Well, the PCs had another go under the ruins in the Rift. Halvor the Cleric, Berg the Dwarf, Kate the Halfling, Brigham the Cleric and Gibbet the Thief once more ventured in search of excitement, adventure and big piles of loot.
The first thing they did was finish up exploring the tower. They've been there on two previous occasions and had failed to find the room with the trapdoor down to the lower levels. They also hadn't made a map and ended up exploring some of the areas they'd been before.
In one of the rooms, they came upon some undead presences. These proved a little tricky as the PCs don't all have magic or silver weapons. But with Berg taking two hits and losing two levels, and Gibbet losing one, they did manage to overcome the entities before they were all back to First Level.
The PCs eventually came to a room they hadn't been before, as it was behind the only door they've found that they hadn't opened. Not in some Quantum Ogre sense, just because it was the furthest from the entrance. In the room, sitting on a rug that turned out to be top of the trapdoor, were a couple of prisoners and some Ogres. They Ogres died pretty quickly, the prisoners did not. Their names were Aben (a female Halfling) and Hames (a male Elf); they begged the PCs to rescue their friends (more prisoners had been taken down into the tunnels, it seemed), and agreed to come and help.
So, everyone rolled back the rug and opened the trapdoor, where they found a staircase heading down to the south. They followed it to a landing where stairs went east and west. The east stair smelled bad (probably Troglodytes down there) so they took the west stair. This opened into a wide E-W hall with various doors and corridors off. Taking a door on the north wall, they found themselves in a room where a man dressed in black was playing a lute and singing to to a female human, a female Ogre, and a couple of Giant Rats The female human was one of the captured NPCs, a young woman called Miranda, and there seemed to be some sort of magic going on. A fight rapidly ensued with the music-man being Held (then killed), the Ogre and the Rats being killed, and Miranda falling unconscious when the music-man died (and his spell was broken). On regaining consciousness, Miranda told them that the other prisoners had been added to a group already in the tunnels but that 'the man with the dark eyes' had taken a fancy to her and told the Ogres to hand her over to him. She agreed that coming with the party (given Aben and Hames were with them) was a good plan. So they looted the room as best they could and, after setting what was left on fire, they left.
On the way out, they ran into a couple of rough-looking fellows who seemed to be some sort of wandering guard patrol. Unconvinced by the PCs' explanation, the guards resolved to 'check with Eldwin' (the music chap with rats and women in his thrall, now dead and in a burning room). As they passed the party, a quick attempt at a surprise backstabbing was made... and failed. These guys too were immune to normal weapons apparently... so a short and vicious fight broke out between the PCs (five of them) and their NPC allies (three) on the one hand, and the two guards on the other. The only problem was that due to the lack of magical weapons, only about 4-5 of the PCs could fight anyway. But obviously, the PCs could deal with a pair of lycanthropes even so. Looting the bodies netted some sacks of low-value coins and a couple of pieces of expensive jewellery.
Deciding that by this point that is really was time to head back to the City, they made their way back to the exit. Heading out through the ruins, however, they ran into another patrol - this time 6 more lycanthrope guards. Again the fight was brutal but eventually 6 dead werewolves netted another 300GP for the coffers - and no-one from the party's side died. No-one was infected with lycanthropy either, though it was pretty close in some cases.
High-tailing it back up the forest path the party was back in Rift City in time for tea and the division of spoils. What will happen 'tomorrow' is anyone's guess...
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