The party discovers that Wave Echo Cave may be far more dangerous than they imagined.

Maveraday, Corospyr the 22nd, 479 Sixth Age
Sean left the campaign due to moving to Dallas, so his character was retconned to wait with the supplies
Having just dispatched the pack of ghouls and a large bear that surprised them from behind, the party ventures back into the caves. They head to the area where they found the ghouls and discover it to be an ancient mess hall. Here the bodies of giants and orcs litter the ground. They cross the mess hall and head to the north and find an ancient billows that looked to be powered by a stream of some sort, but the channel the water once flowed through seems to be dry. Magni Borirson comments that the billows is a bit worn, the leather will need replaced but the actual furnace is still serviceable. Some rust will need to be sanded off but it’ll be easy to get it up and running. The party decides to head to the east where they enter a room full where the ceiling is full of sparkling gems. The floor is littered with ones that have fallen from the ceiling. Two scorched freestanding rooms are on the east side but the party decides to ignore that and head north, towards the sound of the crashing waves. Here they find a pool that connects to a much larger lake. The water surges every couple of minutes, crashing against an escarpment before slowly receding again.
The party sees a 4 foot tall tunnel to the north of this room heading west. While deliberating whether or not to go through there,
Pip Dendrar throws a rock down it to see if anything comes. After a moment nothing came, and the party decided split up.
Sir Aldus Locke,
Lowdras, and Magni decided to head back south while the rest chose to crawl through the tunnel. While Pip was crouched Par managed to see past her
Here begins a long stream of random critical hits and misses that leads to an insane fight lol)
and spys a bugbear staring at them from around a corner. The party first tries to parley with the bugbear offering him food. They soon realize the bugbears only Gildean vocabulary is the word “Hungry!!!” and that he isn’t interested in their dried meats, he’s only interested in their flesh. Pip tries to give the party the upper hand by sneaking behind the bugbear and dropping his loincloth in an attempt to trip him, but he isn’t phase – he simply tears it from his legs and swings his massive club at her, knocking her against the wall. She’s bewildered, but manages to hide beneath her cloak well enough that he moves onto more dangerous targets – charging after
Guardian Pious and
Par Salian. The three of them exchanged blows for a moment, with Pip quietly re-engaging in an unsuccessful attempt to cripple the bugbear from behind. The sounds alerted the others and Lowdras rushed into the room. By this time, Pious and Pip were seriously hurt and Pious had already started to expend his Lay on Hands on Pip to help her recover. The healed Pip issued a challenge to the bugbear and ran through the tunnel.
At this point Chris used an inspiration card that forced the bugbear to only attack him, but also that only he could attack the bugbear.
Seeing that the bugbear would chase after Pip, Lowdras tried to cut off his route by creating a cloud of daggers at the entrance to the tunnel, but the bugbear did not care to be stopped, running through and taking cuts from the blades as he did. Seeing the initial plan fail, Pip dove into the water hoping the lumbering creature could not swim – but she found him following her there. At the very least, he lost his club in the water – but his claws were still plenty sharp. Pip decided to begin climbing the wall of the cavern and made it far enough out of the water that the beast could not reach her. Luckily her small mass allowed her to climb the rough walls even though the bugbears claws could not help him. After a moment another surge of water came and crashed the bugbear against the escarpment of the pool, and he was not able to recover – and drowned. Pip too, however, suffered from the cold water and strain of the swim in the rough water. While she made it to shore, she passed out unconscious.
The party carried her to the freestanding buildings in the cavern to the south, hoping to find a safe place to rest. After some arguing about whether they should return to the entrance or just sleep here, they decided to send Magni back to the entrance to retrieve gear, set up a watch and sleep here. When they opened the door to the building they were dumbfounded. Before them stood not only the legendary Forge of Spells, but in front of that floated an ancient, spherical, eye-stalked monster. The monster did not immediately attack – instead warning the group to stay away from the forge. After a bit of conversation, they realized the creature still believed the mine was in use from 300 years ago when the Gnasha Warpath swept through the area killing all of the mines inhabitants. The group simply decides to leave well enough alone, closes the door, and heads back towards the entrance. Unfortunately, the counter a pool of blood, and a trail leading to the north…following the trail leads back to the room where they just fought the bugbear – another path. The party lays Pip down, uses Lay on Hands to restore her to full health, along with a healing potion. She awakes, and Lowdras gives her his shirt – big enough to be a skirt on her – so that she has dry warm clothes.
They follow the trail north where they find a room with six pillars on each side. In the northern center of the room sits a nine foot tall seated statue of what appears to be a giant with gleaming emerald eyes. A make-shift camp is set up in front of this statue, with a table off to the side. Two bugbears, two elven women (one is the one who escaped from Cragmaw Castle earlier – Veryth and Veythir), and a dark skinned elven man stand near it. In front of him, sits a bleeding Magni. It turns out the bugbear they fought had already warned his superiors of the parties presence. The dark skinned elf laughed and drew a sword that swirled with shadowy energy and promptly slit the throat of Magni, kicking the body onto its side at his feet. He laughed at the party, “Finally I will be rid of you fools!”. Before he could finish his speech Lowdras was in action, as his fey familiar whispered temptations in his ear. Green tears began to flow down his face, and evaporate into a whispy green smoke. As this flowed down his arms to his hands, something seemed to carry it over to the body of his brother which rose and grabbed the maul from the lap of the statue. He began attacking The Black Knife. The Black Knife pointed his sword out and yelled “Get them!!!” and five of the whispy shadows around the end of the blade began to take the form of shadowy creatures who began attacking the party. As the brawl emerged Pip and Pious managed to take down one of the elven women, and The Black Knife uttered another command and another strand of shadow left and filled a large area of the room with unnatural darkness. A moment later more green mist left Lowdras’s hand and the slain elf rose and also charged the Black Knife.
The battle went a few more minutes before finally the Black Knife fell. As Pip retreived the blade, Par froze the surviving elf with the power of his god. Pip quickly executed her. While Par and her argued about that being murder, Aldus ordered the execution of the remaining two bugbears and Lowdras obliged.
This is the end of the game and the end of Act 1. The remainder of the dungeon and fallout from this battle will be handled metagame. The game will return in several months with Act 2.
