"Thank you Swiper." Lydia says to the rogue, before picking up the warhammer.

Nirzeg's thoughts could not be further from leaving any time soon. Rather, the githyanki seemed frankly in a rush to pour over the bodies, salvaging what part he can in a hurry from the Queen. Just before then however, if but one of the progeny attempting to scatter to the winds can be scooped up into a specially made vial for live specimens, then they are the first to fall victim to the wizard.

Spider Queen Harvesting: 19, if helped 21+1)

As all of that is going on, Zeek pours over the treasures apparently possessed by the spider; noting what gets taken, but otherswise keen more on helping in uncovering more among much of the webbing and likely corpses to be found among it.

(@DM: Reading it back, the post is a bit unclear on this. So, to be more accurate, Nirzeg's goal is to harvest is venom, as well as store whatever he thinks had been helping the spider produce the freezing aura earlier. If he can get a few intact carapace pieces as well, also appreciated)

Derrikoth abruptly shrinks back to normal size as soon as Nirzeg begins to concentrate on his guidance spell.

The webbing freezing and sticky, but brittle. It's easy enough to clear away with a flame or a blunt weapon. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of remains here, besides all the smashed (and burnt, and exploded) spiders. It would stand to reason that the ice spiders keep their prey elsewhere. 

Nirzeg is able to harvest a vial of ice-blue venom from the spider queen, but her carapace is charred and shriveled from all the fire damage. Whatever cold aura she was emanating has expired along with her.

The beautiful warhammer sits well in Lydia's hands. A sapphire is set into the end of its haft. 

Nirzeg sighed, seeming dejected initially over the whole thing. But he bounces back fairly quickly, and would turn to address the others. "Well, I don't know about you all, but I can do with ******* do with breather 'bout now. So, shall we squat here, 'nd hope these buggers had a tight enough territory control to rely on other critters from snooping for a bit, or we pressing on?" He'd asked, sounding almost hopeful beneath the devil-may-care veneer.

Lydia hands the hammer over to Swiper. "You'll have to work on it with your tools, but you can have the sapphire that is in this hammer."

Once everyone was more or less in agreement, Nirzeg finds him a nice corner in the Spider Momma's room to sit down, and takes a short nap in the chill; his clothing and preparation having left him with some protection against it. Zeek would continue to regularly patrol the general area and the tunnel intersection just outside during this time.

Short Rest Die Spent(2): 9. (spent 1 wizard and artificer one.)

Arcane Recovery Spent, restoring two of his 1st level spell slot.

Swiper has a twinkle in his eyes when he spots the sapphire in the hammer, and when Lydia offers the gem to the kenku, he gives her a surprised look. "A-are ye sure?" He'd ask, but his talons are already gripping onto the weapon and pulling it towards him. "You're awful kind! I'll make this quick!" He will then plop down on his bird butt and begin fumbling with his tools to extract the gem from the hammer.

Short Rest: 17
(And I'm not sure what I would need to roll to get the gem out haha)

Swiper is skilled with his tools, and removes the sapphire with a few minutes' effort.

Rasa spends the hour-long rest thawing out the frozen potion, by conjuring flames in his bare hands and warming the bottle through.

The bottle turns out to contain a potion of climbing. The contents look stratified even after thawing, and the layers don't mix, no matter how the bottle is shaken.

As you continue back through the tunnels and advance north, you eventually come to another natural cave. This cave has a 30-foot-high ceiling supported by five rocky columns. The floor is flat (normal terrain). Translucent ice spider webs fill the cavern, blocking line of sight quite effectively. 

Perception DC (or Passive score) 15:

"Now I wonder how much those would be if preserved just right." Nirzeg idly comments on. As a certain Githyanki has golden coins floating about in mind, a more wary Zeek perks up, and then flutters onto a shoulder and start batting at ear until he scowls and glares at the Tressym. "Oh what is it now, ya mundo?" He chides.at an already eye rolling spirit. Zeek then meows and points with his nose until Nirzeg finally traced the path. "Ah.. Ohhh... Well look  at this ****er. Good eye on ya, Zeek."

Zeek puffs out his chest. "I'm almost proud of you." He immediately deflates and lets out a pitable noise. Nirzeg just chuckles, and pets the agitated beast. "Knowing what I know of spiders, there's a good chance at least one of those contain something very useful. Or maybe even all three from the chowder heads that got caught. Though-...." Nirzeg trails off, squinting and biting his lips."Hey Big D. How bout it? A larger cut into my shares of whatever treasure we find, if you do the honors of cutting them open?"

As the negotation is going on, Zeek looks around the room more actively...

Perception: 21. (adv. from keen senses)

.

"I am not some mercenary, who you can simply bribe for these kinds of things. I would do it anyways, to stop the reproduction of these monsters. Though if you are offering, I will not turn it down..."

Derrikoth puts away his longsword, stepping up to the cocoons and stabbing at them with a javelin.

Rasa assists by easily burning through the webs that get in the way. Approaching the cocoons, you'll note that there are three. They are quite plump.

As Derrikoth breaks open the cocoons, the first one contains the exsanguinated corpse of a mountain goat.

The second cocoon holds a dead shield dwarf, wearing a tattered fur cloak and clutching a miner’s pick close to his chest.

The third one contains human woman with raven-black hair and pale skin. She is obviously not dead, but her skin is frigid and her breathing is shallow. Her face has warpaint, very similar to the faces of the Uthgardt barbarians you killed in the entrance hall an hour or two ago. She is unarmed. 

Nirzeg smirked, and just shook his head in answer. No way a miserly fellow like himself was paying for "free service". Thus, he had largely kept to an at least ten feet distance from Derrikoth during the investigation, trusting the dragonborn to be thorough, but without the backing of coin-...

 "Ho, ho, ho, ho! What do you have there?" Nirzeg scramble over to quickly peer past a shoulder with Zeek doing the same to the other. "... Oh. Its... hm... Poor dear. Not likely to be much profit to be made from this one. At least in terms of information.. but..." His expression turns pensive for a moment. If she isn't immediately stabbed before he finishes the thought, the Githyanki sighs through the nose and fishes out a vial. "The things you do out of curiosity." He'd mumble just loud enough to hear before downing some brackish looking liquid.

Moments later, Nirzeg transforms on the spot into the more wooly form of that of a bugbear; tusks an all. From there, he'll peel off his winter cloak and wrap her up in it before pulling her free and onto his lap. "The things we do, the things we do." He continues to chime, sounding disgruntled, and yet still pulling out a potion next to feed the tribeswoman. "There. Aughta start warming up."

Potion of Healing: 6 on Tribesoman.

Derrikoth places his javelin back into his pack before placing a hand on his longsword, "What do you think you're doing? We need to restrain her at the very least. Then we can transport her somewhere that she can be tried for her crimes and preferably executed."

"Yes. It's very illegal to be wrapped up in a cocoon. She must be executed at once!" Lydia says, incredibly sarcastically.

"Off with her head!" Swiper declared after Lydia's words, hoping that her sarcasm could also be heard in his tone of voice as well.

"She's clearly a member of that tribe of savages. Who knows what sort of wretched things they've done! Waylaid several travelers, as they were trying to do us, at the very least."

"Well if you are able to provide evidence for these accusations then it might justify the time and energy it would take to tie this woman up and drag her through a blizzard to the nearest city so that she can face justice. If not, we can move on and explore, and maybe even find whatever that dragon outside was guarding."

Derrikoth gives a little twinge of annoyance at mention of the dragon, "Need I remind you that less than an hour ago, her comrades were trying to remove us from this plane of existence? Are you really so naïve? At least the little bird understands things..."