They pass a closed room with strange scratching sounds, but unfortunately trigger a Rümbah by walking too close. The fight draws in horrors from other rooms - strange cat-things that come in pairs, and seem to switch between vulnerable and invincible. Donxeen obliterates the first cat of a pair, and its partner seems to fade away into nothing, while Cumfin and Emina make short work of the Rümbahs. Emina and Donxeen both back off, and Cumfin executes the last set of beasts with a series of merciless swipes from his sword, enhanced with the burning power of his faith. They backtrack into the dungeon, drawn to explore previous sections further before they continue deeper. Donxeen returns to the room containing the pulsing sarcophagus and examines it further. If one had only ever heard of ‘swords’ from half-overheard whispers, they might call the thing within a sword. Wrapped in chains and strange alchemical restraints, in a moment of wisdom Donxeen decides to get the hell out of there and not even touch it. He calls over Cumfin, painting a picture with his words of the heroic acts that the paladin could achieve with the contents of the cask, and then proceeds to hide behind cover a reasonable distance away in case of an explosive reaction. Cumfin draws it from its prison, and wields it above him such that its infinite crystal facets reflect his innermost thoughts and long-forgotten secrets in the flickering blue dungeon light. With the absence of any notable reaction from the artefact, the party explores further. Donxeen and Emina head into the tunnel the adaptable abomination from early escaped down, and find a room filled with alchemical equipment and a single flask containing translucent white fluid. Emina takes it, and it is promptly forgotten about. They then head onwards, past the halls where they fought the cat-pairs and come across the frozen body of one Arreger Baskoniako, kidnapped centuries ago for a magical experiment and stored cryogenically for future research. Unfortunately, he seemed to be out of date and beginning to wilt, so he was PURGED into an incinerator beneath the facility and reduced instantly to fine ash. Meanwhile, Emina opens a rusted shut door, and releases the noxious fumes within, choking on the poisonous gas but glad to have unearthed a rare and interesting breed from slime mould. Focused on the last puzzle, the party find themselves before a pair of monolithic double doors fit for some futuristic cathedral. Embedded in the centre was a dull crystal icosahedron, and research papers are scattered over the walls and floor. With his sharp eyes, Cumfin discovers a crucial note that explains that the crystal is a form of power source that is activated by speaking one’s True Name. Donxeen begins telling the tale of the Maelstromyr, eternal souls that are reborn time and time again, able to bring great change into the world where others cannot, gods whose avatars have taken the form of innumerable heroes across all of time and space. Through fate, or the machinations of something even greater than fate itself, each party member looks inside themselves and sees the immortal, everchanging souls within. They speak forth their names - Embin'gus, Dum’Fann and Is’Abel, bringing light to the crystal and opening the way forth to their final challenge while the strange voice speaks once more.  Possible Locations Of Higher Dimensional Presence Have Been Reduced. Continue To Complete Security Checks.

A creature blocks their way. The Battlecat, a ten foot long monstrosity of sinew and ten writhing legs, at once soft as velvet and harder than the most expertly forged Dwarven steel, with eyes like spotlights and a smile that bisects its head to reveal teeth like a lamprey in razor sharp rings down its throat. It opens the fight with a screaming purple Deathlaser that leaves the stink of ozone in the air and the crack of an implosion as air rushes to fill the void left behind by the beam, each member of the party leaping to safety as they rush at the creature. Each attack seems futile, not even scratching it, until Donxeen pulls off an attack of opportunity and successfully wounds the abomination, beads of blue blood sparking in contact with air. Realising that the beast can only be hurt on its own turn the party uses Held Actions to damage the creature when it makes its own actions, bypassing its exotic defence and whittling it down. Cumfin weathers the purple rays with the help of Emina’s healing while Donxeen slides underneath it, dodges its tail and strikes it from behind. Just as the creature is about to fall, it reveals its final stage. Its fur begins to blur until it splits in two, using superposition to attack multiple times from multiple angles. Its desperation doesn’t save it, as Donxeen’s brutal blows strike one shadow down. As the last shadow begins to destabilise, its very flesh phasing in and out, Cumfin reaches inside and impales its heart on his sword leaving the aberration to fall apart, its corpse slipping away into other dimensions. Proud and exhausted, the party enters the room that will bring them to the surface. The exit door lies before them, and with a sharp hisssssssss, the door they came from closes. It’s like an airlock - not that the party would know what that means. The vents on the ceiling open, and a fine mist sprays out - it’s calming, refreshing almost, after the fight they just went through. Each adventurer is bombarded by various lights and lasers and the air fills with the whirrrrrrr and buzzzzzz of scanners, before there is an almost metaphysical SNIP. As the cool liquid trickles down their bloodsoaked skin, they feel a weight being lifted off their minds, like a worry that had been plaguing them for years turned out to be nothing at all. The party is finally allowed to leave, free to do whatever they please. The last thing they hear before their journey back to Calcot is the strange, tinny voice explaining that the Higher Dimensional Possession Has Been Neutralised, whatever that means. Whatever strange flash of inspiration led them to the names they used to open the door to the Battlecat seems to be gone now.