We never should've returned to Elfland. I'm very concerned that we've been painted into a bad ending, by a number of terrible dice rolls, and the advice of our GM. We were already understregth, and really, the only reason we pressed forward was because it's been like a month of failed game dates, and we finally just said, fuck it, we go absent a player. Terrible choice. That player had our only real warrior in his arsenal, and the GM said they wouldn't run them in absentia.
Now normally, I wouldn't recommend doing anything of the sort, we should've erred on the side of caution, and spent the session on R&R activities. In game, we aren't under a time crunch, really. But the GM specifically told us we could finish the adventure with just the four characters? Because we had a really good infiltration plan that went perfectly?? And we believed him for some reason??? Even though he's a pretty inexperienced GM, and the rest of us've been playing these games since high school so we should've listened to our guts????
We ended the session stuck in a pincer. On one side there's a spearman and big brutish hammer dude. We could maybe fight through that. On the other is a doorway with a giant reaching through it, trying to smash us with a hammer, and an Elf sorceress casting buffs while sealed safely behind him. We've got no hope there, and the NPC we're trying to rescue from that room is probably doomed now. We've lost two characters, and revived them with our only two potions. We've had terrible luck with our spells. My patron invoke gave me the least useful spell result it could've under the circumstance - My elf can fly for two rounds, but that isn't going to save anyone, because even if she escapes the battle, she can't fly all the way to safety. We're stuck in it.
So my only hope is, next session: our absent party members magically appear and turn the tides in our favor????? or we get lucky for a minute, and in that minute I can get a more powerful spell effect. A blizzard, or ice shackles on our foes to facilitate an escape. But basically we never should've returned to Elfland.