With Huski (Huskir) Salnahir and Rascar Capac awoken and somewhat recovered, and the rest of us having narrowly survived the roomful of skeletal diners, we head further into cave we suspect is the lair of the fabled Yule Cat.
Down the hallway we come across what appears to be a ritual room, guarded by an undead Unknown which is injured, its rotting flesh falling apart. Rascar, being less battered than most of the party, dispatches it with an eldritch blast; Greycoat (Shier'Tal) - with his fascination for dead things - investigates, and detects that necromancy is at play... we also get a ping for a Unknown that Raine Sen stumbles upon, but Zee (Zameia) Dusk is strangely drawn to and keeps, despite it emanating transmutation and necromancy.
Moving through to a cavernous opening, we find concentric circles of various runes etched into the floor; they are of a variety of tongues and dialects, only some of which the party recognise.
When speaking some of these aloud - Zee calling out an Infernal rune, Raine recognising Draconic, Grey mumbling one of the words in Primordial - the corresponding runes, and ultimately the outermost circle, begin to glow; all in all the words we understood were
DARK, OPENING, PATH, FORGET and BIND.
Zee wanders off again and touches a strange-looking icy wall, which turns out to be a Unknown, which sucks her arm in and begins pulling her into it. With everyone blasting arrows, fire spells, and flurries of blows into the cube, we manage to get Zee loose, with Raine destroying the cube... however Rascar has walked into the runic circles to examine the altar in the centre.
Huski and he examine the runes some more, but when this turns up nothing further we move deeper into the Witch's Ritual Cave.
Here we find what we assume is the Hillfar Witch's personal chambers, and theorise she is the Unknown summoning the Yule Cat. There is a pile of clothing from missing Hillfar villagers that Rascar rifles through for any loot; Raine, meanwhile, triggers a trap, and goes blind temporarily as she hears the Witch's cackle... at the same time Huski falls unconscious suddenly, while Zee feels a cold breath on her neck and runs to Rascar, only to find that she's turned invisible.
The Hillfar Witch has appeared on the altar in the runic circle's centre, and begins a summoning ritual; Zee tries to cast silence on her to no avail and to escape the Cat we barricade ourselves in the Witch's chamber, theorising about how to potentially catch the Cat and to take a long rest after our series of battles.
Zee and Rascar, are near-hysterical about what's out there in the main chamber, while Grey is taunted in his dreams by the Witch.