So many ways to explore!

We took some time to rest and heal up, then continued exploring. We did notice that the dining area doors had all been closed by someone or something. We chose to rest in the secret area to be safe! We opened another secret door from the back out of the secret passage. Inside this room we saw a blue skinned woman covered in chains. Mel could not see it, but felt from the description this was probably some sort of Fiend. After the woman quickly started to become agitated Griska swung the door closed and we discussed whether we should just leave her alone. We eventually decided to just leave her be, heading back to the room where we fought the Crawling Claws and Flickerwisps. Sprite and Rosa were able to identify the shrine here was dedicated to Nhimbaloth. We left the door to the west from here closed, guessing it led to the room with the blue-skinned woman. We headed through the eastern door, finding a narrow North-South corridor with stairs leading up and down. We headed up the stairs to the north. After rising several floors we found a door. We opened and found an underground camp area with a man & his wolf camped there. He allowed us to pass, but did not seem interested in conversing too much. Past his room more stairs led upwards. As we headed up the stairs we saw the green light once again. It coalesced into words on the wall "Gauntlight is a weapon built to raze Absalom. It must be brought down". It then turned back into a moving light and headed down the stairs. We followed it back through the man's camp, apologizing and moving slowly past him and his wolf. The light led us down through a rough hewn area to where it passed around a corner, over some water. The group quickly followed, finding the light had not gone too far. It had stopped on a small island ahead with some rotting humanoid remains. As we approached, a ghost suddenly sprang into being, shouting "Careful, the eyes of the empty death"! At which point 3 glowing creatures popped into existence and attacked! We recognized 1 of them as a Will-O-Wisp & the other 2 as Flickerwisps. We proactively beat Graklak unconscious once again. The Ghost helped us win the fight.
Afterward, he thanked us and introduced himself as Otari Ilvashti. He explained that his companions in the Rose Guard thought he died in the fight with Belcorra. In actuality he had fallen below, into these tunnels that his group did not know about. He died down here and these spirits had been feeding on his Ghost since then. We asked if there was some way to lay him to rest. He said we had done enough, but that he wanted to help us. He told us that Belcorra had returned and was working toward destroying Absalom once again. Something about these lower catacomb areas increased the frequency of Spirits, Ghosts, Haunts, etc within them. He told us that Belcorra was a Ghost, tethered to these ruins. However, her range was increasing. He did not know of a way to destroy her, but felt that there must be clues to how this could be done. He asked if we had encountered "the Barrier". We said we had not, but he felt we would not be able to pass it without destroying it. He explained that we would need to collect and place the 4 icons the Rose Guard once held dear on a nearby altar.. His tools were the 1st icon. We also needed a brooch with the holy symbol of Erastul. A spell book & a longsword. We should place them on an altar we find near the barrier, in a room with a long hall with a shrine and Sarcophagi lined up in alcoves. We recognized this hall by the description! Mel knew that the rest of the members of the Rose Guard had lived out their lives in Otari, after founding it in his name. He answered a few more questions and then laid down in his body and disappeared forever!
As we passed back through the way we had come, Rosa recognized that there were some remains under some fungus along the wall. It seemed to be the remains of an Otyugh! We noticed a pipe angling up into the wall, leading to the west. Zebott looked and could see some sort of door at the far end, just the other side of the wall. However, he could not find a grip inside the slippery pipe. Mel took over, turning into a spider and scampering up the pipe easily! She soon found this led into the room where we had fought the Poltergeist. We gathered up his remains and gear, then headed back to town. We took the remains to the Dawnflower Library. We found Vandy Banderdash in a tizzy. Apparently, sometime the previous night the Blacksmith Carmen had decided to take the longsword of his great-grandfather. The sword was on display at the Dawnflower Library. To accomplish this he had set a fire as a distraction. This was, of course, the longsword we need to drop the barrier! She asked us to see if we could track him down and bring him, and the sword, back. When we told her about needing the icons from the founders of Otari she told us that Morlibint had the spell book and the mayor had the brooch. When we questioned her about the theft we found that noone had actually seen who committed the crime. However, Carmen was now missing and was known to be a trouble-maker. We headed to see the Guard Captain to discuss our investigation. He was fine with us looking for Carmen. We got permission to look for clues at Carmen's house. Investigating the house we found no clues, but as we headed out towards Absalom Mel overheard someone talking about Smuggler's Refuge. This seemed like as likely an area as any for Carmen to have fled to. We headed there. When we arrived we found a campsite with a cold campfire. Mel was able to find some tracks entering the nearby cave. We followed them inside and were soon confronted by 2 Shadows. We were able to defeat them fairly quickly, but not before Mel had her shadow ripped lose! After defeating the 2 original shadows we found that the new shadow just stood there, looking like a silhouette of Mel. We chose to head back outside to rest, after destroying Mel's shadow. We found that each hour rested helped Mel feel better. After 3 hours she was back in fighting form and her shadow had reformed, attached to her once again.
Re-entering the cave we soon found Carmen was indeed here. He turned out to be as much of a schmuck as the Otari Guard Captain said he was. He was unwilling to return to Otari or give up the sword. We talked about it for a while, but eventually agreed to take him with us to the Gauntlight so we could use the sword there. Griska, Graklak, Rosa and Mel stayed to watch him, while Sprite and Zebott headed back to town to get the other 2 icons - the Spell Book and the Brooch. After some explaining to Morlibint and the mayor they managed to gain the items and return to Smugglers Refuge. By the time they returned it was dusk. We rested for the night & headed out the following morning.
Arriving back at the Gauntlight we headed down to the altar. Placing the items on the altar the barrier was dropped. Carmen agreed to wait in the dining hall until we came back to get him. We headed down the now open stairway ahead. At the bottom of the stairwell we encountered a Gibbering Mouther and 2 Grothluts. Before the fight was over Griska was once again engulfed and dropped by the Gibbering Mouther, but not before he could grab hold of it's guts and thump it twice from inside! Luckily, Mel was able to stab it good and drop it right after, revealing the unconscious Orc. We then finished off the last Grothlut & decided to take a rest!