Sir Loin becomes shredded beef

After looking over Dora's body one last time, the party decided that in case a raise dead ritual was possible, they ought to remove a body part for the ritual.  From there, they determined that, although the area didn't see fully secure, they would try and rest on the ledge next to the water. Through ten hours of rest and a series of watches, the party was alerted only to the sounds of the rushing water and open caverns of the Underdark.

After sharing a meal, the party decided its best option would be to examine the pile of bedrock that seems to have collapsed from above.  After several hours of grueling hard labor, the moved enough of the shards of bedrock to cause the top of the pillar of rock to collapse revealing what was perhaps a tube leading up into the mountain.  Using the rock pillar as a ladder they climbed up to the tube and found themselves in what seemed like a very deep well (at least that was their idea) with a partial floor created from the remainder of the pillar beneath them.  Notched into the sides of the tube were metal rungs that they used to climb for two more hours.  At midday, Thorm came up over the top of the tube hole. 

The back of the hole opening was actually part of the wall, allowing only a small crawl point to squeeze through into an even smaller room.  A room wasn't even the right description as the space was more of a 5x5 area with layed stone for the floor and the only wall was also heavy stone directly in front of him.  A quick examination of the stone and Thorm knew clearly that the stone was Dwarven-carved.  In order to make room for the rest of the group still on the ladder, Thorm searched fruitlessly for a lever or pressure plate to move the wall.  Brute strength ended up his ally, pushing enough stones down to reveal a larger chamber.  He cracked a sunrod and tossed it through the hole, noting it dropped far enough to down to figure on a 40-50' drop.  He pushed the remainder of the stones down to find himself on a catwalk of stone that surrounded the room below it.  To the left, the catwalk wrapped to a lower landing with stairs to the main chamber, while to the right it led up to a landing with a set of double doors.  In the chamber below, a small iron door was set in the opposite wall.  They made their way down to the lower level, noting the walls were the same stone used to block in that hole.  They thought perhaps someone blocked that off but were still unclear why.  The lower level of the room appeared to be a forge, with a half finished sword sitting in what was once the firepit.  Bits of metal atop the anvil were loose bits of mithril.  They entered the door on the opposite wall and found a small antechamber with a half dozen skeletal Dwarven remains.  Most had apparently died from several crossbow bolts, all of which were sized for hand crossbows.  One however had distinct holes on its skull, bored directly and smoothly through the skull in the spot where horns would be.  Scratches also marked the sides and back of the skull.  A small iron door off of this antechamber was locked, but Thorm's dungeoneering skill allowed him to rig a lock pick.  Although they could hear movement in the room beyond, they decided to return to the forge room and inspect the double doors at the top.

While the larger doors appeared locked, Thorm again unlocked them but found them blocked from the inside.  Unwilling to be detered, Wyndham blasted the iron doors with cold spells until they were brittle enough to be hammered in with forging tools.  They exposed a small flap on the bottom right door and crawled through.  It was clear immediately that a very large statue of Moradin had fallen from its perch to the East and blocked the door with its upraised arm.  The sound and smell of undead filled the chamber.  Thorm moved to the left to the base of the statue to get a better looked, tossed the sunrod into the very large memorial chamber and noted a very wide, very long chamber with fallen statues from both sides, blocking most of the room.  Several green-skinned undead dwarves lurked about the chamber and shrieked at the sight of the Thorm, closing in immediately.  Sir Loin ran in for backup while Wyndham lurked back blasting the undead dwarves with his spells.  While the stench of the dead slowed the party's movement, their claw attacks literally paralyzed them!  While holding off the dead, a deadlier threat shambled into the battle zone - a mummified dwarf, blasting Thorm with a spell but Sir Loin imposed himself between the mummy and Thorm.  While Thorm and Wyndham waded through the undead, Sir Loin destroyed the mummy without any serious damage to himself, but was cut down immediately after trying to move past two of the remaining undead.  The first crippled him with a claw attack, while the others leapt on him chewing through the flesh of his neck with devastating effect.  He fell proudly within seconds.  With a surge of anger, Thorm cut down the remaining undead.

In less that 24 hours, the Band of Jenkins had lost two of its core members and only Edhas, Thorm and Wyndham remained in the large shrine of Moradin, deep within the mountains.

Dora, Dora, Dora is no-mora

After committing to the hidden passageway, the party headed down the natural bedrock corridor.  Thorm estimated that they dipped roughly 20' lower into the earth.  Fifty feet into the cavern, a ten foot natural bedrock hole blocked the path.  Unclear what led to the collapse, the party leaped over the hole then used rope to lower Edhas down the hole.  Twenty feet into the hole, it opened into a  lower chamber with a forty-fifty foot drop to a rushing water.  To the south, a ledge ran along the shore of the river.  They pulled her back up the hole then proceeded further down the corridor.  Near some rubble fallen from above, they found a dead dwarven body, several years removed from death.  They bundled the bones and buried him beneath the rubble for a proper burial.  He was adorned with armor that Dora recognized as part of the Glintshield Clan.  Further down the corridor, the party found a complete drop down to the ledge that Edhas could see. 

They decided to use rope to anchor the party as they made their way down the wall.  Edhas led the way followed by Sir Loin.  As Sir Loin reached roughly ten feet from the corridor, a giant creature scurried across the wall and cut the rope, dropping Sir Loin and Edhas forty feet to the rocky ledge below.  Wyndham leaped from the corridor and used his feather fall ring to safely land below.  Meanwhile the creature, a hook horror isolated Thorm and Dora above.  From below, three grimlocks emerged from hiding and attacked the fallen characters.  The hook horror lashed at Thorm, tossing him out the ledge and isolating Dora even further.  Although she turned invisible, the creature used its echolocation to "see" Dora, grabbing her with both claws and tossing her across the chasm to the far wall, from where she fell the full distance to the ledge below, crushing her limbs and insides. 

Once all the party was on the ledge below, the hook horror joined the grimlocks in attacking the party.  While both Edhas and Sir Loin collapsed in combat, Thorm was able to Lay on Hands and revive each of them while cutting down the Hook Horror.  Meanwhile, as the party increasingly was beaten down by the the grimlocks, their beserking attacks pushed them to the limits.  As Thorm killed the first grimlock, Sir Loin destroyed the second followed by Wyndham's final lightening strike to drop the last of them. 

A quick check of Dora revealed not only her broken remains, which Sir Loin committed to burying properly, but also a substantial amount of hidden treasures, which the party distributed, while diviing up her magic items.  Further down the ledge, the party observed that the ledge ended with a small cave mouth on the north wall.  Further up river, it seemed the river reached a waterfall about twenty feet further.  Additionally a large pile of debris and rock seems to have caved in from above.  The debris reaches all the way up the forty feet to a spot on the cavern roof that now seems blocked. 

Unsure of their next step, the party decided that rest was sorely needed but wasn't sure if the ledge would provide them with the security they would need to get that rest.  With no other immediate option, and no way back up to the hole above, this ledge provided them with their only option for now.

Pursuing the Children

Determined to get to the bottom of the kidnapped drow children, Edhas led the party out of Winterhaven north back towards the Abbey.  Several miles south of the mountain, Edhas caught sight of the prints nearby where they encountered the party of Orcs and Drow.  They followed the prints several miles until the reached the site of what appeared to be a battle - blood stains, scattered dirt, light armor pieces, arrows.  Here the prints were mixed with other bipeds as well as some sort of creature prints that they suspected were large spider legs.  They followed these prints several miles to the southeast until the prints turned south towards the mountains.  At the base of the mountains, the prints went into a cave mouth. 

Traveling deep into the cave opening, Wyndham and Edhas scouted ahead and located a moveable wall to the west.  As soon as the wall opened inward, several undead creatures from the north and south end of the cave surrounded the two heroes while the rest of the party was forced to rush down the cave to assist Edhas and Wyndham.  While battling the hungering dead, Dora blasted away at the abyssal wights and ghouls until she dropped almost all of them.  Confident that the danger was passed, they settled in to decide whether to move further into the cave or through the hidden passageway.