towards the nursery doors, where they remembered the balcony to be.
In the nursery, they found a ghostly sight of a young woman giving birth. The doorway to the balcony was lined on both sides with spinning scythe blades, dripping blood, which whirled faster and faster as the young woman's contractions grew closer and closer together. It was apparent from the scene that the birth was not going well, as the baby was coming out feet first. Mulling over their options, the group thought of ways to intimidate the ghost or to mechanically jam the spinning blades. Finally, Alfonse noticed a pattern in the blades that offered just enough room to escape through them and onto the balcony. Once on the balcony, they found the outside world had changed, and they were now standing on a cliff that extended so far down they were unable to see any ground. Everyone was ready to take a leap of faith from this great height, but Aesigvarr was able to determine the illusion. Talin tied off a rope and everyone climbed down through the illusion to the solid ground below, and booked it for the gates that were threatening to close them in. As a last desperate attempt, the house manifested projections of Rose and Thorne, who begged the group to stay with them. The adventurers ignored the illusion and slipped past the gates just as they clanged shut, the house disappearing back into the mists. The group continued a bit further, but were pursued by 3 small wolves led by one larger wolf, about the size of an average horse, whose eyes glowed bright red in the murky twilight. The three wolves attacked but were quickly dispatched, and the larger wolf slunk back into the mist with a final howl of warning to the battered group, who finally got a moment to catch their breath, noticing they had grown a little stronger, a little wiser, for the ordeal the had just survived together.