4th day of Mirkul (probably)

Our long rest passes surprisingly uneventfully and we prepare to fight the flaming skull and zombies in the forge chamber again (unless there is a different flaming skull behind this door, which is a prospect too worrying to consider).  We come up with a fairly cunning plan (well, a plan at least), and unbar the door.  There is a short corridor and T-junction beyond before it opens into the room beyond, which appears to be the same forge chamber.

I advance in and let off a shot at the skull, hitting it with an arrow.  It returns fire with two flame bolts, severely wounding me.  I realise that a second round of that sort of damage will kill me.  Elaina enters and starts hacking at the nearest zombies.  Garrett enters and uses his shatter enchantment on the skull.  The zombies flail around a bit and advance on us.  Aramil enters and presents his holy symbol – three of the zombies and the flaming skull retreat from him.  The zombies flee from the room but the flaming skull just backs into the far corner – it is obviously tied to this room.

Free from being attacked by the skull, I heal myself, and also get some healing from Aramil.  Garrett and Elaina start hacking at the remaining zombies – they are surprisingly resilient, but in the end we all pile in and manage to finish them off finally.  Then we heal up and consider the skull, which we know will soon be able to attack us again.  Garrett hits it with another shatter spell, and Elaina casts magic missile on it not once but twice, using her action surge.  The skull explodes into shards of bone and falls to the floor.  We have won, amazingly!  And without anyone dying.

We explore the room, but find nothing unusual.  I go east down the dried up water channel, since the booming noise is loudest from there.  It emerges on a narrow ledge in a large, flooded chamber.  Periodically a wave of water crashes against the cliff below the ledge, creating the booming sound.  The waters smell sulphurous and the air is warm and damp – possibly this connects to a volcano or hot spring of some kind, which might be causing the surges.  I follow the ledge to the right, and enter another tunnel that ends in a very large chamber containing a blackened building, and many skeletons.  The doors of the building are ajar and I peer in.  There is a weird glowing brazier within.  I back away and go down a corridor on the west wall, which I hope will rejoin the forge chamber.  It does, and I am reunited with the rest of the party.

We all now enter the large chamber and open the doors of the building within.  The interior is also smashed up – we reckon this might be the wreckage from the spell battle that we heard was the climax of the battle of Wave Echo Cave three hundred years ago.  The glowing brazier in the centre might be the Forge of Spells that we have heard tell of.  A strange floating sphere with a large central eye and four eyes on stalks rises behind it, and we feel a voice talking to us in our heads.  It seems friendly, and it explains that this is the Forge of Spells and that it is guarding it for the wizards who have just stepped out for a minute and will be back soon.  We describe Glasstaff to see if he is one of the wizards, but he doesn’t recognise the description.  I think that because the only way into this chamber is through the forge, and the skull has been guarding that entrance, possibly no one has been in here since the battle three hundred years ago.  In which case either this creature has a poor sense of time, or is completely insane.  The wizards who popped out a couple of minutes ago are almost certainly the skeletons in the chamber outside.

The guardian is friendly, but seems adamant that we can’t touch anything until the wizards return, so we decide not to ignore him, and explore the further reaches of the cavern.  We find that there is an upper step and another building, also blackened and damaged.  We prise open the door to this, and peer inside.  The floor is covered in dust, which rises up before our eyes to form a wraith that accuses us of coming to steal its treasure.  We retreat rapidly – two sets of undead in one day is too much for us.  We go further south in the cavern, and find that it opens into another, fungus filled cavern.  This is familiar to us from before.  We opt to have a short rest outside the building with the wraith.

3rd day of Mirtul

Having celebrated our success at Cragmaw Castle (and the Greengrass festival) with much revelry at Phandolin, we ask Gundrun to tell us where Wave Echo Cave is, which he willingly does.  It turns out to be surprisingly close to Phandalin after all.  We find the cave entrance without difficulty and venture in.  We find an encampment in the first cave, and the recently dead body of a dwarf, who we assume is the third of the dwarven brothers.  His boots prove interesting (I don’t remember why the sudden interest in footwear) and Garrett takes them upon discovering that they make him more fleet of foot and generally bouncy.  At least he should now be able to keep up with us.

At the far end of the cave is a large sinkhole, with a rope tied, which we descend.  Below we find a widened part of a long fissure, which we explore.  There is a warren of small tunnels running off it, which seems to be the long abandoned mine workings.  We find a round room with many long dead dwarves and orcs, obviously a relic of the fall of the mines long ago.  Beyoind this room we find a vast, fungi filled cavern, which we decide not to explore.  To the south we find several rooms – one has a collapsed ceiling and more skeletons, except these ones animate and attack us.  In another chamber we find an iron strongbox which we are unable to open.

Further north, we find another chamber where we are attacked by 3 ghouls.  We manage to defeat them without loss and penetrate further into a confusing maze of galleries.  We find some stairs going upwards and ascend into a huge chamber where we are attacked by seven ghouls.  This time Elaina is briefly paralyzed by one of them, but again we defeat them.  The central section of the cavern is lower, and we descend some steps, to find a banqueting chamber, again strewn with ancient dead.  Venturing down a cavern to the north, we reach an ancient forge, with more bodies, and a floating, green glowing skull.  Garrett casts an illusion to distract it, and we attempt to rush across the chamber while it is distracted, but the dwarves in there rise and shamble towards us.  The glowing skull also attacks us, firing fiery beams from its eye-sockets.  We are badly mauled, and retreat rapidly to the large chamber again.  We try to take a rest there, but notice another of those strange ceiling worms from Cragmaw on the ceiling, so decide to move on.  We return to the chamber where we killed the 3 ghouls and rest briefly there, before continuing exploring.

After a long period getting lost in the warren, we find another door, behind which I head voices talking in goblin.  We burst in, to find 5 bugbears in there.  The fight is vicious, and we are badly wounded again, but manage to kill three of them.  Garrett sleeps another one, and the final one surrenders.  We notice that the far door is barricaded, and he tells us that it is because there are zombies and a glowing skull beyond.  He also tells us that they serve the Black Spider, and that he is laired somewhere nearby.  We decide that we need to have a long period of rest and recuperation if possible in this chamber.