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So my party, after nearly wiping against Arkrhyst, got to his morale threshold and made him retreat, which he did by flying his maximum fly speed back towards Rimeskull and casting dimension door into the cave, so they didn't see precisely where he went. They then climbed the stairs (fighting the elementals) and... decided to rest in the mouth of the dragon's lair.
Obviously the dragon attacks that night; there's no way he doesn't notice. I'm halfway inclined to say that not realizing that there's literally nowhere else the dragon could have DDed to that they couldn't see AND that such a cave is the obvious choice for a dragon's lair is a big enough screwup that they deserve the impending TPK, but what would you do in this situation?
Yeah, sleeping right inside the entrance of a cave without checking it out is a recipe for disaster.
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Historically they haven't used any of the secure camping spells; I don't think the sorceress knows any of them. Arkrhyst was at 15 HP when he fled, and will take all the time he needs to find every single one of his potions; I'm going to roll out how much healing he gets out of them shortly. His tactics shows him to be smart enough to pre-buff, so there's no reason he wouldn't do it again; played as he should act, he'll walk right up the tunnel while invisible and open with his breath weapon before going to full attacks.
With the various buffs he has on him as written when he initially attacks, most of the party was completely unable to hit him short of fishing for 20s. Encountering him again is going to be disastrous. Even if the (highly optimized) fighter manages to get in and kill him, or the sorceress hits him with one of her ridiculous metamagic fireballs that she refrained from using during the first fight (to let the people who can't build characters for crap and therefore couldn't hit the dragon have a chance to do something for once, I suppose), most of the rest of the party will die horribly.
Dragons know where the things in their hoards are. It'll be a matter of minutes to down every potion he needs.
Hopefully the party is at least posting watch--otherwise, they're really, really screwed. But hey, more treasure for Arkrhyst's hoard!
Let 'em have both barrels. Don't remember the dragon's known spells, but if limited wish is one of them, they are in for a world of pain.
Which is as it should be in this case. :)
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A voice of dissent...
Players who do seemingly silly things often don't know they're silly because they have fundamentally misunderstood some information. And that's partially on the GM. Are you sure they understood the implications of the dragon's flight? How far away were they - all they saw was the dragon fly away in the direction of the cave and disappear? Do they know it was dimension door - could have been invisibility or teleport...
And when they got to the cave, they had to fight elder earth elementals to get in. Not completely ridiculous to conclude - "Hey, the dragon didn't go this way - he'd have faced the elementals first." The pc's probably didn't see the dragon come from the cave so they might assume the dragon came from elsewhere in the neighborhood and the cave is simply part of the Runeforge path. Heck is it possible the players think that if they leave the cave and come back they will have to fight the elementals again?
The dragon fled the fight presumably because it was low on hp. Again not a foolish conclusion to assume a dragon doesn't typically have much access to healing. So thinking the dragon won't be much healthier by tomorrow morning is not insane. Now it turns out in this case, it is. But I'm not sure it's fair to fault players/pc's who assume a white dragon in the middle of a frozen mountain doesn't have dozens of cure potions at its disposal. I'd also observe the AP tactics for the dragon do not reference using the potions, in part because the potions aren't really for the dragon, they really for the pc's as an extra boost before they head into the one-way door into Runeforge. [Full transparency: I had Arkhryst use the potions when he retreated. But my pc's teleported back to Sandpoint and rested there. The fight at the statues was very challenging, one pc died (averted with hero points) with the dragon catching them by surprise while in flight. Next day with them spell-prepped for a white dragon and trapping him in his lair? The dragon got pasted.]
So hit 'em hard if you want but be sure it's reasonable for the players to have anticipated it as a likely outcome first.
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A way to give a hint is something to the effect of the time-honored GM question: "Are you sure you want to do that?"
If they brush it off ... well ... waste them.
...Not to nitpick, but the Development section of his lair says that if he retreats there, he drinks the potions. Which, rolled out, gave him +191 HP.
Wait... What?! That'll teach me to respond about an adventure I ran two years ago. Maybe I should check my facts first...
Actual nitpicking: the full Development section that references the potions: "If Arkrhyst retreats to his lair after a fight with the PCs, he knows they’re probably not far behind. He spends several rounds drinking potions from his treasure to heal his wounds. When his alarm in area C1 is triggered, he abandons his treasure and retreats down one of the side tunnels to hide and watch. He’s barely able to restrain his rage if he sees the PCs looting his treasure, but realizes that it’s better to wait for now, recover from his wounds, and ambush the PCs later to regain his hoard. If he sees the PCs activate the portal to Runeforge and enter, he waits for several minutes before following them inside." So the same tactic section that suggests the potions also suggests that when the dragon is forced to retreat he doesn't follow-up after healing but rather hides deeper in the caves and follows the pc's into Runeforge. (More transparency, that didn't make sense to me - abandoning a hoard he spent hundreds of years amassing did not sound very dragon like. But the idea of him rummaging around in Runeforge, messing with the pc's was appealing. "Draconic mayhem" as the AP calls it.) The dragon's overall tactics and approach are spread across multiple pages and encounter areas which turns up the GM difficulty rating just a smidge.
That could go either way.
The players might realize that they're in a dragon's lair by virtue of all the claw marks and other signs. Might as will give them a reasonable chance of realizing where they just ended up.
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Hooray, angry dragon stalker time!