A Confession, Dangerous Tentacled Things, More Undead, and a Split Party

After searching the hidden temple and the cleric's room (where we took all correspondence that existed there), we came back down to question Aleef. He was surprisingly open and helpful. So I knocked him out. Verx and I went to fetch Terris so he could hear the whole story from a hidden vantage point -- as Aleef had pointed out, it probably looked bad that we killed five townsfolk. And Terris, quite understandably, was pretty appalled at the carnage he saw in the temple. But we calmed him enough to hide and listen to Aleef's confession again. After waking him back up, Barton managed to get him to pretty much confess to the whole enterprise, including how he had used the Void Water to create "followers" with the telltale black veins in their eyes.
 
Even with the confession, Terris was still pretty sketch about how we were going to explain this all to the townsfolk.We decided we would explore and hopefully clear the mine the next day, and deal with the messy situation in the temple of Hades for later. After a logistical hiccup (what are we going to do with the cleric?) and a lot of discussion about elaborate plans to get the cleric out, Barton just used some sort of magic or skill to carry him out we decided we'd take him along with us to the mine as something as a good luck charm, I guess. It definitely would keep him from escaping, but did leave open the possibility of him getting killed pretty easily, being all tied up as he was. So it goes.
 
Down in the mine, we ran into the missing miners, who had come back as undead; more abominations that I was eager to destroy. But not as eager, it turns out, as some tentacled slime thing was to destroy me, which it did quite efficiently, and in one shot. Griswold revived me, and upon looking around, I saw Verx in a similar heap, so I revived him, and in the end, we managed to put the tentacled slimy thing down.
 
BTW, the light from one of Barton's Faerie Fires had just touched the edge of a pool, and it turned the Void Water from a dark black to a milky grey. Worth noting, and I still have deep misgivings about Void Water in general, but it does appear that light destroys it, and it did not blow up.
 
As we were preparing to go, I insisted again on the destruction of the pages from the manual that described the process for creating a flesh golem -- an absolute obscenity to nature. I believe I had made my position on abominations consistently clear. Indeed, the rise of abominations in my home land is literally why I was sent on this quest to the mainland. I believe I have stated how strongly I feel about this repeatedly. I reiterated them again. Those pages are an anathema to everything I stand for. My very purpose in this world is to maintain the natural balance, and an actual god-damned manual on how to create something that I am sworn to destroy, absolutely must be destroyed.
 
At any rate, I forced another vote. And largely it came down 3-2. Verx and Barton sided with me, and Dagos waffled enough to count him on Griswold's side. Nevertheless, Griswold refused to hand over the book and insisted that he wanted to study and learn it off by heart if he could, or copy it down before it was destroyed. Which, you know, sort of defeats the purpose of destroying it.
 
More or less, everyone sort of shrugged and said fuck it, they weren't going to argue about it. Which was infuriating as well. Because, again, DESTROYING ABOMINATIONS IS LITERALLY WHAT MY PUROSE IN LIFE IS, nbd everybody.
 
Instinctively, I summoned a wolf by my side. It was a statement move. Maybe a dick move. It wasn't an attack but it was my line in the sand and I figured it would force an actual decision by the party, not another meaningless vote. Anyway, everyone was sort of like, "wait, what the fuck just happened, why is there a wolf here?" and Griswold fled the scene before anyone could really react -- which was not what I expected and makes the problem hard to resolve. I must find a way to fix what I've undone. It was, at best, a failed bluff. At worst, a betrayal to the party. If I could do it over, I'd have tried to steal it in the night, rip out the "How to build your own abomination to nature" section, given the book to Hulay to return, and fled town.
 
I feel shitty about how this went down and what this will do to the group. So it goes.