Dungeon of the Mad Mage: A deal with the dark elves

The adventurers quickly ripped the wand out of the skeleton's hands, and tolerated its weak punches for a while. Then it punched Groin in the face, at which point the cleric bashed it apart. That about wrapped up the intro, and the party could  carry on exploring the dungeon, while searching for the scorpion monster.

After exploring a kitchen/pantry/dining room section containing harmless floating items[1], the adventurers  continued on the dungeon corridors, suddenly distracted by a whisper from behind a wall. They decided to do a short rest beforehand, just in case, then opened up a secret door to find the statue of a dark elf woman. Szivem obviously had to touch it, instantly being teleported to another, near-identical chamber, with its own statue and secret door. She touched that one as well, getting back to her friends. After her explanation, the adventurers all touched the statue, then exited the other secret door... right into a dark elf guardroom. Groin took some poisoned crossbow bolts to the face and went down, but two dark elves quickly died and the rest surrendered.

Izzorvir, one of the surviving guards, took them to see the Matron of House Auvryndar. The adventurers[2] recognized Trissa at her mother's side.

Vlonwelv successfully persuaded the adventurers to help her get rid of the scorpion monster[3]. She offered them lodging, food and drink, delivered by a nonplussed Trissa. Later on, she took Antrius, the bard into her chambers, for some private negotiations as well.[4] Groin and Szivem took their long rest, while Tari was perturbed by a nightmare of being trapped in the darkness.

In the morning, the well rested party[5] departed to deal with the scorpion. However, their greatest opponent proved to be a locked door. After each of them tried to open it through brute force, they made it by a combination of using a crowbar, Guidance, and some other mischief.

They walked unto a large balcony, with a giant statue of Lolth hanging on the ceiling. It immediately animated and attacked, taking Szivem down before it was shattered.

Next up: where be the scorpions?

[1] Finding some valuable spell components, but nothing else of interest.

[2] But not their players, apparently.

[3] Not much persuasion was needed, given the offered reward.

[4] Further pissing off the princess, who wisely held her tongue for once. Oh no - is she growing up?

[5] Or at least, half of them.