I get that it is bad. But as you point out, we don't really know any of this. Waiting an hour is something we know would work Out of Character: , but not in character. And while we wait, and we start hearing the screams of tortured elf children? What then?
I would rather we either take the chance, or burn the spell slots for the cures. Yes, some of our magic is wasted, but that's what we get for coming when they know it. Everyone still has other things they can do, even if some of their spell slots are gone.
I think it would be disastrous to go ahead as well. I would like to wait but it's almost metagaming. While we know that effect only lasts one hour, our characters certainly don't. Would we sit there and wait if we didn't know how long it would take for the effect to stop? While waiting for who knows how long other children are being killed and the dragon and prince are even more prepared. Just my thoughts on it.
Daishain, happy to make a roll to see if Velon thinks Lay on Hands will help and tries to use that. Religion? Arcana? Medicine? I suppose how many points he needs would also be part of the potentially info (Or misinformation on a low roll), so I don't use 5 if you decide it will take 6 points.
It's a damn effective trap, that's for sure. Since we've already been told that we can share views through the Telepathic Bond, imagine the chaos in our heads! It causes our ability to fight to be reduced by about 25%, considering *smile*.