After dropping down from the Grimlock caves, the party investigated the tunnel that they had travelled last time and headed for the station where they had destroyed the Beholder Cultists. After several hundred yards, the adventurers found a swarm of rats seemingly blocked by an invisible obstacle. The air crackled with telepathic voices declaring their frustration. Attaching a sunrod to an arrow which he fired, the Scout illuminated the rats and the force wall in front of them. The party approached and the Priest used a sonic attack to crush a few of the 100+ vermin. In defence, the swarm mentally blasted the adventurers and poured down the tunnel over them, viciously biting and scratching as they went. Deciding not to be stuck between the party and the wall, the rats quickly ran off down the tunnel, leaving stunned and bleeding adventurers behind them.
Noticing that the wall had now moved over the sunrod/arrow and was approaching the stunned Monk and Cleric, the Paladin lead a rescue attempt to pull them out of the bath of the all-absorbing ooze. During the retreat, the Psion immolated the ooze, causing great damage. The Paladin delivered arrows from a distance which quickly dispatched the ooze, melting as it died into an expanding puddle. The Cleric poked around the now-inert liquid and retrieved 200gp in mixed coins. a set of iron cooking pots, three round stone balls (4in diameter), a belt buckle of cheap manufacture, an iron spike, a spear-head, a stone hand, a wheel from a Beholder Expressway transport device, and a magic Rod (moderate Necromantic).
Following the gelatinous monster were a small group of dark creatures that the Drow was able to see with his superior Darkvision. Thinking they had the cover of darkness, the creatures approached a launched a futile javelin attack. Realising that they had lost the element of surprise, they escaped through a 3ft diameter maintenance shaft to a parallel main tunnel. The party considered following them but the small size of the connecting tunnel and lack of information on what was on the other side changed their minds.
Moving on, the party passed the hole in the tunnel that exposed the cavern below and eventually reached the Station that they had explored just days before. With the translation services of the Dictionary they had found and the Drow's natural languages, the Station was named as "High Path". The ceiling block and pit traps had still not been reset although easy to navigate past. The fact that traps had been encountered before did not make the party more cautious and the mirror-image pit and ceiling traps on the far side of the Station came as a near-fatal surprise to the Rogue.
A few hundred yards beyond the Station was a barricade manned by ballista-wielding kobolds. For some reason it took the party a long while to understand that a volley of ballista bolts and shouts in Draconic of "you're going the wrong way" meant that they were, indeed, going the wrong way if they wanted to find Illithids. So back the way they came the party went.
After a couple miles they came across another Station ("Memorial") of very similar design to the last. Their previous experiences made them more cautious and limited their exploration to a dropped Sunrod which revealed a flooded bottom level to the double-wheel structure (assuming a design the same as the High Path Station). "No Illithids here" was the common refrain and the party moved on.
The next feature in the tunnel were a pair of alcoves, each 15ft square, one each side of the tube with a sign saying "20 miles to next station" so the party decided to camp to restore their depleted energies. From what had gone before, it was clear that this was to be... no picnic.
