A Town in Decay, a Cult Uncovered, and a Prisoner Taken

We elected to unravel the mysteries of the Void Water Mine, under the partial guise of helping to get the mine restarted. We were escorted by the guard, who were heading up to take their shift in the town of Méloir des-Ondes. We were sent to meet up with Terris, at the Falling Rod. Which, perhaps, was named based on the likelihood of things falling on you in the dilapidated building. The town with such a promising name (Meloir of the Waves) turned out to be sort of a rundown ramshackle of a town. And perhaps the darkness that is settling like a mist on the land has had its impact here, and should we ever find and eradicate the source, the town may shine again. Or maybe it will remain a broken-down dirty little outpost. But I prefer to think the former over the latter.
 
Nevertheless, we met our man, and were just settling in to get some more information when the local cleric came in and started yelling about the evil of the mine and that it needed to be shut down. Terris told him to fuck right off, but the speech apparently wound up some of the locals who decided to attack the elf. (Which dear reader, is me. (I get that a lot.)) Of note, the eyes of each of the attackers (who were just regular townsfolk that Terris knew by name) were all shot through with black veins. Which we took to be a Bad Sign.
 
At any rate, we managed to knock them each unconscious and tie them up under the guard's protection. (Props to Griswold, btw, who stepped right into the fray, with a most unusual flailing of arms. If he hit any less effectively, he might have accidentally healed his assailant. To his credit, he may never have been in a bar fight before. And if he's lucky, will never be in one again. But a gold star for effort!) Questioning the tainted townsfolk proved utterly fruitless, so we knocked them out again. I did some spying in the church using a frog shape while Griswold kept an overall eye on the place to make sure nothing untoward happened to the frog. I discovered both an antechamber and a secret door. I came back to the party and related what I found -- The general idea was that I was going to sneak back into the antechamber in frog form, and they were going to chat up the cleric while I resumed my normal form to unlock the secret door and quietly investigate what was behind it.
 
What we found was that the cleric was not home, and we fell prey to the "Fuck Its" and decided to all just go through the secret door together. We discovered a spiral staircase that led a *long* way down, into an odd chasm -- partially carved, partly natural -- that glowed a most unusual light. There was also some chanting going on, and we all sort of strolled just into view, froze, and all tiptoed back out of sight. Which, if anyone would have noticed, would have looked pretty amusing. Having fell back, we began to talk about our strategy, but caught the Fuck Its again, and all just came piling back in determined to fight whatever was there. Which, I suppose, is a form of strategy.
 
Turns out, what was there was the priest, a handful of the commoners, a few larger, more dangerous uncommoners, and a Very Very Dangerous, exceedingly uncommon, giant abomination of a foul creature made of flesh. We did a good job of knocking off the weaker enemies first to eliminate the number of attacks against us, and turned our attention to the priest, the big dude, and the really, really big dude.
 
There were some solid attacks and the party continues to coalesce as a fighting unit. Barton and Griswold dealt out some strong magic from behind the lines (huge props to Barton with some of his support and healing spells that literally were life-savers.) Verixititus and Dagos held the front line (other than that one time when Dagos went sprinting out of battle, only to come sprinting back again a moment later. I wasn't paying enough attention to what was happening but my best guess is he forgot to pee before battle, ran back to take a leak, and came running up again to resume fighting.). For myself, I was moderately effective, and was thankful to have my fey companion fighting with us. Near the end, my wolf and I ran over to knock the cleric out -- I wanted him out of battle, but definitely wanted him alive for questioning. I tied and gagged him to make sure he won't be any trouble while we sorted stuff out.
 
Speaking of stuff: There was a small trove of items that I think are going to be *super* useful to the party. I, for one, will feel a lot more confident helping hold the front line when needed with the new spear and shield. And the web-casting wand that landed with Barton is going to be a damn handy thing to have when fighting crowds: Immobilize the crowd, then the magic users of the group cast area spells at them. Should be a good show. We also picked up a scroll that will revive someone from the dead if just recently departed, a handful of gold and gems, and a notebook over which we will need to come to a quick resolution.
 
The notebook contains instructions on creating a flesh golem -- which is an abomination to nature and I am 100% insistent that we immediately destroy those pages. Griswold, I think, is going to be resistant to that, and it will, unfortunately, be a hard test of the party. I just don't see a way past this. I literally exist in this world to help keep balance in nature, and am sworn to destroy that which tears at the very fabric of nature. These pages qualify.
 
This is not a function of being anti-knowledge or anti-magic. Just as religions all draw from the Divine Nature, Magic draws, at its core, from the elemental forces of nature. So I am not anti-magic by any means. And the druids have been the keepers of knowledge for our civilizations for as long as history exists. But this particular combination of knowledge and magic that are used create an aberration/abomination, I will do all in my power to destroy, without hesitation.
 
I have spoken.