In the previous session the Favorites of Selune were on the way to a beholder's cave with a magical spring which would turn them back into their real form, but turned back after a fight with a troglodyte patrol. So in this session they made a second attempt and actually arrived at their destination. The cave was behind a chasm, with only a small ledge giving access. So the rogue passed the ledge, and silently sneaked forward to scout. He was lucky and didn't get detected, so he was able to describe the beholder's cave and its inhabitants to the others. The beholder had in fact created the cave with his disintegrate ray to fit his purposes, and was guarded by four troglodyte champions. While creating the cave he had struck the underground water stream of the magical source, and the water was coming down like a shower on the far side of the cave.

The rogue returned over the ledge, and to help the others arranged with the fighter that each of them would hold one end of a rope, the rogue would pass the ledge, and with two people holding the rope stretched it would be easier for the others to pass the ledge. However that plan was done hastily, and the rogue never told the fighter that he'd expect him to also use the rope to keep him safe while he traversed the ledge. So promptly the rogue failed his acrobatics check and fell into the chasm for significant damage, with the rope just being held loosely at the other end. At least it was easy to climb out again from that. :)

After a better second attempt the group made it across the chasm, and lined up in the tunnel to the cave according to a battle plan they had made. And that plan worked surprisingly well: The dwarven fighter went in first, using a power to pull all troglodytes around him, plus a daily power that damaged everybody starting his turn next to him. The priest burned the thus assembled troglodytes with a column of flame. And everybody else was concentrating their fire on the troglodytes before going for the beholder.

Now on paper the beholder fight was a lot tougher than the fight against the troglodyte patrol in the previous session. But the beholder was the creature from the chaos realm that the Favorites of Selune had unleashed on the world in a previous adventure. Being chaotic the beholder never concentrated his fire, but instead used two (later three) random eye rays on random targets. That was sometimes annoying, but ultimately too dispersed to really be a grave danger. The priest used an at-will power that gave additional saving throws, making the various status effects of the eye rays much less efficient. There was one dangerous moment where a sleep ray threatened to render the priest unconscious, but he used his divine chance power for a bonus and then managed to roll exactly as high as he needed to not fall asleep.

During combat the sorceress stepped under the magic spring shower and got transformed back into her real form. Just as in the previous transformation all her belongings changed size as well, except for the tabard that they had just received from the svirvneblin, and which now looked more like a bib. As the transformation had cost the sorceress a minor action (and messed up her plans for that round), nobody else went under the transformation shower voluntarily during the fight. But the priest who at some point stood close was pushed into the shower by an eye ray power of the beholder. And the priest was among those of the group who had freed the beholder previously. So the beholder offered them a truce, like the last time, which this time the heroes refused.

Once the troglodytes were dead, the beholder fell relatively quickly. The group found his treasure of gold and a magic bandanna, and they all transformed back into their human/elf/halfling form with the help of the magic spring. At this point we ended the session.