The party has found 7 wands and has had one of their party fall in battle. The priority is to return to Cauldron to stop the floods and find someone to raise their fallen friend. So no one questions Hilde when she says she has a cool new spell that she thinks could potentially kill the skeleton dragon and decides to put the plan into action on their way out. After all, the dragon skeleton only managed to almost one shot the fighter earlier so trying to get it to stay in a aoe sandstorm for 6 minutes is a foolproof plan and nothing could go wrong. Hilde ventures into the cave with Loskid following and Melgarin and Lelenia stay near the doorway. Hilde can't find the dragon skeleton so she casts glitterdust. This gets the attention of the dragon skeleton which is now very sparkly. Hilde casts a Haboob, slightly scratching the dragons bones, and suddenly remembers that the dragon is more than capable of squeezing through the cave passageways. The plan changes to run away as the dragon brings Hilde, Loskid, and Melgarin to a inch of their lives. Hilde is reminded to consult her arcane knowledge and she realizes that the dragon is capable of finding a place in the cave that is not subject to a 2d4 damage from sand a round and stay there. With this idea out of the way the party gets back to their actual mission, right after Hilde bags the bodies of the dungeon bosses for reasons.

The party returns to the city. It is wet, cold, and still raining. They go directly to the temple of Wee Jas, being the only temple in the city able to 'raise dead' for a fee, after concerns are raised relating to the binary way reality will assign experience for the completion of the quest to party members that are technically dead. Being two in the morning no one at the temple is awake. The party decides leaving the body of their companion in the temple devoted to such things as necromancy might be a bad idea so they bring Elanor with them and head back to the temple of St Cuthbert. There the high priestess of the temple is overjoyed for their return and says 7 of 8 wands is good enough. The party gets to relax inside the temple as the clerics of St. Cuthbert stop the waters from flooding the city further, with the exception of Loskid who gets to join in on the fun of standing out in the rain waving a wand around. The party is rewarded a significant amount of gold compared to past adventures and the temple even finds a scroll of raise dead that they use to resurrect Elanor. She springs back to life and immediately turns into a wererat and runs into the temple dumpster as it a full moon. In the morning, deciding that damage resistance doesn't make up for the whole 'cursed to transform in a rat' thing Elanor goes through the ritual to remove the curse by stacking every wisdom saving throw buffing thing the party has readily available.

Meanwhile, Hilde reads the halfling wizards journal. She learns something nefarious was afoot but what is was exactly is concealed in a code. Also the whole wand thing was largely a comedy of dis-functional errors with the cleric of Hexor wanting revenge on the city, and the halfling mostly going along to get in the cleric's pants, and a necromancer turning himself into that random chain zombie in the process losing control of the dragon skeleton. Also a random demon from the underdark was in the cavern, apparently. Either way the party learns the dragon guards the treasure so Hilde recommends a wand of command undead for the rogue as she cannot cast necromancy spells.

With the city saved and gold rewarded, Loskid realizes he has enough to buy a 'night stick' and very excitedly heads to the magic shop to get one. He insists this will let him use his turn abilities into a spell boost that will do something. Its not entirely clear now what but he promises it will be cool when it happens. Elanor orders new gauntlets. Hilde is pointed toward a magical item that can identify and completely pay for the pearl cost from 5 casts which she immediately buys. The party also picks up a wand of command undead with 10 charges because we're doing this again.

The party also starts in enquire about property in Cauldron. There is a shack by the lake that lacks a roof. The party decides to postpone roofing hijinks for the time being.

Back in the dungeon the party ventures toward the cavern with the dragon. Elanor is made invisible and scouts forward. She finds the dragon. She also finds two zombie ogres, one of which hears her and starts to investigate. Elanor heads back and puts the command skeleton dragon plan into action. After some realization that boosting charisma might have been a good thing to do she takes command of the dragon and orders it to attack the zombie ogres who now see her. The dragon proceeds to one round each ogre. Trying not to think too hard on how are they still alive after encountering the dragon twice the party advances forward. They find the coffin the journal indicated holds the gang's treasure. They also find two more undead, writhing with worms. They reach into themselves and throw the worms at the party, managing to hit Melgarin. Then everyone who is not Loskid finds they lack the will to remain near these undead and run away in a panic. Unfortunately for the wormy undead things they lack the will to resist his turn undead and run toward a wall to get away. Loskid proceeds to slowly damage them with a crossbow. Meanwhile the rest of the party makes it out to the beach. Unfortunately for Melgarin, being panicked means no fighting off the worm which by this time starts to borrow into his head. The party runs back with Melgarin losing intelligence by the round. There they are reminded they still need to test their will to approach the worm ridden undead. Lelenia succeeds and lays down several arrows into the undead. Hilde fails and runs away again. Melgarin and Elanor decide Loskid and Lelenia have got this. Thankfully they do have got this and slay these undead. Loskid cures disease on Melgarin before the worm completely eats his brain. The party then wonders where is Hilde and goes off to look for her.

Meanwhile, Hilde panicky runs to the beach again. Once there the demon from the underdark mentioned in the journal and seen briefly jumping into the lake several sessions ago becomes interested in all the activity on the beach and leaves the lake to attack the now alone wizard.

Shackled City Home
Last time: Session 24
Next time: Session 26