"Yulya? No Bless?"

Uh, I did not think I would be able to keep concentration in melee combat. Luckily this was over before the drake could strike back...

The celebration is short lived, as four more fume drakes rise from the dust ready to attack.

Yulya realizes the way back is cut off as well. They are basically surrounded.
Oh nonono in Eldaths Name whats with this place?

An unintended consequence of the noise from Alice and Yulya's attacks, two large violet fungi awaken disturbed by the loud noises, one in the middle of the fungi patch to the South and one just south of the pillar. They were hard to notice before with all the other fungi around them. Though not formally trained but well versed in Nature, Yulya recognizes them as Myconids, a naturally peaceful race of beings. Though incapable of speech, she remembers they are known to be intelligent and can be reasoned with if connected to psychically, assuming anyone has that ability, which none of you do.

Please do ot attack the fungi! We do not need more enemies! They might even help us!
Yulya realizes the others cant hear her and prays the strange beings are indeed allies o at least neutral.

Ashley touches Yulya's focus and fills it back up to full, "We're going to need to pull out all the stops, and don't forget to Bless us too!"

Yula casts BLESS on Alice, Ashley and Cat and hesitates for a moment.
Thanks for filling up my focus!
Yulya looks at it slightly wary of what weird effects Ashleys wild magic would cause next time. Hopefully no grease...
Seeing Alice engage a drake and Cat the other - Yulya focuses on the two on the makeshift bridge after everyone else has attacked. But a battle on the planks seems too dangerous.




With the use of her Ring of quick casting - and amplified by her goblin staff - Yulya combines Word of Radiance with Toll the Dead and gives it the Distant property targeting all the drakes and amplifies the spell with 6MP of Ashleys Wild Magic. Then Yulya retreats 25ft S and stops 5ft NE of the fungus bowing to it and hoping for a non-hostile reaction.

Yulya places her hand on one of the crystals and tries to find out if magic flows through them. Her hand sinks into a gelatinous mucus like slime.
Magic indeed, she takes 2 necrotic damage from the living substrate.

Ashley is appalled by Yulya's action, "Why don't you have gloves?! I wouldn't touch that eww!"

Ow! I - I just wanted to touch the crystals, not any slime!
Yulya shakes her aching hand and holds it to Alice - the living towel.

"Didn't they say something foul was happening here? Necromancers, summoners, opportunists coming in out of the cold. I bet half this stuff wasn't here before that snowstorm, but yeah, that means they must have known about the other half; so sending low level adventurers against this onslaught seems very suspicious to me. First against a hoard of goblins and hobgoblins with wolves and a dragon, now bandits, bugbears, and ghouls? You'd almost think they didn't want us to survive, but maybe that's just me." She gesticulates with growing distaste.

Yulya nods in agreement
Do not forget the drow elf sorcerer of the highest level! To be honest the whole story never made sense to me. Why did Sir Gundren hire us absolute rookies while he had this precious map and nobody had managed to get through to Phandalin for months? It must have been obvious to him this would not be an easy trip s soon as we would leave the High Road. Not to speak of 'scouting ahead' with Sildar and breaking up. It was a recipe for disaster. Or a plan to get abducted with us as witnesses.

"Then Sildar didn't want us dealing with Harbin, but Harbin seems like the most helpful guy. So we know he wants to process the ore so he's looking out for profit,it figures he'd be nice, and wants to be the royalty of Phandalin to the dismay of Elmina Barthen, figures she wouldn't like her rival, and the Rockseekers just want to mine the ore, that I believe, and I don't take the dwarves as being intentionally deceptive; furthermore, why send us to our deaths if that means they still need to clear the mine? Good luck with that!"

Indeed! Despite my initial suspicion Sir Wester was the most helpful character we encountered. He even entrusted these valuable potions to us. I also do not believe in ill intentions of the Rockseekers. Dwarves are rather straightforward people and bad schemers. But maybe they are a little bit - uh - clumsy? Remember Sir Tharden and Sir Nundro rushed off to the goblin cave to save their brother without consulting us then ran past it and luckily only arrived after us. Had they been ahead of us they would have perished against the goblins - or at least ended up as additional hostages for sure. They are miners not combatants. And probably not the greatest strategists either. I worry about their quest to save Sir Gundren to be honest.

Then again as you say the whole thing is suspicious and it does not sit well with me. Why in Eldaths name did they insist we deal with the mine - without a map or any information - while they went off to rescue Sir Gundren without our aid? I would have preferred to deal with this matter first before they do something foolish again.
Yulya briefly falls silent wondering if the Rockseekers may indeed be part of a larger conspiracy involving - literally everyone in Phandalin.

Her frustration intensifies. "Sildar though, I don't trust him at all at this point. My bet is he's working with the bandits. I bet he wants to be the royalty of Phandalin, and what better way than to control the mine and set up a local slave trade. But a mine isn't the best base of operations, so there must be something else going on in here than just mithril ore. Something the Orcs wanted, something the powerful want. That plaque said:"

In the throat of the Forge of Spells, forevermore known as Wave Echo Cave, our greatest treasure was taken from us in the Year of the Empty Hourglass 951... To this day they come to claim what was long lost and strike a new fortune, for the riches of the sword mountains remain a beacon to those who seek wealth and power... but to all who come, show respect for those who forever dwell here as a reminder of what once was...

Ashley pulls out the dark crystal from her pack. "I bet this is worth something, I know this is the thing Tharden wanted, I bet it's worth a lot more than just ore, and powerful people could use this to speak to their demonic gods. The plaque said their greatest treasure was taken, yet people still seek what was long lost. This was lost, but not necessarily taken, so what was long lost? That's my first question for the Rockseekers. What would someone come to this mine for?"

Yulya gazes at the crystal.
I believe this is an immeasurable treasure as it is a literal orb! And therefore the dwarves quest makes no sense. Sir Tharden asked us to bring the amethyst heart from the throne room from the deepest part of the mine. For 75gp. Which by all respect is laughable compared to the value of this crystal. And if anyone would have been able to retrieve it by normally traversing the mine it would have been long gone before the Mechatherial Goddess reached it. I assume the people down there including that drow elf should be far more capable of reaching the throne room than us and they had a huge head start. Yet they did not find it. Thus I conclude Sir Tharden gave us an objective we could not possibly achieve. I am certain we were never meant to encounter this crystal of yours. Maybe he didn't want to pay the quest fee so he gave us an unsolvable quest? But that appears a tad too dirty of a move for a dwarf. Maybe this is not the amethyst heart after all? Sir Gundren was said to be in possession of a valuable map to the Wave Echo Cave. Meaning even for the Rockseekers as dwarves - their own mine was not fully navigable without this map. So how should we rookies with zero experience reach the deepest parts? Impossible!
Either this is not the Amethyst heart and only Sir Gundrens map was meant to lead to this long lost crystal - or we have been tricked by our quest givers. I guess we will find out when we reach the throne room.

As for why this bandit organization came here, I have a hunch. Look at all these crystals. They appear to gather or amplify mana. Remember even Summer said a spell to freeze over the entire land must be god-tier and not something even the most skilled mortal mage could pull off? But if this mine - the Forge of Spells - acts as a giant amplifier, a powerful mage could pull off this trick. This is what I believe this drow is here for.

Well rested and fed Yulya continues where we were before - leading her party to the only unexplored tunnel going west. She follows behind Alice and Cat an checks the area for traps.
Be careful I doubt this was the last creature on this floor - alive or undead! Watch everything from floor to ceiling!

Yulya sighs with relief seeing Ashleys summons tackle the ghoul approaching her.
But the relief is short and soon 3 party members are on the run. As soon as Yulya regains her composure she takes action. Two can play this game!  With 2 points of the staff she casts Magic Missiles on the zombie on the stairs this time amplified with the goblin staff. After everyones actions - if both zombies are still up Yulya moves to the NW corner of the platform and casts Channel Divinity Turn Undead forcing the zombie ghouls to retreat. If only one zombie is left Yulya will attack him with Toll the Dead boosted with the focus to lv2. Should he still be left after her Toll the Dead attack, Yulya will retreat 30ft SW onto the western platform and avert her eyes

Yulya sleepily stumbles out of the tent and sees the ghouls
Oh nonono how could this happen? We should have disposed of the bodies!

She immediately casts BLESS on Alice Ashley and Cat. and lets them attack.
Go for the one west of us first!

Then tries out her new staff. She expends 2 points of the staff and casts Magic Missile lv2 all on one target. If the west ghoul that Alice and Cat attacked is still up she will target him. if not either ghoul 1 or 2 whoever she sees first. If she has to advance to get a line of sight she will as far as necessary but then fall back to the tent.  Finally Yulya uses her Ring of Quick Casting to hit another ghoul with Toll the Dead boosted to LV2 with the focus

The bony hand wears three jeweled gold rings of unknown type with clearly a magic aura surrounding them.
It still clutches a wand, Yulya easily identifies it as a wand of magic missiles, but the rings evade her ability to identify.

Yulya is relieved Alice has returned without an incident
Great work Alice! Uh, can you - remove the rings and the wand? And please bury the bones in a respectful way!

Yulya speaks a prayer for the long deceased wizard and marvels the staff.
This is quite marvelous! I cannot wit to show it to Ashley! It will improve our ranged combat options significantly!
Still Yulya feels the burden on her has increased...

With Alice having returned with a chest, Yulya finds some time to relax
That was again great work! We should leave opening that chest to Ashley!



Yulya gladly takes the octopus snack from Cat and finds a little more time to rest while Alice warms up.
Let us continue! There appears only one way westwards!

Yulya carefully leads her party to the west passage, staying behind and investigating the area for traps

Yulya is overwhelmed by magic she cant control and casts weird spells in all directions
3 mirror images of Yulya slipped on grease with a feathery beard and grown to absurd size simultaneously cast INFLICT WOUNDS on the snake and miraculously hit it while a weird robot thing that came out of nowhere ropes up Alice.

In the intervening few minutes, Yulya shrunk back into her now slightly stretched clothes, stopped glowing, and was given a total of 61 temporary hit points that all evaporated at the end of the first minute and is left normal but sitting in a grease slick.

What happened? Oh god what is this stuff? My Cleric Vestments! Ashley is this your magic? It looks and feels horrible! Alice can you clean this?
Yulyas clothes are stretched and soiled with brown grease in a very unfortunate-looking way.

Alice's body was left like an oil slick on the water.

Slowly realizing what happened Yulya crawls over to the water and casts Healing Hands on Alices remains seeing that all her belongings have either spread on or sunken into the water.
Cat give her temporary HP! We need to get her back into shape! And I think we need a fire to dry everything!

After unsuccessfully trying to clean off the grease with water and shivering in disgust Yulya desperately waits for Alice to wake up. She will additionally use Channel Divinity - Divine Spark to restore 1d8+wis hp if Healing Hands was not enough.

"Yulya, FFS, I've filled your focus while we've been waiting, if it looks dire and everyone's attacked but it's still kicking, give it everything you got on that thing, something that won't get us grapplers. Now let's do this!

Uh yes, thank you! I hope this works. Be careful!

Yulya nervously awaits the outcome of the battle staring at her focus and worried about another mishap. If the octopus is still up and kickin after Alice and Cat attack Yulya casts a Distant INFLICT WOUNDS boosted to lv2 and amplified with the goblin staff at the octopus. If they manage to take it down Yulya readies the spell and casts it at the snake as soon as it shows up.