We opened the doors with the horse emblems and discovered an abandoned treasure chamber, where we recovered several items that might be valuable.

Moving on, we encountered a lot of spiders, one of which has been hideously warped by magic.  The crazed gleam of its many eyes passed on the madness the beast itself was suffering, but it was eventually destroyed.

After that we found a chamber with a broken clay amphora and a pair of skeletons at the centre.  There is a second, unbroken amphora, but we elect not to tamper with it when Lik points out a corrosive slime or mold-like growth in the chamber, which seems to have originated from the broken container and is responsible for the skeletons.  The patch of acidic hazard blocks a staircase down to a lower level.

Our investigation continued with the discovery of a half-finished temple to a demonic elephant god (complete with traps) and a room so well-locked it required the extensive efforts of both Ling and Evinarius to pick it. Inside the room was a trio of swords stuck into the ground and the phrase "Two Banes and a Blessing: A gift from Lord Saral" carved into the floor.  We camped and pondered what that means, before Lik remembered that Lord Saral was a famous adventurer who explored - and lived - in the Dragon’s Delve before amassing an army and fighting a battle against a rival known as the Red Saint. We eventually choose one of the blades – a longsword sized for a medium creature with a sleek, silver blade. It turns out to be magic (but not alchemical silver), though it doesn’t radiate light as most magic blades do.  After camping, Ling and Vlad head back to Brindenford to report in to the Nok (undercover White Cloak and blacksmith).

South from there we encounter a room made up to be a crude home, with a peasant who smells like wet dog sleeping in the corner.  Lik deduces that the man may be a werewolf, and we discuss our options for dealing with him.  Should we ambush him in his sleep?  It seems a cowardly and wicked thing to do to a man we do not know.  Backtrack through the dungeon?  That seems a waste of time and effort.  Eventually we opt for negotiation, and wake him.  The peasant introduces himself as Chasmal.  He's relatively pleasant for someone we suspect of being a shape-shifting engine of destruction and we offer him a job as a henchman. He declines to come with us "because it wouldn’t be safe – for you" but trades a whole bunch of information about the upper level for a week’s rations and the promise that we'll bring him news of the Drave family in Brindenford and more food next time we pass through.

Chasmal maps out much of the upper level for us, warns us there are scorpions to the south, and tells us that a wizardess used to live in the south-west corner because she was obsessed with the Mages Four (ancient wizards who also lived in the Delve at one point). He gives us the password for the blue-steel door in the temple of Glarias and promises to keep an eye out for the black-cloaked man we're looking for.  He also tells us the man "lives further down, and he smells bad."  Finally, Chasmal warns us against tangling with the beast cultists, primarily because they tend to have numbers, and says they occasionally try and spread through other rooms of the upper level.

Following Chasmal's advice we bypass the scorpion rooms and head back to the south-west corner, proceeding to explore the rooms we couldn't reach without entering through the evil magic-eating room of doom.  We enter rooms containing statues and plaques devoted to the Wizards Four and immediately a) fight a fiendish crocodile summoned by one of the statues; b) loot a staff with unknown powers from a second statue; c) find a book detailing the wizardess Serristique’s exploration of the Delve; and d) lose Lik’s ancestral dragon-sword to the magic bound into a statue of Lissandera the Enchanter.

We decide to head back to Brindenford to meet up with Vlad and Ling, find a replacement sword for Lik, and check up on the Drave family, as promised to Chasmal.