With the statue warriors at their side, the party decide to see if the presence of the statues will have any effect on the areas of impenetrable darkness. They gather together and march into the darkness with the statues following. The presence of the statues doesn't have any effect on the darkness, though, so they abandon that plan and debate what to do next.
The group are divided between investigating the lower catacombs and using the statues to take on the second group of goblins; after some debate, they decide to go further down into the catacombs via the stairway found in the room with the statue of the Iron God. The stairs take them down into an ancient-looking man-made area, where the walls are filled with alcoves holding skeletons. Curiously, the feeling of the supernatural that they experienced when entering the upper catacombs vanishes as they walk down the stairs.
The first chamber they enter contains passages to the west and south, along with several dozen alcoves cut into the walls. Giving the alcoves a cursory inspection, they find that they are all occupied by skeletons, but one in particular has an unusual occupant - an iron skeleton. It's a complete skeleton, clearly forged rather than created by whatever turned the priests above into iron. It's held together by bolts and mostly intact. The party aren't sure what to make of it; they can't find any apparent use for it or reason why it's there.
Heading through the western passage, it quickly brings them to a smaller room. This room has obviously been visited by the necromancers above, because as the party enter, ten skeletons arise and attack! Iriellis presents the holy symbol of Slid with conviction, and the holy light forces the skeletons to cower in the corners of the room. The group's melee fighters advance along with the statues and make short work of the creatures. Zedlyn sustains some injury and a few of the statues are damaged, but overall there are no casualties on the group's side.
Investigating the chamber, which appears to be a dead end, the party find that it contains another twenty or so alcoves, all of which are empty. They speculate that the priests used all of the skeletons from the alcoves here as fodder for their necromancy. One of the skeletons that they destroyed was wearing a golden crown / circlet, which they take. Wondering if it might have something to do with the iron skeleton to the east, they quickly double back to that room and place the circlet on the skeleton's skull. It doesn't have any noticeable effect.
Back in the skeleton room, Flossaria spots something unusual on the north wall, and on closer inspection, a section of the wall slides open into a secret door! Behind the secret door is a dusty, disused passage that immediately turns to the west. Making her way through, Flossaria gets about halfway down the passage when a trap door opens under her feet and sends her tumbling into a pit trap. Fortunately, Flossaria is sturdy and the fall isn't too bad; the rest of the party hear her cries and arrive with rope to help her climb out.
At the other end of the passage is a door that opens to the south - concealed from the other side, but easily visible from this side. However, the statues aren't able to navigate past the pit trap, so they are left behind. The door opens into another alcove-filled room, with a passage heading to the south. Glancing down the passage, the party see that it ends in an east-west tee intersection. The party decide that they don't know for sure where the secret passage has taken them, and that they would rather have their statue warrior escort with them, so they'd rather return to the first room of the lower catacombs and explore the southern passage from there.
They do so, and this passage heads down as far as their lantern illuminates and more, with an opening to the east and two openings to the west visible. As they advance, Flossaria spots a hint of movement in the shadows of the east opening. Supposing the movement to be that of goblins, Zedlyn calls out in the goblin tongue, but gets no reply.
On the alert for danger, the party advance forward, and as they round the eastern passage and lantern light floods in, they see that it's not goblins, but rather two ghoulish-looking creatures, advancing towards them with a loping gait and disturbing grins. Flossaria holds up her holy symbol of Mung, but the creatures are more amused than anything else, and continue to advance. But when Iriellis joins in as well, their combined holy power shifts the scales and drives the creatures back.
What they weren't counting on is a third creature emerging from the west passage. This third ghoul leaps at Flossaria and rakes her with its claws. A chill sensation rapidly spreads from the wound across Flossaria's entire body, and she drops to the ground unconscious. The rest of the party attack this third creature, and rapidly cut it down. They turn their attention to the two creatures cowering to the east, and attack with missile weapons from behind the statues. This attack allows the creatures to overcome their fear of Iriellis's holy light, and they charge forward. One of them catches Zedlyn with a bite, and he goes down just as Flossaria did. But with the aid of the statues, the two creatures are killed without further injuries to the party.
The group now have a conundrum, with two of their members out for an unknown length of time - they're still alive, but unable to move, and no one is sure how long the paralysis will last. Furthermore, while they're carrying the bodies, they don't have enough free hands to also carry the holy implements that cause the statues to follow and assist them. They decide to leave the statues behind and take Flossaria and Zedlyn up to the chamber above that's filled with inscriptions, so that Sharla can study them while they wait for their paralyzed companions to recover. Leaving Arik to guard their downed friends, the rest of the group head back down to retrieve the implements and the statues.
When they make their way back up with the statues, they're greeted by an unexpected sight: Arik is sitting against the wall, panting and surrounded by the bloody, chopped-up corpses of a dozen giant snakes. He tells them that a few minutes after they left him, the snakes started emerging from the walls and attacking. He managed to fight them off while only sustaining a few bites; those that he did take left him feeling a bit woozy, but he managed to fight the feeling off.
Within a half-hour or so, the effect of the ghouls' attacks wears off, and both Zedlyn and Flossaria regain consciousness. They party debate whether they are well enough to continue adventuring or whether they should return to Asuna, knowing that tomorrow is the day the caravan is supposed to leave.
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