On the trail... of something or other!

We decided to go speak with Saliah Nightfoot to see how her investigation was going and compare notes. She felt that she had been followed since last we spoke with her. She thought it was probably the Grey Maidens. She had poked around the cathedral of Pharasma & had found that the clergy was acting oddly, though she could not put her finger on anything particular. She was not sure how long she was going to be hanging around, so she offered us some items she thought we might be able to use. She also told us she had been hearing about people going missing from all over the city. We told her to stay in and stay safe. She decided to go with us to investigate the Grey district. When we got there we went to where we had fought the Profane Ghouls. The corpses were still laying where we left them. We felt this was once again very odd for clergy of Pharasma to leave these Undead we had reported laying around. We tried to track them back to where they came from with no success. We then started looking for opened mausoleums. While doing that we ran across a huge monstrous looking spider thing seemingly made of blood! We reacted accordingly. Noone was able to tell what this creature was, but when it died it turned out not to be made of blood. It was sticky to the touch. It was scary, but we managed to defeat it without too much trouble. Grett was able to track the creature back to the front entrance of the cathedral. The tracks were about 3-4 days old. At this point we were fairly certain that something was wrong with the cathedral of Pharasma. We pushed our way in using waving our writ from the Queen around. We were soon accosted by acting Bishop Abridan. We explained that we were attacked a second time in the cemetery nearby. He told us to leave or he would have an armored man nearby, who he called Tungort, would make us leave. When we again explained we had the Writ, Tungort advanced on our group. However, as he did, he turned into some sort of huge Demonic creature! Shortly afterward, acting Bishop Abridan called for reinforcements from further into the cathedral. Soon, 3 Strigoi, as identified by Aronel, came running in to attack the group. The regular clerics and the commoners all ran away once they saw the huge demonic creature. The fight was tough, but we eventually prevailed. We killed the monsters and took acting Bishop Abridan prisoner. The town guard soon arrived. We turned the prisoner over to the guards & began to investigate further. After we finished healing up Aronel went to inspect the former Bishop in her casket. As he did, she loo0ked back, her lips curling away from bloody fangs! A brief battle ensued with her being struck down again. We wrapped the corpse and took her to a quiet spot in the cemetery to expose her to sunlight, destroying the Undead.
We then returned to the cathedral to close it and send the remaining citizens away. Brinna was able to do so gracefully. We went inside to speak with the other priests, pulling the outer doors closed behind us. We found 6 of the priests in their chambers, but we began to suspect there was something wrong them. Grett cast detect magic and confirmed they had some sort of enchantment on them. We left them alone, planning to return the following day so Grett could try to dispel the enchantments. We continued to look around. In several rooms we found papers strewn about the tables. In one room we found religious texts that contained several rituals. We also found a tome emblazoned with the Korvosan coat of Arms. This was the tome stolen from the Longacre Building! We took it to return to it's rightful owners (and the reward). Continuing to explore we found some objects in cases labeled with plaques. They seemed to be items of interest to the faithful of Pharasma. Looking them over we could tell that some seemed to have been replaced at some point. We decided to leave them alone. We next found an embalming area, with a mahogany railing overlooking the main hall. Looking further we found a hall full of tapestries. We passed through into another room where we found cloth burial shrouds. In this last room we found a spiral stairwell leading downward into darkness. As we discussed that it was time to go rest the invisible creature standing in the room decided it was time to fight! Roll initiative!