We search the rift to no avail. Garret is so unobservant he barely notices that there are rocks to be looked under.
Aeldrin sneaks off up another passage while the rest of us ponder on the meaning of existence.>He returns and reports that he’s found another cavern and a locked door. Behind the door he thinks is a dwarf, In the cavern is an elf and two large goblinoids. We wonder if it is yet another doppelganger, but still formulate a plan of attack. The first part of this plan being that Garret and Aramil return to the glowing brazier to recharge a few items.
This done, the rest of the plan follows – sneak up to the cave, smash the place up and kill everyone.
In actuality, it was somewhat different.
It seems that this is the real Black Spider as he went into a BBEG type speech about having to deal with us himself.
Garret missed with his crossbow and was promptly jumped by a giant spider which squirted him with webbing.
Elaina managed to cast Magic Missile and hit BS. Aeldrin followed up with a well placed arrow and BS looked shaken.
Aramil cast his Bane spell on BS and the two bugbears, then looked to defend Garret. The musical halfling spent most of this battle either escaping from webbing or being squirted with more. He did manage to critically spear a bugbear in the goolies which cheered him up no end.
Having been rocked by the attacks from Elaina and Aeldrin, Black Spider promptly disappeared, thinking that his four pet spiders would do the job for him. Despite Aeldrin’s inner fears, we eventually won out, although BS did make a decent attempt to escape. A Shocking Grasp momentarily disoriented Aeldrin enough for Black Spider to slip past down the corridor. However, an arrow between the shoulder blades did the job and the usurper of Wave Echo Cave was no more.
We got some decent loot and even found that the Staff of Spiders that Black Spider carried would enable Elaina to cast Web or Spider Climb multiple times per day. There was also a key which allowed us to rescue the third Rockseeker brother and we took a long rest in his cell.
Next day, we returned to the Rift. A night’s rest clearly sorted Garret out as he spotted a dwarven skeleton instantly, and found it was wearing some Gauntlets of Ogre Power. Aramil now sports these and feels confident he will be able to bash the shit out of anyone with his magical mace!!