descending to the first floor of the temple, the group encountered a group of skinsaw cultists getting ready to eat dinner. Thinking fast Auros flopped on top of the table and pulled off a really sick cleave to kill a bunch of cultists a la kill bill crazy 88 style.
In an adjoining room the group found the corpses of several servants slain for the ritual. But more importantly, they found their ghosts. after narrowly defeating the ghosts with several negative levels on a couple of the party members, Danar started advocating for a strategic retreat, but the rest of the group decided to press on a bit longer.
Soon the group encountered a snake lady whom pytherhia tricked into giving them access to the rest of the temple before we beat her up and locked her in her room. Then they encountered an evil Mercane with a barbed devil body guard. The Mercane tricked Pytheria into picking up a cursed Ioun stone. which led to a disagreement about whether she had to pay for said ioun stone. One thing led to another, and the Mercane got an edie and a strong gust of wind to the face, killing him. the barbed devil made a slight attempt at fighting the group before running away.
After the fight the group felt very divided about what just happened. Auros was upset about how Pytheria effectively choose to murder a merchant to avoid paying for goods. Danar quickly forged a pretty convincing document that stated that he was the mercane’s next of kin so that the fighting would stop and the group could keep the loot.
Pressing just a bit further the group found and killed a contract devil, a varizian sorceress, and some redactors before finally making a strategic retreat for the night.