Before heading to sleep for the night, Arik, Zedlyn, and Adokas discuss how they will handle the head merchant, Hassan, in order to convince him to give them another day (Iriellis and Flossaria being at the healer's, and Sharla being nowhere to be found). While he can surely be compensated with gold to convince him to delay, they attempt to find a cheaper solution.
For their first attempt, they try to make a mild poison, just strong enough to make him too sick to travel. Adokas and Zedlyn purchase the needed reagents from the healer, claiming that they need them for an antidote. Unfortunately, Adokas fails to make the poison in the short amount of time they have.
Next, they go speak to Hassan and attempt to convince him to drink with them at the common room, hoping to get him drunk enough to be hung over the next morning. However, Hassan's tastes are too refined and he has no interest in partaking of the local ale.
They then try explaining to him that they've made a bargain with the Iron God to clear out the catacombs, and given that the God has already shown itself to be vengeful against those who betray it, they would be risking disaster by leaving without fulfilling the bargain. Hassan is unhappy to hear that they've entered a bargain that conflicts with their duties as guards, and he is unconvinced by their argument. He reasons that if the Iron God takes any sort of vengeance, it will be against them and not himself.
With all their ideas exhausted, the trio finally fall back on their last option, simply compensating the merchant for any profits lost due to the delay. After a short haggling session, they agree to compensate him 140 gold pieces for each day they delay.
With another day secured before the caravan needs to leave, everyone beds down for the night, with several characters making use of the healer's services once again. Bright and early the next morning, they head out to the monastery and back into the catacombs.
Back in the catacombs, the characters return to the central dial room, and head through the western passage. Beyond are several passages which lead to two rooms full of alcoves, and well as four different dead ends. Three of these dead ends are searched, with no results, but the fourth one is protected by a pit / pressure plate, spotted by Flossaria. They decide to leave this particular dead end alone for now, as it would be very difficult to search it while skirting the pit.
Inside the first alcove room, Flossaria catches a bit of movement out of the corner of her eye as they're inspecting the area, and she moves to investigate, holding out the pole-mounted ceremonial lantern to light up the alcove where she saw it. This turns out to be a good choice, as a giant, foot-long centipede leaps out of the alcove and attacks the lantern. Iriellis hurls a flask of embalming fluid at the lantern, which hits it directly and explodes, charring the creature to a crisp. Searching the rest of the alcoves, the party find nothing more than a smattering of coins, which they take.
The second alcove room contains about 60 alcoves and is uninhabited. Searching all the alcoves, the party find two items of interest: a scroll case and a small book entitled "Hymns to the Iron God". The scroll case contains a single piece of apparently blank parchment; they party try several different ideas intended to reveal hidden writing but are unable to make anything of it. The hymns appear to be mostly prosaic and uninteresting, but as Iriellis is reading it, one particular hymn catches her eye, entitled "The Eater of the Dead", and reading as follows:
"Fear the Eater of the Dead,
Stalker, tomb-walker,
Clothed in stone.
He who find him cannot bind him,
He who leads him soon feeds him,
He who sees him frees him."
The group spend some time discussing the implications of this hymn, ultimately deciding to completely avoid the Eater of the Dead if possible, and to take special care to not look at it.
With this area fully explored, the party head to the northwest from the dial room, heading to the passageway where they heard movement the previous day. As they step forward into a room, they are ambushed by a ghoul, but its clumsy steps mean that nearly everyone hears it coming; only Flossaria is caught by surprise. Iriellis commands the creature back as Arik steps forward and takes a swing at it, but as it retreats, its four zombie allies advance and attack the red-skinned warrior. The party has some difficulty getting everyone into the room to fight, with their bulky statue allies blocking the hallway, but with the aid of Iriellis and Flossaria's holy power, they make short work of the creatures, with only Arik sustaining minor wounds.
With the undead dealt with, they take a closer look at the room, which turns out to be yet another room full of alcoves (about 30 of them). Searching the room, they find two items of interest - a stack of 4 silver plates, and a heavy mace in perfect condition. The party assume that its perfect condition means that it must be magical and take it; they take the plates as well. Finally, each corpse in the room has two silver pieces placed over its eyes, for a total of 60 silver pieces. They discuss taking these as well, but, remembering the cursed bowl of silver pieces from the floor above, they decide not to risk it.
The party return to near the room where Iriellis was poisoned the previous day, taking the western branch instead of the eastern branch. The western passage leads to a long, narrow room containing about 100 alcoves. They again take the time to search through the alcoves, but this time they turn up nothing of interest; the alcoves contain nothing but decomposing bodies.
At this point, they know of only a single passage left unexplored, the eastern passage at the bottom of the long north-south passage near the dial room. Stepping through the passage and peeking around the corner, they look into a room containing dozens (or more) of armed and armored skeletons, standing in orderly ranks. The skeletons either don't notice them or don't react to their presence, but the group is left with the question - how exactly will they handle taking on so many undead creatures at once?
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