Previously on Reclaiming Orathos

It's prep day in Ponterford, and four of us — Silithane, Fenric, Jex, and Lash — are casing the cave where the town's stolen children are still alive. We decide not to tell the town: false hope is crueler than silence. We track down Victus the Mute — forge-master and keeper of the shrine-lore — who arms us with the watchword: carry silver, throw junk to appease the altar, and beware the thing waiting there — the Candleman. Renforth cracks our puzzle egg into a ring, and Victus gifts a claw-weapon pattern for our wyrm fangs.

Then we scout in daylight. An invisible Fenric gets mauled by a shifting trap corridor until Lash cracks it — the dead-center line is safe. Deeper: a living skeleton, a lava room, and the dormant Candleman at a shrine of name-scoured tombs. Lash swims the underground river right into a "weird person convention" of villains — and a colossal crocodile man whose single missed bite one-shots a space she just vacated for 100+ damage.

We flee, regroup, and scheme to poison the river. Tonight, we strike. Pip city awaits.

SUMMARY: The party scouts Laewendas's cave — silver, the Candleman, a trap corridor, and a near-lethal crocodile — then retreats to rest, poison the river, and launch the night assault.