In the temple room, they saw a campfire, two desks (one covered in papers), some bedrolls, some backpacks and a chest. And some dead spiders, of course. Watching over all of this was a 30 foot tall statue of Dumathoin, the Dwarven god of mining and underground exploration. The statue had large green gemstone eyes.
Jeremus and Oskar climbed the statue and pried one of the eyes out with a crowbar.
Crack. Crack. Craccckckckkkckckckkckckc. Oops.
Sounds of cracking radiated out from the statue all along the walls of the chamber. All of a sudden the pillars exploded and the ceiling began to fall.
Everyone made it out of the room though a couple took some damage from jumping off a 30 foot high statue.
The desks and papers and bedrolls and backpacks and the chest? Crushed beneath tonnes of rock. Hope they didn't want any of that.
After this, the party retreated to the waterfall room to rest, ignoring the locked priests quarters.
They had a rest. Jeremus went for a swim and found a skeleton on the bottom of the pool with several arrows lodged in its ribcage and a wand in its hand.
An hour or so later, they returned to the temple. Hey, look, the priests quarters is now unlocked. And empty. There was a cot and some old clothes and a bucket. Maybe a prisoner was kept here?
There were some footprints in the dust. They followed these to a barricaded door. Behind the door a Dwarven voice claiming to be Nundro.
"The other Dwarf that looks exactly like me says if you want me alive the you have to clear the way to the Forge."
The party headed north to the room where they previously went over the waterfall. They picked up some dirtly clothes from the bugbears, as well as some small metal badges with an unknown marking on them. They also picked up a pickaxe..
They climbed to the west side and found a small, concealed tunnel. From it, the "BOOM... BOOM..." sound was extremely loud.
After squeezing through, they found the source of the noise. An enormous underground lake. Miles across, perhaps.
From somewhere across the water, a wave came in every five minutes or so, making a huge BOOM as it splashed up on this shore.
Below the ledge the party stood on was the outlet of a pipe. They climbed down and went up the pipe, to find the smelter cavern and the flameskull. This tunnel was the end of a pipe that would have taken water from the waterfall room and over a water wheel in the smelter, powering some equipment.
The party went back to Wave Lake. Climbing up to the first ledge, they spotted a much higher ledge. They climbed up (eventually - some members had more trouble climbing than others). It being dinner time, they had some food at the top.
A short tunnel later, they came to the most beautiful thing they had seen - a cavern whose ceiling was made up of thousands and thousands of tiny glowing crystals, looking like a cloudless night sky. The walls of this cavern were carved in curved water patterns, outlined with pale purple and blue faerie fire. The work is obviously Elven. Part of the cavern was blocked off with a wall covered with dolphin carvings, with two large ornate double doors. Behind the doors - the Forge of Items. And a levitating beast with one big eye and several small eyes on stalks.
The floating creature was a spectator, a creature summoned to guard an area. It seemed to think the mine was still in operation and that the last shift had left recently, even though the workshop was trashed and looked like no-one had been here for hundreds of years. It was chatty but seemed very serious about its mission. It would kill those who attempted unauthorised use of the Forge of Items. How do you get authorisation? Show it a work order signed by the mine supervisor.
"What is your name, spectator?"
"I have been called lots of things.
'Guard This!' 'Carry that!' 'Get away from my food you horrible monster!'"
The party discussed the drow and bugbears with the spectator and came up with the start of a plan to lure them here and let the spectator kill them. With that, they bunked down in the remains of the guest Wizard quarters (which were apparently Mormesk's quarters when he was alive).
Exploration - finding Wave Lake @ 200 each PC
Peacefully dealing with the spectator @ 80 each PC
TOTAL 4,351 XP.