Once more into the breach

Healing up after the battle we then decided to head back to town and just be thankful we were all still here! We rested for the night and then headed back in! We picked up where we left off. Following the tunnel we soon found it changed into a more circular hole that we felt was left behind by some sort of creature. The tunnel seemed to lead towards Otari. It turned out to lead into the basement of the Otari fishery! We chose to make note of this and tell them once we were back in town the next time. We headed back into the tunnel, making our way to the area below the lighthouse. We opened the southern door from that room. We soon found another room with 2 Ghouls in it worshipping at an altar of decaying body parts. We finished them off with little effort, then took some time to heal up. In the very next room we found 2 large mushroom creatures. Sprite was able to identify these creatures as Violet Fungus. We quickly finished them off. At the end of this room we found another door that opened onto a blank stone wall. We attempted various ways to get past the wall. Graklak dug at it using his mining skills with his magical pick. He was not even able to scratch the surface. Zebott detected magic & found that it was some sort of magic. Rosa tried to figure our what kind of magic, but was not able to tell anything more than this seemed to be from some sort of powerful ritual. We left the stone wall to it's own devices. We headed back to another area where we had left some doors un-opened. In the first room we found a skeleton grasping something. As we entered the room a ghostly woman appeared and told us to "Get to work"! Some of us sat and started looking over the papers. Some went to look at the skeleton. When the ghost noticed Graklak heading towards the skeleton she became very upset, readying to attack. Griska was able to calm her down by yelling at him to do the work and apologize to her. The group spent a few minutes working at getting information from her, such as her name (Chandriu Invisar), while pretending to transcribe as she watched. She confirmed she worked for Belcorra. Then, it happened... Graklak tried to help. He called attention to the skeleton on the floor, which sent the ghost into wails of grief, then anger! Griska quickly scooped up most of the bones & the picture frame before running out of the room. The rest of the group followed, with Graklak grabbing the remainder of the bones before fleeing as well. The portrait was of a smug looking drow, with a tiny gold plaque that read Volluk Azrinae. We took the remains back to Otari to have them interred.
We stayed the night in Otari, then headed back in the morning. Opening the next door we found stairs leading down. We went to last set of doors that we had found on this level. A double set of doors that led to a large room with an undead woman by a statue made of body parts. She immediately told us to give over our weapons & consent to being made part of the rotting flesh statue. We declined... She attacked and we mauled her. After the fight Mel noticed a secret door in an alcove to the west. We found a book written in Aklo with much information about Absolom, seemingly dictated by Belcorra. Various papers scattered around had information about the Gauntlight. A folio described the teleport pads around the complex, including the ritual! Another book, The Whispering Reeds, described several encounters with the outer Goddess Nhimbaloth. This book was a magical tome. All of this information looked like it would take some time go through. We headed back to Otari to start doing so. Luckily Sprite and Zebott both spoke Aklo! Noone could identify the Whispering Reeds tome, but Zebott read some of it. He discovered while it was originally written with the idea of advising people how to avoid falling under and spreading the influence of Nhimbaloth that the opposite had happened. This created a volume that spread her word & drew followers to seek out the tome & those who possessed it. Dun duh duh...