We continued on to Krusk.  Loki got attacked by a Mimic, disguised as a puddle of mud in the middle of the road.   He took some damage.  Several players moved up but since Loki is usually scouting ahead, they were too far back to help.  But when he went, he blasted it away in one round.  (Dan: I think it was a grey ooze actually.  It was dead before it got to my turn.)  We took a long rest, later that day, with nothing happening.  The next day, we pulled into Krusk.  We went straight to the abbey on the hill in the center of town.  The kids were handed over for cleaning, food and put down for the night.  Lady P made a big Arcana check and came up with the right words and sequence to remove the werewolf curse with a Greater Restoration now that we were on holy ground.  It turns out, the now cured enemy was from Krusk so she went home.  Unfortunately, we were not so lucky with the kids.  Most were from Valaki and none from Krusk.  Plus, most were from somewhere that we could not return them to.  E.g. the burned-down orphanage.  In total, we thought we could return 3.  The rest were left in the care of Irena.  There were some bad persuasion rolls to complicate matters but we made it out of town and back on the road.

So, one belonged to the booksellers in the city, one to the servants of the now-deposed mayor of the city, and one was Vistani.  Since only Lady P was unknown to Valaki, she went in alone with the first two.  The guards gave her a bunch of hassles about the proper paperwork but her scribe skills were able to forge the right forms easily enough.  The girl’s grandfather was happy to have her back however the other girl was not to be so simple.  Evidently, when the new regime took over, they publicly executed the old regime including their entire household staff.  (Worse severance package, ever.)  So, she was now an orphan as well.  Lady P took her to the church and discovered the 10-year-old altar boy we left in charge was still in charge, eagerly awaiting the return of Ezra and his friends with a new priest.  She basically talked him into taking her on to help him.  The next morning, she left a 10- and 12-year-old in charge.  She stopped in the magic shop and spent all her money on material components for her new high-level spells.  Meanwhile, the rest went to the Vistani camp.  Kharn finally picked up his strong longbow.  The girl was returned and we were hailed as heroes again.  This time, no one betrayed us.  The next morning, Lady P went back into the city to buy Ezra enough diamonds to cast Revivify.  She also bought some magic inks and checked out the book seller’s books.  Turns out, he was more of a bookmaker and the few books he had for sale were unremarkable.  She managed to make it back out and we got back on the road.

On to Argonvast, keep of Kaladin’s long-dead grandfather silver dragon.  The first thing to deal with was the dragon statue in the courtyard, guarding the front door.  Lots of time and skills yielded the following.  We were pretty sure it would turn to the front door and breathe cold if the door was opened incorrectly.  Several avoided the door and headed to the collapsed tower to the right.  Ironically, Baron Q triggered the trap anyway however the attack was just a cool breeze after all the years.  We could see spider webs and man-sized cocoons inside.  We decided to try to trigger the encounter while still outside, thus creating a choke point so that only one or two could come at us at a time.  That did not work.  They came out of the rubble, over the walls, etc., and surrounded us in waves.  They just kept showing up on the combat tracker.  (Dan:  It was funny, it would almost be my turn and 3 spiders would pop up before I could go.  This happened three times.) We blasted them pretty well and their attack bonus was poor. (Dan: In a way it was refreshing.  We have gotten used to everything having a +12 to hit.  It was nice to have an AC make a difference for once.)  Lady P did a bunch of AOE damage but we suffered some friendly fire because of it.  In the end, we figure she did more damage to us than the spiders.  The funniest was when Kharn told her to go ahead with her fireball, being resistant to fire from his sword.  But she subbed out fire for radiant which he was not resistant.  The rounds were long but the fight only lasted 2-3 rounds.  Some damage was taken and spells used but no short rest was needed.  (Dan: There were so many spiders that we couldn't understand what they had been surviving on.  We joked they had been hibernating until we arrived.)  Next time, we’ll start searching.