We scope out the passage way south of the snake, encountering another spiderbug. Alone, it is not particularly deadly, in spite of its 50+ HP, and it pretty much kills itself, first by charging into a wall of readied attacks and magic missile bombardment, and then, the moment we move to flank, exposing a convoluted route by which it may go after the ever-popular Hirato, it immediately tries to break from the fight to pursue that opening, eating 3 AOOs and dying instantly.
Exploring the south chamber reveals some eggs. Naturally, we smash them. The chamber is a dead end.
We check the east passage. It looks like it opens into a large room. Combat looks inevitable if we proceed this way. Let's check the other path first.
Searching the area of the locked door reveals a small chamber south, that we previously bypassed because Hirato needed to reload. Inspecting it reveals only a lone ghoul, which we slay in the opening round, and the key to that locked door.
The locked room contains one vampire, which immediately immolates itself in a barrage of AOOs trying to reach Hirato. Loot is found: 3 arrows of animal slaying and some assorted scrolls for learning, none particularly useful. This place is now a dead end.
Time to search that other branch, I guess. We wallcrawl along the north face, arranging our party order so that Hirato is properly blocked off.
And, as expected, the obligatory bluster-and-battle NPC.
We take cover from the enemy bombardment against the wall: They are too fat to reach us from any of the sides, and to attack us from the front, they have to kill the wandering fire elemental we summoned, which is stupid and annoyingly not under our control, but manages to block the path, hit random enemies, and obstruct the line of fire. I am reminded of why I hate summoned mobs in CRPGs. Still, it manages to be somewhat useful. Also, the enemy takes damage when they step into the bowl of fire, which they have to do to attack us from the front. NYAH!
We survive a bombardment of webs and a fireball. Hirato takes a nap. Those animal slaying arrows become relevant now...
The Queen exposes itself. The first shot misses. We cast Bless to improve our odds.
Nuffle favors Azira: BOOM! Headshot!
With one more round left, we take a shot at the toughest spider, which incidentally happens to be the only one in range. It drops instantly. We revive Hirato. The other spider, sensing that Hirato is accessible, charges into the fire, sets itself on fire, and then dies.
VICTOLY! The Party Gains Experience! We level up and loot the bodies. And reload Hirato.
While I am writing this up, the party finds itself under attack by 3 random assholes who apparently spawned out of nowhere. They are weak and die in a single hit, however. Free XP. Some minor vendortrash is looted from their corpses.
The hatch down to the next level is located. Another bunch of random idiots spawns seemingly out of nowhere and attacks us. We kill them, too.
Going down the hatch, we are immediately confronted by these Grimlock guys:
There are only a few of them and they pose little threat. We slay them.
Exploring deeper, we encounter these guys:
They do not attack us, so like I always say: Try diplomacy, you always invade them later.
It appears they have a quest for us.
Only an adventurer would consider this a reward.
Searching the rest of the caves reveals two downhatches, one in the Thri-kreen territory, and one in a Grimlock cave. The Grimlocks attack us, but they are not very tough and quickly slain. Hirato doesn't even have to do anything.