| Session Date | October 13, 2018 |
| Start Date | |
| End Date | |
| Starting Location | |
| Ending Location | |
| Player Characters | |
| Base XP Gained | 2550 |
The party finished up their business in Kazakh, including paying to have their black dragon head stuffed and mounted on the wall of their quarters. They set out once more through the city and along the underground Dwarf highway towards Gorund, arriving three days later without incident. A few more days of travel saw them down through the frigid mountains amid poor weather (it's mid January now) and eventually to the edge of the Waerun Fen once more. As it was still fairly early, the party decided to use what light remained of the short day to return to the ruined temple. They found their raft and poled over, again without incident.
They now opened the secret door leading to stairs descending below the temple platform. They soon entered a small room with a wooden table, chairs, and some wine recently poured and as yet undrunk. ZZ tasted it and it was unremarkable. An unlocked double door opened to the south but, upon opening it, Aldeberan was hit in the face with a blinding light. This was followed by a volley of arrows and the charge of a dozen or so brigands. Aldenberan was out of the fight for the short term so, given the numbers, Cadwallider threw an ice storminto the large room beyond, wiping out most of the bowmen and a few others. Although ZZ held one of the enemy leader types, he was needed for the melee with Iban. Cadwallider, meanwhile threw numerous spells into the fray. Although badly outnumbered, the party was able to whittle down the enemy over time. As the last few began to break, one of the apparent leaders hanging back vanished while another began to float up into the air. Cadwallider hit the flying one with a wand of paralysis and stopped him cold.
As the party entered and began to explore, Cadwallider decided to detect for invisible enemies and soon found the one who had previously vanished, lurking nearby. Cadwallider attacked him with magic missiles as the fighter charged the wizard. Seeing no hope, he continued to go at the wizard until he was eventually slain by the rest of the party; Iban took a ring of invisibility off of him. Those remaining alive and held, unconscious or paralyzed were all dispatched and looted. The room, a very large hall, was clearly a dining and/or meeting room.
The party took one set of double doors from here to the west (there were others to the south and east). They explored several areas of dungeon, finding an empty barracks and a few other rooms of note. Behind another bas relief that proved to be a secret door like the one on the level above, the party found quarters of a wizard. protected by a darkness area behind another secret door, they found a good deal of treasure, as well as a spellbook that was magically trapped (as per ZZ's detect traps spell); this was later disarmed by a dispel magic spell from Cadwallider.
In one room they discovered a captain and several other brigands gambling and drinking, apparently ignorant or unconcerned with the obvious ambush their fellows had mounted against the party. This group, though not numerous, proved to be quite tough and took a good deal of effort to slay. By this time, the party was feeling weary and, with the day being so short, they decided to return to their cold shore side camp. They rested over night and healed the next day. Being much injured, though, they decided to rest a full day and return to the dungeon the day following. But, that day, a large force of brigands came upon the party. As the brigands moved to encircle the camp, they fired arrows at the party, who began to become invisible by spell or ring. As the brigands were not too close, this gave the party a chance to hunker and hide from them as they sought to locate them. As they waited, a small knot of brigands came into view and approached. Seeing what he took for one or two spellcasters in close proximity, Cadwallider threw a fireball at the group...it failed to affect them. Now visible, he came under spell attack and arrows from the brigands. Fortunately for him, he was able to take flight rather quickly and flee at high speed, though his survival was a close thing. This also had the unanticipated benefit of drawing the brigands'' attention away from the hiding party members, as the brigands moved off in the direction Cadwallider had taken (it also seemed likely the brigand wizard did not have a detect invisibility spell). But, as they passed through the party's former camp, they noted that the brigand captain carried the giant slayer sword they had given Winfrith the Ranger a week or so previous (they later speculated he had either been killed or was a traitor, though the former seemed most plausible).
Later, Cadwallider returned and the party was reunited, the brigands having moved off to the north. Feeling out matched by the force of brigands, they opted to return to the dwarf city once more. When they had fully rested and recovered, they would decide if they would return to the swamp dungeon and the brigands, or perhaps look for something less deadly. There was much discussion that they needed more help - if not more adventurers, then perhaps some hired men or dwarves to accompany them for future adventures.