Looking over the edge of the small island, Liam and Cian see the water begin to stir. Bony hands break the surface on all sides. As the skeletons clamber up on to the stone platform, Liam presents his holy symbol and orders the undead beasts to return to their tombs. Cian meanwhile casts a Mage Armor on himself….just in case the turn doesn’t work. Liam’s faith proves strong however, and all six skeletons sink back into the water. Runke meanwhile, is still prying furiously at the door. Even more desperately now that he has seen the skeletons. Runke also continues calling for help, hoping Dierdre will hear.

On the other side, Dierdre is staring at an interesting little figure. A small stature man stands in front of her. On one arm is strapped a wicked looking spiked shield. In his other hand he wields a military pick, the head of which is curved slightly downward. The skin that peeks through his scale armor is dull colored and stretched tight over his bones. His face is equally bizarre, revealing a twisted mouth and sunken eyes. The little man smiles cruelly and steps away from the door as if daring Dierdre to approach it.

Back inside the room, more skeletons have begun to climb out of the water. Only four emerge this time. Two of them however are nearly twice the size as the others-almost ten feet tall. Cian and Liam fall back to the narrow bridge and form a defensive line as the skeletons bear down on them. One of the giant skeletons engages Cian while the two medium skeletons engage Liam. The final giant skeleton follows a seemingly mindless path, walking off into the water once again. As Liam and Cian enter melee they begin a defensive retreat back to the door.

Outside, Dierdre casts Mage Armor and then decides to test the little creature’s mettle. Advancing cautiously, she starts to reach for the door. The strange little man raises his weapon and as he does, Dierdre fans her fingers and envelopes him in a jet of flame. Though she only seemed to singe him with her Burning Hands, the little man yelps and flees the room. Confused, but relieved, Dierdre begins to work on moving the heavy stone bar which is across the door.

As Liam brings one of the medium skeletons down and Cian lands a few good blows, their retreat is stopped as the second giant skeleton emerges from the water and climbs up onto the walkway behind them. Now flanked, Liam takes a beating. Cian is slowly whittling away the large skeleton facing him though taking a number of hits in the process. Liam stays on the medium skeleton in front of him trying to finish it off and relieve himself of the flank.

Runke sees the situation and rushes into combat with his crowbar (much to Runke’s player’s earlier dismay, this is his only blunt weapon…) He cracks the large skeleton hard, snapping several of its bones in the process. The battle rages on with Cian, Liam, and Runke slowly gaining the upper hand. One by one the skeletons drop lifelessly (ok, so they were dead to start…) to the ground. Outside, Dierdre struggles to move the stone bar, making slow progress. When she finally heaves it to the floor she steps back. An exhausted Dierdre yells "You guys can open this thing now."

Cian, Runke and Liam come out of the room. Liam remarks that the six skeletons he turned earlier will most likely be coming back soon. They briefly debate what to do and in the end, seal the chamber to worry about it later. Liam then turns his attention to the wounded party members. Several Cure spells later and most everyone is looking healthy again. As soon as Liam is finished, the party agrees that they should chase after the little man that locked them in the room.

They follow a fairly obvious trail back through to the celled hallway (the one with the boulders blocking small rooms….) In front of one of these, Liam notes the dust and debris has been disturbed. The group speculates whether the tiny man entered this room or not and decides to head back to the entrance to check with Cinn Oir. As they climb the stairs, they find a smashed vial at the top. Dierdre examines the remains, trying to use her Alchemy skill to determine the potion’s contents. She is unsuccessful. Liam walks forward to the open trap door and calls out to Cinn Oir. She confirms she did indeed see something leave. A raven in fact. Unsure what it was she didn’t give pursuit but took note of its direction of flight.

Runke, Dierdre, Liam and Cian decide to re-enter the dungeon and check the boulder which apparently the little man had stopped at. With everyone clustered around the boulder, they give it a good shove and manage to create a roughly one foot opening. Just as they set in for another push, a hand reaches out, slashing wildly at Dierdre’s arm. The group steps back and Dierdre blasts the flailing arm with Magic Missile. An inhuman scream of pain and frustration is heard and the arm disappears into the darkness.

Cian approaches the crevice, stabbing forward with his quarterstaff. As he does so, it is nearly knocked out of his grasp. He retracts it quickly. Cian then picks up a rock and imbues it with a Light spell. He tosses it into the dark room. Peering in through the crack the party sees a disheveled looking creature. It almost has the appearance of a man but it’s sickly skin and burning eyes betray it as something else. A man perhaps at one time long ago, now cursed to walk as the living dead.

Cian begins throwing rocks while Dierdre launches another volley of Magic Missiles. As they do, the creature grabs the Light rock and tosses it hard at Cian, narrowly missing him. The small room is once again in darkness. Tired of the games, the group decides it best to just move the rock and engage the creature. As they push the boulder out of the way, the beast comes charging out recklessly. It slashes at Cian, missing, while the rest of the party attacks it relentlessly. Liam, Cian, and Dierdre all score hits. Soon the creature begins to look desperate. In a frantic effort it charges at Runke who is closest to the hallway exit. Several times, Runke withstands the undead’s bull rush and keeps it in place long enough for the party to finish it off.

They now decide to finish exploring the remaining chambers. They return to the antechamber a the end of the treasure littered hallway. Two more exits to this room remain unexplored. Liam crosses the chamber to the room directly opposite the hallway. Pushing open the enormous but rotted wood door, he steps into a very cluttered room. Glass, wood and stone debris are scattered across the floor. The center of the room is dominated by a large stone slab. On this, there is what appears to be a large dark robed figure. On the far side of the room are two barred alcoves, both empty save for one which has an enormous fissure in the wall. The crack seems to lead back further into the ground, past Liam’s vision.

Searching through the debris, Liam spots a small iron box, wrapped it what may have been leather. It is inscribed with arcane symbols and has a malevolent appearance to it. Using his staff, Liam tries to turn the box over and it collapses. Cian and Dierdre enter the room and both move forward to get a closer look at the table. It is also covered in arcane runes. Between Dierdre’s Decipher Script and both her and Cian’s spellcraft, they slowly come to the realization that powerful magic was at work here. The occupant of the table may have been trying to transform himself into a Liche and presumably failed.

Cian then has a thought. He has an idea that the giant’s robes may serve for a spell component. Though he is not thrilled about the idea, he mentions to the group that he would like to collect some of the robes. The room is silent. No one is too keen on disturbing this corpse and remembering their skeleton encounter earlier, Liam tries to talk Cian out of it. Further, the best way to get at the cloak would be to clamber on top of the high giant-sized table—something no one is comfortable with.

Eventually, Cian talks Runke into letting him borrow the crowbar. He makes a makeshift grappling hook with some rope and slings it on top of the table, pulling down a good sized piece of the robe (and part of the corpse’s arm along with it.) He then tries a second time and another bone hits the floor covered in tattered robes. Retrieving the robe fragments he does a double take on the pile of bones that came with it. One is quite odd… Indeed, it is covered with runes and looks oddly like a…a…wand! Cian grabs it along with the robe fragments and the party leaves the room.

Liam is the first one to the next chamber as he was standing in the doorway while Cian messed with the corpse. Iam reaches the room and pushes this rotted door aside as well. Within is a smaller room adorned with a chair, table and the entire opposite wall contains carved out shelf space. Cian comes in right on Liam’s heels and nearly falls over at the prospect of finding a mage’s study. Pushing past Liam to get a closer look at the shelves, he finds that they are all empty and covered with a yellowish residue. Looking up towards the ceiling he sees a very heavy watermark and nearly falls over in disappointment. Obviously this room has flooded in the past as well.

However, near the top of the wall, just above the water line is small door. It was well-disguised at one time, though the centuries have shifted the wall and the water ruined any mechanism which may have kept it closed. Climbing up the shelving he discovers two scroll cases and a small book. Cian gingerly removes the items and very carefully wraps them, placing them securely in his backpack. Ecstatic about the find, he leaves with the rest of the party.

With the area completely explored, the party proceeds to the treasure littered hall and begins collecting gems and coins. (Dierdre quietly keeps her previous haul to herself…) After nearly an hour they have looted several thousand coins of copper, silver and gold; a silver chalice and several gems ranging from a piece of rose quartz to a black pearl.

The session ends with the party leaving the tower cellar with several bags of treasure and a content wizard in tow. They intend to rest the night and get back to Gaelyn’s mission in the morning.