Eight adventurers, Ruu Dawnhammer, Almalexia, Sauroff, Silvermoon, Koravhik Agu-Vakanu, Squirrelly, Cressidien, and Cernan were recuperating in a storage room of a ruined temple in Phandelver after killing the drow named Black Spider and her orc minions. When they awoke the next morning (or afternoon, who can tell underground?), two of the adventurers were seriously ill.
Cressidien was suffering from a high fever, chills, and muscle cramps; apparently the under-cooked giant boar which he ate a while back had infected him. Squirrelly, was in even worse shape. The nasty maggot bites he received the previous day gave him an infection which rendered him blind. Cernan was able to cure both of them via his paladin abilities, though that left him depleted of further similar cures for the rest of the day.
The Rockseeker brothers once again thanked the adventurers for their rescue, and presented them with 500 gold in uncirculated Pharesian coins as a reward.
Tharden told the party that he had "liberated" the coins from the
Black Spider's belonging when they released his restraints. The brothers then offered the party 3% of all future profits if they cleared all monsters from the residential and industrial sections of Phandelver. Almalexia negotiated the brothers up to 5%, and deal was made.
When the party left the storage room, the discovered that the Black Spider's body was now that of a female half-orc, and not a drow. Apparently her appearance had been concealed by a disguise illusion, but to what end? Tharden showed the party where the Black Spider kept her notes. Searching them, they discovered that everything she wrote was in orcish. Nothing was written in drow, or any other Underdark language. Among the notes was a complaint that one of her scouting parties had found a library or archive, but a fight with the undead inhabitants had somehow started a raging fire. The Black Spider feared that nothing of value would remain.
Leaving the Rockseeker brothers barricaded in the ruined temple, the party set out into the ruins of Phandelver. They made short work of several small bands of undead dwarves they found wandering the dark halls. They soon spotted thick black smoke billowing across the ceiling of a main corridor, and followed it back to the burnt archive. Nothing of value was found among the ashes of the archive. However, they did find 2 gold on the dead orc at the archive entrance.
Eventually the party located an ancient ore-smelting room. The room was dimly lit by faltering continuous flames on wall sconces. In the center of the 35 foot tall room, a 25 foot tall smelter loomed, a dull red glow showing from the ports and access doors revealed that heat still lingered within. As they entered the room, a dwarven skull, sheathed in flames, floated towards them around the top of the smelter. The skull called out "Overtreder!", which Ruu and Cressidien translated as dwarven for "Trespasser!" in Dwarven. The skull then demanded to see their authorization to enter the smelter room.
Ruu attempted to fool the skull with a small piece of parchment, claiming it was his authorization papers. After several centuries, the skull's eyesight is much diminished. However, Ruu was not very convincing, and the skull quickly determined that the parchment was a forgery. Retreating back towards the top of the smelter, the skull tried to cast fireball on the party, but was counter-spelled by Sauroff, and battle was joined!
Silvermoon used her gloom stalker abilities and Corpse Slayer bow to good effect. Despite it's resistance to piercing damage, the skull was heavily wounded by her arrows. The skull attempted to put the smelter between it and the party, but Cernan misty-stepped to top of the smelter directly over the skull. From there he spotted two dwarf bodies lying on an upper-walkway; they soon animated, stood up and drew longbows, aiming at the party.
Under heavy assault by both spells and Cernan's blade, the skull made one last desperate attempt to distract his assailants and turn the tide - it used mage hand to open an access door in the side of the smelter, and released the fire elemental that was imprisoned within! The party ignored the elemental initially, continuing to concentrate their attacks on the skull, its shattered fragments falling to the floor of the room.
Cernan jumped into melee range of the two undead dwarves nearest him, while two other undead appeared on the walkway on the far side of the room, shooting down on Silvermoon. Meanwhile, down at the base of the smelter, Koravhik grew to his large size and engaged the fire elemental in melee. Koravhik was burned each time he struck the elemental, but that did not deter him. The elemental then moved forward, encasing Koravhik in its body, and setting him alight. Squirrelly transformed into a bear and joined the fray, also getting burned with each successful strike on the fiery foe. The smell of burnt hair filled the air.
Up on the walkway, Cernan was hard-pressed by his life-challenged opponents. They were much more capable fighters than the other undead they had met in the hallways and corridors leading to this room. The two eventually got the better of Cernan, dropping him to unconsciousness twice. However, each time Squirrelly was able to revive him. The undead dwarves were finally put to rest, and the fire elemental vanquished
An examination of the room revealed no further enemies, and the smelter itself was now empty, and beginning to cool. Two large brass pipes rose out of the floor on the far side of the smelter. The pipes curved towards the smelter, passing through large valves before piercing the base of the smelter. Testing the valves, Cernan determined that the pipes carried compressed air. However, no one in the party could explain how the compressed air was being supplied after several centuries of Phandelver being abandoned.
Continuing their exploration of Phandelver after a short rest, the party found themselves at a large stone arch over the passage to set of large stone doors. An inscription in dwarven on the arch read "Spell Forge".
And this is where we will begin next time.
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