Session A21 — Wave Echo Cave Approach

Summary

The party departs Phandalin for Wave Echo Cave, equipped with borrowed weapons and accompanied by Gundren Rockseeker, who knows the cave's location from his family's maps. The journey includes a brief but loaded reconciliation between Kavu and Roland over the giant attack, mediated by Gundren with characteristic dwarf formality. At the cave entrance, the party discovers all four horses have been set free — someone was here recently. Inside, Gundren's reunion with his brother ends in grief: Tharden Rockseeker is dead, throat cut, dead roughly a week.

The session is defined by three combats of escalating size and two significant item discoveries. A giant snake attacks in the pool cavern, nearly drowning Othorion before Kavu bells it to death with successive Toll the Dead castings. In a stone chamber the party kicks open a door onto six cowering bugbears — who are, it becomes apparent, sheltering from something deeper in the cave — and kills them all in a chaotic melee that includes a punctured lung, a spectral teddy bear, and Kavu delivering the final blow as The Undertaker. A loose Wand of Magic Missiles surfaces in the snake's underwater lair, and Haldak immediately tests it on Othorion.

The session also includes approximately forty-five minutes of technical interruption as a Foundry VTT configuration error breaks every template-area spell in the game. The DM eventually identifies the cause: he had accidentally set the scene elevation to 1 rather than 0 when trying to handle the pool depth, causing the volumetric template system to treat the whole map as a floor bisecting every character's hitbox.

Key Events

Departure — Equipment, Reconciliation, and the Road

Before the party left Phandalin, Daran Edermath gave Othorion a weapon from his personal collection: a +1 Frostbrand Scimitar.

"I think this will do more in your hands for the time being than mine."

He added: "I do expect it back" — a condition delivered with complete sincerity. Pip Stonehill watched the handover and recognised the blade as resembling Icing Death, the scimitar carried by Drizzt Do'Urden. She said nothing, but she noticed.

Othorion attempted to attune to the scimitar mid-ride, holding it while his horse trotted down the road. He began to feel the attunement initiating — time slowed, his horse's mane floated as if suspended — and then heard a voice from the weapon: "What is my name?" He did not know. The sword threw him off his horse into a tree for five bludgeoning damage.

Sildar Hallwinter loaned Roland his personal weapon: Winter's Fury, a sword he had carried through his own adventuring career.

"I bequeath to you Winter's Fury. Take good care of her and she'll take good care of you."

There were no healing potions available in Phandalin before departure. Haldak Tencloak attempted to sell brass dragon scales somewhere along the way. Kavu stopped him: "They're just gold. You can get gold anywhere."

On the road, Othorion had developed a cold — he failed a Constitution saving throw — and was sneezing on his horse. Kelvin used Shape Water to construct an improvised umbrella hood over him. Gundren Rockseeker blessed Othorion's next sneeze with genuine piety: "By the stout heart and mighty hammer of Moradin..."

The more significant road event was a confrontation between Kavu and Roland about the frost giant attack — specifically, that the party had let the giants leave with the artifact.

"What am I angry about? Just let the giants walk away, Scott Free!"

Roland's reply: "What could we have honestly done otherwise?"

Gundren mediated, talking it through until both parties arrived at something workable. Kavu committed to speaking up immediately when he had a grievance rather than letting it fester; Roland committed to creating space for everyone to speak before acting. When the reconciliation landed, Gundren blessed it formally:

"By the anvil of the forge and by the stone of the mountain..."

He then told the party the story of the Heart of the Mountain — a perfectly cut ruby, said to be a gift from Moradin to the first Dwarf King, which became the founding symbol of dwarven kingship. The point of the story was about what is worth protecting. He told it simply, as an elder relative might.

The Cave Entrance — The Horses Are Gone

The party arrived at the cave to find the hitching tree empty. No horses. Humanoid footprints around the area; the horses appeared to have been set free rather than stolen. Someone had been here recently.

Kelvin used Speak With Plants to question an old oak tree near the entrance. The tree reported two shadowy figures and two dwarves had entered the cave not long ago. It also had a request: it asked Kelvin to urinate on its base to deter raccoons that had been digging at its roots. Kelvin obliged. The tall grass nearby confirmed the total at four individuals.

Before leading the horses to better shelter in the woods, Kelvin spotted plants growing near the path and pulled several up, warning the group they were wolfberries and potentially toxic to horses.

Roland ate one. It was a raspberry.

Ariston conceded slowly: "Maybe... Maybe I was wrong. Maybe these are raspberries, then."

The First Chamber — Tharden

The entrance tunnel ran for approximately fifteen minutes: ten-foot ceilings, smooth natural ceiling and floor, walls hewn by tools. Throughout the descent, a rhythmic booming — like a slow pulse — shook the floor every two minutes or so. The sound came from deeper in the cave.

The first main chamber was a natural cavern with a large rock pillar at its centre. Three bedrolls. Supplies — flour, salt, salted meat, lanterns, lamp oil, shovels. A northeast section of the floor had collapsed into a pit roughly twenty feet deep, with a rope anchored at the lip.

Gundren moved directly to the bedrolls without waiting for the party. He found his brother.

"No! My brother! Tharden! No! What happened to you? Who could have done this to you? No!"

Tharden Rockseeker had been dead approximately a week. His throat was cut. Roland told Gundren he probably hadn't suffered — which was well-meant but not accurate for that kind of wound. Gundren did not respond to it. He stayed on his knees over the body.

Kavu lit a small candle, placed it beside Tharden, and walked away without saying anything. Then, to the party: "There was another brother. Let's see if we can find him."

Gundren composed himself and removed Tharden's Cloak of Protection, pressing it into the party's hands.

"Brother, this didn't protect you, but it might protect those who are here to avenge you."

He would stay here. He would guard the entrance and keep vigil.

"Lads, I'm gonna stay here and keep vigil over my brother's body and make sure no one comes in behind you. By the beard of Moradin, this I profess. I will guard your backs."

Kavu gave him a signal whistle.

The Cloak Incident: Kelvin immediately attempted to attune the Cloak of Protection. He was already wearing the Mantle of Spell Resistance — one of his three attunement slots. He tried to take on a third item without breaking an existing attunement. The result: "the sound of someone's life leaving their body." The cloak fell to the ground. Not destroyed outright, but significantly damaged — it would now require a full hour-long attunement ritual instead of the standard ten minutes.

Gundren watched this happen.

"The fuck have you done, lad? It was a surprise possession, and you destroyed it."

Roland took the cloak. To make room for it, he released his attunement with Talon.

At the bottom of the twenty-foot pit: an elongated-skull goblin, dead from blunt force trauma sustained in the fall. Studded leather armour. Green skin streaking across the face and neck — the same markers seen on undead-marked goblins previously encountered during the party's travels. It had fallen in rather than been pushed.

The Pool Cavern — The Snake

The party moved north through six-foot ceiling passageways with cart tracks cut into the floor — evidence of serious mining operations at some point in the cave's history. The tracks eventually led into a larger natural cavern.

The pool: dark water. Pale mussel shells along the edges. A faint but persistent smell of fish. A stream flowing in from the west; steps cut into the eastern wall leading upward. The water itself was impossible to see into.

Kelvin spotted movement — a long, sinuous shape beneath the surface.

"There's something big under the water."

A huge snake exploded from the pool. It hit Othorion with a natural 20 — 23 damage — grappled him, constricted him, and dragged him twenty feet underwater.

"Bye, Authorian. Bye!"

From one player as Othorion vanished: "You just hear him go, 'Oh, sweet!'"

Othorion failed his Acrobatics check to break the grapple. He produced a Misty Step scroll — DC 14 Arcana — and passed, teleporting out of the water and landing dripping on the shore.

From above the surface, Kavu rang Toll the Dead: a small ethereal bell appeared, shook, and delivered four damage to the submerged snake. Kelvin followed with three Scorching Rays.

"The snake writhes in pain as flesh is seared off of it. It actually smells kind of appetizing compared to the fishy smell from the pale muscles in this room."

Kavu rang Toll the Dead a second time. A larger bell materialised above the water and gonged, the sound sending visible ripples across the surface. Sixteen damage. The snake died.

"You basically depth charged it with Toll the Dead."

The snake sank. Roland cast Light on a small rock and threw it into the pool. Through the illuminated water, a skeleton was visible twenty feet down — next to a wand and what appeared to be rings. Othorion dove in and retrieved them: one wand, three rings.

The rings were non-magical. The wand was a Wand of Magic Missiles — seven charges, no attunement required.

Haldak identified it. Othorion said to test it on him. Haldak fired one charge. A Magic Missile struck Othorion in the chest.

"Halbach gives Thorian a big hug and he says, I'm glad you're alright, buddy."
"He's sleeping!"
"I just healed them and you just attacked them!"

Othorion, recovering: "Is this because I asked you to cast Haste on me before?"

Kavu used Cure Wounds on Othorion to address the damage Haldak had just inflicted.

The pool encounter also surfaced a revelation about Kelvin: he had been carrying Goggles of Night in his pack for an indeterminate amount of time and had apparently forgotten about them entirely — this came out because he had been complaining about his darkvision situation earlier in the session.

"So you just told the whole party that you don't have darkvision, but you're wearing literal goofy goggles that give you night vision."

Kelvin put them on. Haldak dismissed his light spell.

"Welcome to the darkness, motherfuckers."

The Stone Door — Six Bugbears

Further into the cave, the party found a stone door: six feet tall, four feet wide, six inches of solid stone, iron handle. The door opened inward by pushing.

Othorion pressed his ear to the crack and heard voices — goblin and bugbear language. Nobody in the party spoke Goblin. He opened the door.

"The surprised faces of one, two, three, four, five, six bugbears greet you."

The room: stone bunks along the walls. A glowing iron brazier. Six bugbears — one noticeably larger than the rest. A far door on the opposite side of the room, barricaded with a broken table wedged firmly under the handle.

Before anyone could act, one of the bugbears slammed the door shut.

Kelvin body-slammed it back open.

"As Kelvin goes to push on this door, you hear the shrieks of horror from multiple grown bugbears. Like there's a horror movie happening and the creature's trying to break in."

Two bugbears were knocked prone by the impact. Combat began.

Note: A Foundry VTT configuration error (scene elevation set to 1 instead of 0) broke all template-area spells during this combat. The DM manually adjudicated Faerie Fire, Burning Hands, and other effects by calculation while troubleshooting the cause. The scene elevation was eventually reset to 0 and play normalised. No mechanical results were retconned.

Combat progression:

Othorion cast Faerie Fire into the room. One of four standing bugbears failed the save and began shedding light.

Haldak deployed the Wand of Magic Missiles at six charges — nine darts total — distributing one dart to each bugbear and directing three extra darts at the large one.

A bugbear hit Kelvin with a natural 20: twenty-two damage and a critical injury — a punctured lung. Athletics and Acrobatics checks would be made at disadvantage for two days. Kelvin transformed into bear form to buffer his remaining hit points.

Kavu used Burning Hands through the cracked doorframe, feeding a cone of fire into the room. Then, as a bonus action, he screamed like a goat.

Word of Radiance: both remaining bugbears in range failed their saves, taking four damage each.

Roland drew Winter's Fury and killed one. A second took a Divine Smite — Roland accidentally clicked Talon out of habit, triggering the wrong weapon's effect. The bugbear staggered.

Kelvin's bear form cast Starry Wisp at the staggering bugbear.

"A big teddy bear comes out of the spell and it flies at him like this. It gives him a hug. And then he just dies, I guess."

One bugbear remained. Kavu rang Toll the Dead at maximum damage. The DM announced the result:

"The Undertaker comes out and just tombstones him... a giant spectral bell crashes down on his head. And then gong... you rolled fucking max damage on that shit, Dave."

All six bugbears dead. Loot: two agates.

What the room said: In the quiet after the fight, the party took in the barricaded far door — the broken table wedged firmly under the handle, the bugbears' bedrolls arranged at the near end of the room, not near the entrance. These creatures had not been guarding that door. They had been keeping it shut.

"As you have murdered a room full of bugbears that only wanted to not get assaulted by whatever is in this fucking cave."

Whatever had driven six bugbears into a corner with a barricade was still on the other side.

The session ended there. A short rest would be taken at the start of the next session. Party in the bugbear barracks; barricaded door ahead.

NPCs Encountered

Loot / Discoveries

Threads Opened / Advanced

• Wave Echo Cave — Interior: Party has cleared the entrance chamber, pool cavern, and bugbear barracks. The cave is actively occupied. The elongated-skull goblin in the pit and the barricaded far door both point to an organised force deeper inside.
• The Barricaded Door: The bugbears were sheltering from whatever lies beyond — not guarding it. What drove them into a corner with a table-barricade is unknown and still present on the other side.
• Tharden Rockseeker: Dead, throat cut, approximately one week ago. Gundren is keeping vigil at the entrance. His killer is presumably still inside the cave. Nundro Rockseeker remains unaccounted for — the party has not found him.
• Frostbrand Scimitar — Its Name: The sword asked Othorion for its name during attunement. He didn't know. He was thrown off his horse. The attunement did not complete. This bond remains open.
• Kavu / Roland Reconciliation: Road argument resolved through Gundren's mediation. Both characters made explicit commitments. The underlying tension between action and restraint is noted and on record.