Being the brave and bold adventurers that they were, or perhaps because they felt a little bit guilty about unleashing an undead army, they soon returned to the site of their first adventure together. The monk and cleric stayed behind, because the rest of the party neglected to mention that they were leaving.

When they arrived at the entrance, they noticed that there had been some heavy traffic in the area since their last visit. Undaunted, they pressed on to the depths of the chambers, where they discovered that the entrance that they had blocked off was no longer blocked off. As they descended down the earthen ramp, they also noted that the innumerable undead had left these underground burial chambers vacant. They wandered around the immense crypts for a while, until finally coming across an archway to a smaller chamber.

Four columns ascended upwards into the darkness, and in the middle of the chamber was a stone altar, and a curious bowl on a pedestal. Observing some rust colored stains around the altar and the bowl, the brave and not-so-wise rogue immediately slit his finger and dripped some blood into the bowl. A shimmering field sprang into existence over the archway. They were safely trapped inside this room now, which was better than the two clerics and monk, who showed up on the other side shortly afterwards, in heated combat with a few zombies.

No, that's not quite right. One of the clerics was already in the room, so I'm not really sure who was on the other side. At any rate, the new cleric and the old cleric combined their abilities to channel positive energy and were able to bring the other group through the archway with them.

Anyhow, after thoroughly searching the room, and the next, they found a few scrolls, and discovered that one of the walls had curious holes in it, as did the adjacent part of the floor. The monk spent a great deal of time learning how to climb and pole vault, but that didn't get them much closer their goal, whatever it might have been.

Eventually they discovered a secret passage twenty feet above them. I can't remember who the fool was that went in first. Probably the rogue, but maybe the barbarian. Whoever it was got quickly munched by a ghoul. Actually most of the party got munched by a couple of ghouls, and they spent a fair amount of time playing undead ping-pong with the evil cleric who kept rebuking the turned undead.

Eventually the party won out, but only just barely. They narrowly avoided a couple of deaths, too.

Beyond this little chamber was a very spacious room, with heavy doors on the other 3 walls, and a curious statue in the middle. The writing around the statue was written in the celestial alphabet, but the language was hard to decipher. They gleaned the name of Khortel, which seemed to be the strange figure depicted by the statue. It was wearing robes which covered all but hands and face. The face was strangely blank, much like a fencer's mask. In place of fingers, the hand ended in long, slender tentacles.