Of Disaster and Running Away for a Second Time: a repeat tale of Best Laid Plans, Damage-Proof Critters, Repeated Failure, and Tucking of Tails

OK, so after our first failed encounter, we decided we'd try a new tactic: The party would all run in, grapple the nasties, and Baric would drop light bombs, magic swords, and death-bells on the critters. Meanwhile, we would try to drag them into the light, to which they seemed averse. For the hot minute it took us to come up with the plan, it seemed bombproof. Plus, Baric was so confident! What could possibly go wrong?
 
I cast an ensaring strike and tied up the first critter from a distance, which felt way safer than running in and grappling them by hand. Except for the fact that I was in crossbow range and took some significant damage before the party even made it to the cave mouth. Still and all, I'd trade the bolts for being in hand-to-hand range. These things are bitey. And, overall, I thought, a successful start to the "hold them in place" tactic.
 
Baric moved around his magic sword (cool!) and started hacking successfully at the ensnared beast. So far so good!
 
As the dwarves moved in, the first fatal flaw (other than hubris) of the plan came to light: the cave entrance was clogged up and really the dwarves couldn't execute the plan as originally laid out. Dash decided to simply throw one over his shoulder and run outside with it. Which was a pretty baller move and gave further hope to the success of our plan. And as the creature got into the sunlight, it started transforming into a human form. Even better! Except, as it turns out, they are damage immune even in human form, and the light didn't seem to do any damage, so those parts of our plan also turned out to be a failure. Dash also started to look a little pin-cushiony as he became the favored target as he ran off with one of the beasts.
 
Meanwhile, Oz was doing his bit in the cave, where he grappled a beast, who then grabbled him back. It was a lovely slow dance except for the part where his date kept trying to bite him and stab him in the back. I get it: I dated someone like that before as well.
 
Baric quickly transitioned from being our damage-dealer to our keep-everyone-from-dying-dealer, and despite an early spell, Dash fell to the multiple wounds and crashed in a heap, while the human (but also not a human) thing ran off. I tried again to shoot it but to no obvious effect. These things are unkillable.
 
Given the quickly-evolving disaster this foray was turning into, Oz beat a successful retreat out of the cave while Baric cast another spell on our tanky friend Dash, and we all beat it out of range. Fortunately, they didn't follow. We ran away for about a quarter mile, caught our breath, applied some bandages, and ran away some more.
 
Given the nature of the beasts, I was loathe to camp out for the night, knowing we could reach the town in the middle of the night and rest a little easier. Following the trail back was easy work, though the innkeeper didn't seem well-pleased at the timing of our return.
 
Next day, we had our usual encounter with Wester The Brave, who continued to hide in his house and talk to us through the door. There was some acrimony over the job posting, which we followed to the letter, but didn't get paid for. He did offer to up the price for the job to 150gp. Baric argued for more, but was met with the usual snickering from Wester.
 
We took the job positing for Axehome, but despite talking to everyone in town, could find zero specifics or directions on how to actually get there. I'm not keen on "lets wander into the mountains, i'm sure we can find this place that nobody has seen for an age" without some better sense of what we are looking for. I'm a damn good ranger, but I can't find a trail to a specific location without some hints. Is it near a pass? Is is under a specific identifiable mountain? Does it face north? South? Is it near an identifiable river? Is it above or below treeline? We know none of these things. "Up yonder" is not specific enough for me to do my job.
 
Despite the fact that I hate the city, and despite the fact that the city is somewhere between 50 and 1,000 miles away, I don't see a real solid option left to us. We need a library. Or people who Know Things. Failing that, I know my dad is big on lore and history and poetry -- I wonder if he has anything in all his reading that would give us a clue? And if neither of those options work, maybe we go camp out and find that intelligent boar or something? I'm frankly at a loss as to what our next step will look like. And unless we learn more about these beasts that repelled us, it's folly to try to take the mine back. And nobody in town has a clue what they are let alone how to kill them.
 
In the meantime, I'm gonna go hunt up some dinner for Attabrah, have a chat over some wine, and maybe do some work on the leather. Also, I have a revolution to plan to get this town out from under the thumb of the Wester Conglomerate.