When we last left the party, Marcus the Fighter and Barry the Magic-User had been petrified from the gaze of a Basilisk. Their friends, the Elves Truus and Ripper and Linn the Thief, had retreated to the base of a tower aboveground to retrieve a mirror. Returning to the underground passage, the trio find the enemy Magic-User who charmed Ripper, accompanied by a heavily-armed Elven woman. They first use the mirror to petrify the Basilisk and then open fire on the Elven woman, who turns invisible, and Magic-User. Meanwhile, Barry is slowly regaining the use of his limbs and casts a sleep spell, snaring a small, previously hidden, impish creature. The Magic-User flees into his quarters but the Elven woman - revealed to be a half-orc assassin - appears between Linn and Truus, stabbing both adventurers and poisoning Linn. With a critical shot from his musket, Ripper takes the assassin down, but Linn slumps to the ground, dying from poison.
The party restores Linn by giving her one dose of a potion of greater healing, enabling her to recover. The group then continues into the Magic-User's chambers, discovering all manner of strange objects, including a strange, magically warded, map and a piece of parchment protected by a spell. Meanwhile, the petrifying effect on Marcus also wears off, and he wanders in the room with the rest of the party.
The Elves detect a hidden passage, beyond which Marcus finds the laboratory of the Magic-User. But there is no sign of the fugitive, he must have fled by magical means. Various potions, boxes full of coins and an assortment of gems are taken from the chamber. Barry takes two books - one of which is cursed - from bookstands in the room and five tomes full of magic spells from a cabinet. But is is Linn the Thief that finds the prize of the expedition. In an iron box, she finds a gilded human skull, radiating with magic and unease. Touching the skull with a finger, she briefly experiences a magical sensation. Placing a hand on the skull, she is flooded with insight to pierce all lies, to perceive evil intent and the knowledge to operate the altar on the abbey's surface level. She closes the box and, gathering up the treasures from the laboratory, the party heads back to the surface, and to Burg.
