Rallying, the party slew 4 of the 7 duergar ambushers. Hugo held one captive with a Levitate spell as the female duergar leader, Ghared, and one other vanished magically. The group interrogated their prisoner, but he refused to provide any information about what his people were doing in the adjacent rooms. He offered his head, and Kavagal swiftly took it, to the dismay of the rest of the party.
Seeing few other options, they pressed on into a room containing several duergar smiths working at a forge on the other side of a rushing stream. Though they were apprehensive about not knowing the locations of the two invisible duergar, they engaged the smiths. Two narrow bridges spanned the stream, but because Argora was blocking one while fighting, Blumf enlisted Kavagal to toss him over the gap. He landed short, clinging to the bank and nearly being swept away by the rapid current before scrambling to his feet.
In the chaos of battle, the other party members were attacked by thunder spells originating from an unknown source. Qeew cast a Fog Cloud over the group to create cover. All but one duergar was defeated before Kerath was magically paralyzed and the lone survivor–who the party concluded was the spell caster throughout the battle–vanished like the others.
Kerath was cured of his paralysis after some teasing from his allies, and the party took a short rest near the forge, continually anxious about the risk of surprise attacks. Unable to proceed because of a sheer drop with a cascading waterfall, they returned the way they came, only to find that the door they had used before was trapped.
Exploring a new direction, they entered what appeared to be a conference room containing two more duergar who were unafraid to stand their ground as they guarded a door against the seven outsiders. Argora and Keeva quickly fell unconscious under the heavy blows of one defender. As Zin attempted to pull Argora to safety, she stumbled and fell on top of him. Though unconscious, Argora was somehow pleased by this embrace. Blumf, using his new spiked armor (bankrolled by Argora), grappled the second defender, who was later levitated again by Hugo.
After slaying her ally and healing fallen party members, this captive too was interrogated. As the other, more diplomatic party members were beginning to succeed in extracting information, Kerath utterly failed to read the room and attempted to intimidate her. The prisoner became defiant and uncooperative, and she dared Kerath to kill her as she was suspended helplessly by Hugo’s magic. After a couple blows, and just as she was about to be executed, Kerath’s crossbow jammed. She escaped the Levitate spell, turned invisible, and quickly darted to safety.
Severely weakened by three battles, the party retreated again to the relative safety of the octagonal room. The group reflected upon the fact that they were invading the home of people who had done no harm to them before their intrusion and failure to parley. Despite the duergars’ general reputation for being evil, this group was never reported by the denizens of Blassingdell to be malicious. They decided that their intent to rob them of whatever weapons they may possess crafted by Durgeddin the Black was morally dubious at best. Kerath felt particularly ashamed of his attempted execution of a defenseless captive. They resolved to direct their attention to the orcs that were murdering the townsfolk, then exited the caverns and retired in the forest surrounding Khundrukai for some much-needed rest.
Chalkboard sketch from 2017-10-02
(Octagonal room mislabeled as hexagonal)