The party makes their way north, about a mile away from the city. As they approach the caves, they scout around some, with Theiáfi flying up some to scout out any other potential entrances. She found one that might have worked, but they decide on using the main entrance they found.

Light pours in from outside, illuminating a 10′ entrance, and showing an ogre enjoying a nice, warm mud bath. The party begins to sneak up to the entrance, noticing there are a few goblins with shortbows on ledges, but none of them are paying attention. Eventually Pyro stumbles and makes enough of a ruckus to be seen. One of the goblins yell out ‘Bree-yark!’ and begins shooting. The rest of the party joins in, most of them being in the entrance as well.

Theiáfi and Daeva attack the closest goblin, Landis and Arianna move in to block the ogre and his mate from getting to the less armored party members, while Pyro, Dot and Mordai blast away from behind their armored comrades. The group all take a few hits here and there, but mostly the goblins go down without too much trouble. Before being killed, one of the ogres deals a fatal blow to Daeva, crushing his body with a savage blow from it’s greatclub. The party, hurt, out of spells, and getting tired, finally manage to down the last ogre with a cutting word of derision about her mate.

After combat, the group explores the cave where possible (Landis struggles a bit here without reliable light sources), and discover 6 branching tunnels off from the main cavern. They also discover a stalagmite “forest” where the ogre’s had made a nest. Gross as it is, it provides good cover from being seen, and the party decides to rest. During this 8 hour period, Theiáfi performs a ritual to restore Daeva’s body and bring his spirit back from the dead, and is successful. The group also takes watches, and there is some pretty heartfelt dialogue between Landis and Pyro. On Dot and Theiáfi’s watch, Dot notices a few goblins come from the northwest tunnel, and enter the northeast tunnel. She hears some screaming, and notices a young woman being dragged out, screaming and struggling for dear life until a goblin knocks her out to make her easy to carry. Dot chooses to not risk saving this woman while hurt, possibly damning the rest of the villages to death, and keeps her silence about it until after they had regained some measure of their strength.

After they’ve all finished their rest, Dot reveals what she witnessed during the break, and after some initial outrage, the group formulates a plan. They discuss it for awhile, but decide that its been long enough that the young woman may already be dead, but that they might be able to save anyone remaining in the tunnel to the north east. As they approach, a massive swarm of bats gets agitated and reduces all vision for several feet. The party fights through it, taking a bit of damage here and there, and finally come across some villagers. Landis finds Morak Ur’gray, the defacto leader of the villagers, while Arianna finds the tiefling and halfing familes, and after managing to convince them she isn’t there to eat them (using perfectly spoken Halfing to convince them), the villagers begin to realize they might be saved.

While Landis and Arianna are talking with the villagers, Theaifi is managing to calm down the bats, and get them to settle. After this, the party once again discusses the best course of action, with some wanting to arm the villagers with any spare weapons they have and send them on their way while they investigate the missing girl (discovered to be Hildy Delfryndel, a 14 year old girl), with others wanting to escort the villagers all the way back to Nightstone. After several minutes, Morak finds his voice, and says that he can lead the battered and hurt villagers back himself, gladly receiving the spare weapons the group has. He assures you no harm will come to them, and to please put an end to this madness, and to meet him back in Nightstone when they are finished.