The party made their way back to the entrance, battered and bruised, missing one of their number.
Askith's retainers were a little put out at the party's lack of knowledge of where Askith was. Lord Tighn will not be pleased.
Rested, the party re-enter the mine. They encountered a corridor with ornately carved walls. This was the same corridor where Askith was lost, but they weren't to know that. The party opens the large, well-decorated doors. These doors moved almost effortlessly on some hidden mechanism.
Inside the room, a dark-skinned elf reading some papers and a tied up dwarf with red hair. Is that the missing Rockseeker brother?
The party, except to Jeremus, entered the room and engaged the drow in conversation. He seemed polite, he answered all their questions forthrightly, he returned the papers his servant had taken from the party. He offered them a deal. The party deals with the flameskull and in return he would release the dwarf unharmed. As a show of good faith, he released the dwarf.
The party were very wary of taking this, and quietly talked about not accepting the deal. The "dwarf" pulled out a hidden dagger and tried to stab the person in front of him, yelling "they are not going for it, attack!".
And attack they did.
Darkness. Grease. Hidden giant spiders descending from the ceiling - spiders that had blindsense and web walker, meaning they were immune to both the darkness and the grease. Poison attacks (which had the dwarf laughing as he smashed the spiders to bits).
One of the spiders closed and locked the door, leaving Jeremus out of the fight. But that's OK, some bugbears arrived and to play with him. "Hey, that's the guy what killed Snarg, let's get him!"
It was a hard-fought fight, especially since one of their number wasn't it it, but the party prevailed. Good use of magic shut down the effectiveness of the dark elf's spells and the shapechanger's attempts at confusion.
Once most of the spiders were down, the dark elf and the shapechanger opened the door and escaped, the former by teleporting behind the line of bugbears, the latter by changing into a lizard and running along the ceiling. The shapechanger had taken an enormous amount of punishment but just kept going. Even a somersault kick by the monk couldn't stop it.
5 spiders @ 100 each 100
Dark Elf, forced to escape, 450 90
Shapechanger forced to escape, 700 140
New total: 4,071 XP.