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.