Having dealt with the menace of Black Spider we have some well earned sleep.  We then return to the cave with the crevasse and have a really good search, finally uncovering the skeleton of a dwarf miner with some very chunky looking gloves.  Aramil tries them on and finds that his strength is magically much increased, so he decides to keep them.

We then return to the cave with the Forge of Spells in it.  There is unfinished business with the wraith, who could be a tough opponent.  We decide therefore, since he spoke to us, and since reasoning with the mad beholder went so well, that we might try talking to him as well.  We open the door and he forms before our eyes as before.  This time, though, we ask him why his soul is restlessly stalking the material plane.  He ponders and gives us a long story about how he was the last of the defenders and the mightiest wizard here, but even he fell defending the Forge.  He is now trying to preserve all the magical items that remain and keep them safe.  If we are willing to get rid of the guardian of the forge, then he will reward us with coins from his treasure chest, for he has no use for them.  We tell him that we have dismissed the guardian, but he does not believe us until Garrett shows him his normal dagger, then goes and enchants it in the forge and returns to show us it is enchanted.  The wraith then allows us to take all the coins from his chest, but not the pipe.  We examine the chest, and there is indeed a hoard in there, as well as an old and well worn smoking-pipe, which we leave as instructed.  The wraith then offers us a chance to look through his shelves of tomes and scrolls if we give him something similar in return.  We offer the scroll of Augury (a spell of strictly limited utility) and have a look.  Unfortunately we find no scrolls of Wish or similar, but do find an intriguing old map stuffed into the flysheets of one old book.

We find little else in the caverns, and so decide to return with Tobler to Phandalin, where we receive a cordial welcome from Gudrun and Sildar.  No sign of Glasstaff anywhere – we shall have to cast our nets further afield.  Our plan to finish off the last Redbrands at the Sleepy Giant is forestalled by discovering that they have all scarpered, including the grumpy proprietress.

Fortified, we return to Thundertree to help out the druid as we promised.  We find him easily, and discover that nothing much has changed.  Aramil persuades us that rather than just heading straight for the tower, and the dragon, we should have a check of the rest of the village first.  We find that the route to both the tower and the rest of the village is blocked by a wall of webs anyway, so spend a merry couple of minutes slaughtering two giant spiders before continuing.  We find a village square with a statue to some minor hero, a fortified watch tower with some ash zombies in it, and then at the far end of the village, a barricaded house.  Garrett and Aramil knock on the door, with Elaina and myself covering them and hidden.  The house turns out to have 6 complete loonies living there, who appear to worship dragons and want to befriend this dragon.  They are very interested in Garrett and Aramil joining their cult.  A plan starts to form in my mind, that we could offer the dragon 6 willing victims if it agrees to leave the village and move elsewhere.  I am sure it would give the loonies the buzz of their lives to be actually eaten by the dragon.  Or maybe it would get it into their stupid heads that dragons are not cute and cuddly.  Either way, its a win for the forces of sanity.

Aramil slips out though, and we have a conflab on the plan.  They agree that the cultists could provide useful ablative cover, so Garrett and Aramil will offer to lead them to the dragon, given all their experience in dealing with dragons.  Meanwhile, he suggests that since the watchtower has arrow slits overlooking the tower, and has arrow slits, it would provide a good place for me to snipe at the dragon from.  I heartily concur, as studded leather has been shown in repeated tests to provide very little protecting against dragon breath.  We burst into the tower and start killing the ash zombies one at a time after Aramil has turned them all.  It turns out that they are heavy smokers and each time you hit them they try to share a little passive smoking with you in the hope that you will die of a lingering lung disease in 20 years time, so Elaina and I pull back and shoot them down while Aramil goes toe to toe with the forces of Big Tobacco.  We finish them off relatively quickly, and I start preparing my ambush point.

5th day of Mirkul (possibly)

Before we start the rest though, we decide to quickly go and check on the bugbears that we had tied up.  We discover that they have been freed – their ropes were cut – so obviously Black Spider or another of his henchmen (henchbears? henchbugs?) have been here.  We withdraw to the cavern with the glowing brazier and have our short rest.  We debate on whether to confront the wraith again, but decide that it looks a bit too scary for us, so decide to go and talk to the senile beholder again, and persuade it that we are the new owners of Wave Echo Cave, and all the wizards it used to serve are dead.

We enter the building and hear its familiar burbling voice in our heads.  Garrett starts speaking (or sub-vocalising to it).  He tells it that all of the wizards that it used to serve are long dead, having died in some great battle outside.  It looks quizzical (possibly, difficult to tell on a disembodied eye), and asks us to confirm this a few times.  Then it just suddenly vanishes.

We wait a while to see if it will reappear, before deciding that possibly it had been bound by the wizards and so is now free.  Garrett examines the brazier of green flame and mutters some exploratory incantations over it.  I go and look at the remaining workbenches and find a very fine looking brass headed mace and a breastplate with a dragon’s head on it.  Garrett extends his incantations to examine these items as well.  Aramil takes the mace, which is sacred to Lathanader and is called Lightbringer.  Elaina takes the breastplate, which was made for a hero of Neverwinter called Turgon and is called Dragonguard.  Usefully, it gives extra resistance to dragon’s breath.

It turns out that the flaming brazier will also make mundane items temporarily magical as well, so we dip our weapons and armour into it, and go hunting for Black Spider.  We return to the wave cavern and up the ledge to the far end.  We find a natural fissure where a stream once obviously flowed, but is now dry.  I scout ahead, and find a good sized chasm with a wide fissure across it.  There is the noise of rocks being moved, and I see two bugbears down at the bottom of the fissure, moving rocks around.  Ropes lead up to the floor on the far side, where a further bugbear is supervising them.  I wait and continue to observe, and see a drow is also there as well – this time this must be Black Spider.  We decide that trying to fight them across the fissure is not ideal, as they can easily flee if they start losing, so decide to find the other route into that cave.  We return through the bugbear room, then up the corridor and turn right.  Ahead we hear the noise of the bugbears, so know we are close.  I return to the forge room, and scout up the water channel, guessing that it should also come out into that cavern.  I am correct, and the ambush is set.

I start by shooting the drow, having previously magically marked his as my quarry.  Garrett leaps forward and casts a spectacularly useless shatter spell.  Aramil casts an invocation at the bugbear that freezes it in place, while Elaina slashes at the drow twice, but only hits it once.  The drow now draws a sword and attacks Elaina with little effect.  I shoot it again.  Garrett casts another incantation at the drow, and it drops to the floor.  Aramil hits the still frozen bugbear with his new mace.  Elaina rushes forward and cuts one of the ropes that a bugbear is climbing, causing it to tumble to the floor.  I shoot the other bugbear, and Garrett leaps forward and stabs it with his rapier.  It clutches its face in agony and falls from the rope, breaking its neck as it hits the cavern floor.  Aramil hits the frozen bugbear again, but his blow is deflected by its armour.  Elaina steps in and delivers the coup de grace, while I shoot the final bugbear at the bottom of the rift.

We examine the body of the drow to find that this one has also reverted to a doppleganger form like the last drow.  Was this really Black Spider?  Are all the Black Spiders dopplegangers?  Is there one Black Spider somewhere who is sending out all these duplicates?  Will we ever work out what is going on?

4th day of Mirkul (probably)

Our long rest passes surprisingly uneventfully and we prepare to fight the flaming skull and zombies in the forge chamber again (unless there is a different flaming skull behind this door, which is a prospect too worrying to consider).  We come up with a fairly cunning plan (well, a plan at least), and unbar the door.  There is a short corridor and T-junction beyond before it opens into the room beyond, which appears to be the same forge chamber.

I advance in and let off a shot at the skull, hitting it with an arrow.  It returns fire with two flame bolts, severely wounding me.  I realise that a second round of that sort of damage will kill me.  Elaina enters and starts hacking at the nearest zombies.  Garrett enters and uses his shatter enchantment on the skull.  The zombies flail around a bit and advance on us.  Aramil enters and presents his holy symbol – three of the zombies and the flaming skull retreat from him.  The zombies flee from the room but the flaming skull just backs into the far corner – it is obviously tied to this room.

Free from being attacked by the skull, I heal myself, and also get some healing from Aramil.  Garrett and Elaina start hacking at the remaining zombies – they are surprisingly resilient, but in the end we all pile in and manage to finish them off finally.  Then we heal up and consider the skull, which we know will soon be able to attack us again.  Garrett hits it with another shatter spell, and Elaina casts magic missile on it not once but twice, using her action surge.  The skull explodes into shards of bone and falls to the floor.  We have won, amazingly!  And without anyone dying.

We explore the room, but find nothing unusual.  I go east down the dried up water channel, since the booming noise is loudest from there.  It emerges on a narrow ledge in a large, flooded chamber.  Periodically a wave of water crashes against the cliff below the ledge, creating the booming sound.  The waters smell sulphurous and the air is warm and damp – possibly this connects to a volcano or hot spring of some kind, which might be causing the surges.  I follow the ledge to the right, and enter another tunnel that ends in a very large chamber containing a blackened building, and many skeletons.  The doors of the building are ajar and I peer in.  There is a weird glowing brazier within.  I back away and go down a corridor on the west wall, which I hope will rejoin the forge chamber.  It does, and I am reunited with the rest of the party.

We all now enter the large chamber and open the doors of the building within.  The interior is also smashed up – we reckon this might be the wreckage from the spell battle that we heard was the climax of the battle of Wave Echo Cave three hundred years ago.  The glowing brazier in the centre might be the Forge of Spells that we have heard tell of.  A strange floating sphere with a large central eye and four eyes on stalks rises behind it, and we feel a voice talking to us in our heads.  It seems friendly, and it explains that this is the Forge of Spells and that it is guarding it for the wizards who have just stepped out for a minute and will be back soon.  We describe Glasstaff to see if he is one of the wizards, but he doesn’t recognise the description.  I think that because the only way into this chamber is through the forge, and the skull has been guarding that entrance, possibly no one has been in here since the battle three hundred years ago.  In which case either this creature has a poor sense of time, or is completely insane.  The wizards who popped out a couple of minutes ago are almost certainly the skeletons in the chamber outside.

The guardian is friendly, but seems adamant that we can’t touch anything until the wizards return, so we decide not to ignore him, and explore the further reaches of the cavern.  We find that there is an upper step and another building, also blackened and damaged.  We prise open the door to this, and peer inside.  The floor is covered in dust, which rises up before our eyes to form a wraith that accuses us of coming to steal its treasure.  We retreat rapidly – two sets of undead in one day is too much for us.  We go further south in the cavern, and find that it opens into another, fungus filled cavern.  This is familiar to us from before.  We opt to have a short rest outside the building with the wraith.

3rd day of Mirtul

Having celebrated our success at Cragmaw Castle (and the Greengrass festival) with much revelry at Phandolin, we ask Gundrun to tell us where Wave Echo Cave is, which he willingly does.  It turns out to be surprisingly close to Phandalin after all.  We find the cave entrance without difficulty and venture in.  We find an encampment in the first cave, and the recently dead body of a dwarf, who we assume is the third of the dwarven brothers.  His boots prove interesting (I don’t remember why the sudden interest in footwear) and Garrett takes them upon discovering that they make him more fleet of foot and generally bouncy.  At least he should now be able to keep up with us.

At the far end of the cave is a large sinkhole, with a rope tied, which we descend.  Below we find a widened part of a long fissure, which we explore.  There is a warren of small tunnels running off it, which seems to be the long abandoned mine workings.  We find a round room with many long dead dwarves and orcs, obviously a relic of the fall of the mines long ago.  Beyoind this room we find a vast, fungi filled cavern, which we decide not to explore.  To the south we find several rooms – one has a collapsed ceiling and more skeletons, except these ones animate and attack us.  In another chamber we find an iron strongbox which we are unable to open.

Further north, we find another chamber where we are attacked by 3 ghouls.  We manage to defeat them without loss and penetrate further into a confusing maze of galleries.  We find some stairs going upwards and ascend into a huge chamber where we are attacked by seven ghouls.  This time Elaina is briefly paralyzed by one of them, but again we defeat them.  The central section of the cavern is lower, and we descend some steps, to find a banqueting chamber, again strewn with ancient dead.  Venturing down a cavern to the north, we reach an ancient forge, with more bodies, and a floating, green glowing skull.  Garrett casts an illusion to distract it, and we attempt to rush across the chamber while it is distracted, but the dwarves in there rise and shamble towards us.  The glowing skull also attacks us, firing fiery beams from its eye-sockets.  We are badly mauled, and retreat rapidly to the large chamber again.  We try to take a rest there, but notice another of those strange ceiling worms from Cragmaw on the ceiling, so decide to move on.  We return to the chamber where we killed the 3 ghouls and rest briefly there, before continuing exploring.

After a long period getting lost in the warren, we find another door, behind which I head voices talking in goblin.  We burst in, to find 5 bugbears in there.  The fight is vicious, and we are badly wounded again, but manage to kill three of them.  Garrett sleeps another one, and the final one surrenders.  We notice that the far door is barricaded, and he tells us that it is because there are zombies and a glowing skull beyond.  He also tells us that they serve the Black Spider, and that he is laired somewhere nearby.  We decide that we need to have a long period of rest and recuperation if possible in this chamber.

30th day of Trasakh

Having finished searching the hobgoblin quarters, we return to the store room and then quietly open the door on the other side.  It opens out into a chapel of some sort.  Three goblin priests are praying at an altar draped in black cloth, while two more watch out of arrow slits in the wall.  There are two curtained doorways on the right hand side.

Wanting to prevent the goblins from fleeing and raising the alarm, I am first to enter and run to the far doorway before the goblins can react.  The others block the other doorway, and the combat is short and bloody.  We examine the altar, and see three golden sacramental vessels on it.  It looks like this is the defiled shrine to Oghma!  I strip the black and bloody cloth off the altar, and keep the sacred ornaments.

Going through the curtains, we enter a high and ornately carved ante-chapel.  There is a font with a pile of charcoal in it – searching though it reveals ???something???.  However, our searching is interrupted when a strange beaked snake drops from the ceiling where it had been hiding.  The fight against this is hard work, and my blows don’t seem to have much effect, but in the end some mighty blows from Elaina finish it off.

Stealthily opening the far door, we see it opens out into the small courtyard we had previously observed from the secret door entrance.  We can see a single goblin dozing in there but are concerned there might be many more, so decide to lure it into the chapel to kill it subtly.  Garrett casts an illusion of a beckoning goblin and I try to imitate its voice to ask it to come and help me.  It wakes and comes over to us; we shut the door behind it and I dispatch it with a single blow.  We hear another goblin voice from the courtyard asking where it is though, so entice another goblin in and dispatch that as well.

Entering the courtyard, we peer through the curtain into the guardpost for the secret back door beyond.  There are only two goblins in there, so Garrett and I leap in on them and dispatch them before they can raise the alarm.  We then proceed to the king’s quarters, where we listen and hear various voices.  We decide to burst in, and confront a bugbear, a hobgoblin and a goblin – not the start of a bad dwarven joke but instead obviously the latest set of leaders.  The fight is again bloody, but we are getting good at honing our tactics with these humanoids now, attacking their weaknesses, so we quickly kill them, but not before sustaining significant damage ourselves.  We finish the last of our healing spells and are contemplating a rest, when there is a loud knocking at the door, and some hobgoblins demanding to know what is going on.  Our attempts to stall them and dismiss them fail, and they burst into the room.  There are four of them, and once again there is a bloody fight.  At the end of it, I am forced to drink my last two healing potions to get myself back into fighting form again.

We proceed through the curtain we never investigated before and find a hobgoblin barrack rather than the kitchen we expected.  Beyond this we find the room that they had obviously been keeping the owl bear in – on a fragment of floor high up we find some treasure.

At this point we are weary and bloodied but anxious to finish emptying the castle.  We decide to try and intimidate the remaining goblins, so gather up the heads of the chiefs we have just killed and take them with us.  The next room is a kitchen/refectory with a handful of goblins – we brandish the heads and tell them to leave and never return if they want to survive.  All of them do apart from the cook, and we rapidly reduce him to julienne strips.

Leaving the kitchen, we see that the main hall and gate has a number of goblins fleeing the castle – we do a final sweep and then rest on our swords, our labours here seemingly finished.  And all in time for the Greengrass festival as well.

30th day of Tarsakh

We deliberate on our next approach as we hike back to the cave to rest.  We decide that the disguise plan was a good one, it was just that I stuffed it up by resorting to violence too quickly.  I resist the urge to respond to the criticism by resorting to violence, and agree that we will try the plan again this evening.  This time, though, we decide that we will try the main gate.  My thoughts are that trying the secret entrance for a fourth time is so obvious that there is no way they could be expecting it, but I get voted down.  We decide that we need more intel though, so decide to ambush a patrol and capture a goblin to interrogate.

After resting, we scout around for a patrol and soon find one with two hobgoblins and four goblins.  We leap into action, in a slightly haphazard manner.  My first arrow goes seriously awry, and Garrett’s incantation only sends two of the goblins into a slumber.  We start to get our act together though, and reasonably rapidly dispatch the hobgoblins and one of the goblins.  The last goblin scarpers before we can catch him, using an unusual turn of speed.

We tie up the last two goblins and start asking them questions.  They are surprisingly co-operative, although maybe seeing the two dead hobgoblins and knowing of our reputation helps them.  In return for some food and their freedom they tell us that there are still lots of goblins, but relatively few hobgoblins and bugbears, and that there is no new authority figure to replace the king.  Black Spider is continuing to send them orders, but they are just mercenaries working for him.  They tell us that the main gate is guarded by sentries, but tell us the password.  They also warn us that after the main door there is a pit trap straight ahead, but the door to the north leads to the hobgoblins, and the door to the south to the goblins.  Pleased with this information we give them the coppers that we found on their dead comrades and tell them that they are free, but that if their information is wrong, we will hunt them down and kill them.

Having resting during the day, we return to Cragmaw Castle in disguise and with Garrett disguised as a captive.  He casts minor illusion to help our faces appear more hobgoblin-like.  We approach the main gate and are challenged for the password.  I return the phrase the goblins gave us, and we are let in – so far so good.  There is a brief exchange with the gate guards about our patrol, which I answer in a guttural snarl and then we proceed through the north door.

Beyond the north door, we find a storage chamber with spoilt food, which is obviously still being eaten.  We also find some bloodied chainmail and a sword, which we think might be Sildar’s, so we take it.  There is a door in the west wall, which we open.  Beyond is a barracks with four hobgoblins.  I start a conversation, mindful of the feedback from the rest of the party over the last attempt, and we find that there are very few of the hobgoblins left, very few bugbears, and that the owlbear was their secret weapon, which they are most annoyed that was released early.  We try to withdraw, but they are keen that we leave Garrett there, which doesn’t seem like a good idea.  The conversation continues in a desultory fashion (although they do mention that Black Spider lives in a cave), until the minor illusion wears off.  We see a look of confusion cross the faces of the hobgoblins, so we attack.  The fight is bloody, but we are victorious, although not before both Elaina and I take serious wounds from the hobgoblins, who seem to be hitting with much more vigour than before – they seem to have been training which is giving them some sort of martial advantage.  When the fight is over, we notice a cage of crows by the arrowslit – we surmise that this might be how Black Spider is communicating with the hobgoblins.  Maybe we can release one and follow it to see where it goes?  If only we had someone with a flying familiar…

28th day of Tarsakh

We set out once again for Cragmaw Castle, but this time we have a plan to try and sneak in disguised as hobgoblins, using the equipment from the ones we killed at the caves.

29th day of Tarsakh

We reach Cragmaw Castle again and approach the back door in the dark wearing our disguises, and pretending that Garrett is a captive.  We are not as silent as hoped in advancing and are challenged by a goblin sentry.  I attempt to bluff us in in goblin, but he insists that we must go in by the main gate.  In frustration I rip aside the curtain and attack him with my blades.  Unfortunately there is a second goblin who rushes out of the far door before we can stop him.  We kill the goblin and beat a hasty retreat, but are pursued from the castle.  We retreat through the forest westawards, but they are tracking us and we are not gaining on them.  Finally in desperation, we set up an ambush on the far side of a glade in the dark forest, climbing some trees.  Our pursuers enter the glade cautiously, obviously having sensed that we are no longer fleeing from us, as they never could have kept up with us if they had been this cautious crossing every glade.  They send in ten goblins to check the glade, and when they are half across, four hobgoblins and a bugbear also enter the glade.  Garrett casts faerie fire upon the bugbear, but it only affects two of the goblins and one of the hobgoblins.  Still the light from that is enough for us to start shooting as the goblins and bugbear race across the glade.  The hobgoblins stay back and start a surprisingly effective counter-fire against us.  I am somewhat wounded but we kill the bugbear and two of the hobgoblins with arrows, while Garrett’s spell casts most of the goblins into slumber.  The remaining two hobgoblins flee back to the castle.

We return to the castle, hoping that they will think that we have continued to flee, and investigate the postern gate.  I try to sneak up to it, but am obviously spotted and shot upon.  Even then, I am able to see that it is a stout iron door, and probably not an easy means in ingress for us.  We return around to the western side of the castle, and try to work out how to re-enter through the back door again.  As I sneak up again, I can hear deep grunts from inside, and quite commands and sounds of struggle.  As I try to work out what these are, the curtain is whipped open, and a great creature bounds forth, like a bear but with the head of an owl.  I sprint for the forest, but it is gaining on me, so I turn at the edge of the forest and engage it in combat with my blades.  The others join in as well, and we make relatively quick work of it, expending several spells to defeat it before it can disembowel one of us.

We drag its corpse into the forest and return to considering our options again.

24th day of Tarsakh

We take a short rest and repair the two dams in the caves in case we need to use the water traps again.  Then we set out for Cragmaw Castle.  We find a fairly well trodden track leading in the right direction and my fieldcraft skills tell me that this area has frequent goblin patrols.  We proceed to the edge of Neverwinter Woods, occasionally hiding from goblin patrols, and reach the edge of the woods by evening.

We camp discreetly, and have an uneventful night.

25th day of Trasakh

We awake and make our way quietly through the forest until we sight the crumbling towers of Cragmore Castle.  There is a great doorway opening onto a terrace at the top of a flight of stairs, but many arrow-slits overlook that, so I scout around the castle.  On the south side there is a postern gate, and on the north side, a section of wall between two towers has almost completely collapsed.  in the shadows at the base of the pile of rubble, my keen elven eyes spot that there is a sheet of cloth that has been painted to resemble rubble.  Obviously a secret means of entrance.  I fetch the others and we tether the mules to some nearby trees.

We cautiously enter through the sheet, expecting guards on the other side, but find a deserted area at the base of a collapsed tower.  There is another sheet-covered entrance on the far side, which opens into the bailey of the castle, and a door to the east.  We open the door, which shows a short passageway.  The is a further door to the east and a sheet-covered doorway to the south.  We listen at the door, and hear two voices conversing – one gruff, the other silky.  We decide to burst in and attack them, and prepare spells and weapons.

We burst into the room, which occupies most of the base of this tower.  There are a tall, old bugbear and a female drow arguing.  In the south corner is an unconscious dwarf, and lying on a bed to the north is a wolf.  They are surprised and so we launch an attack.  We guess that the female drow might be Black Spider – the name would fit what we know of Drow habits.  Aramil casts Guiding Bolt at her, which hits as she is not wearing much armour.  The damage is boosted by him using a second level slot on it, and using his bardic inspiration as well.  Elaina attacks the bugbear twice, but only hits once, for minimal damage.  Garrett casts Dissonant Whispers on the bugbear, who is affected – he obviously has low Wisdom.  I attack the drow and hit once.

Next turn we launch more attacks, including another Guiding Bolt and more Dissonant Whispers.  They fight back, but their attacks are mostly ineffective, and we continue to batter them with sword blows and as many spells as we can.  Finally the succumb to our onslaught, including the wolf.  We quickly search them – although the drow has changed shape as she died – she is now an eerily nondescript human – we suspect she may have been a doppleganger.  The unconscious dwarf turns out to be Gudrun, and so we heal him.  Regaining consciousness, he confirms that the bugbear was King Groll, but tells us the drow was just a messenger from Black Spider.  We decide that having rescued Gudrun, we will beat a swift retreat, leaving the goblins to wonder just what has happened.  As we are deciding that, there is a knock on the door, and a voice asking in Goblin whether the king would like his dinner now.  I muster my best gruff bugbear voice and say ‘Later’.  He seems satisfied and departs, so we decide to leave as quickly as possible as well.

Our exit from the castle is unobserved, but when we return to the mules, we find 4 hobgoblins and 2 wolves pawing at them.  We rush forwards to rescue them, and a tough fight, for me at least ensues.  I dispatch the hobgoblin and wolf fighting me, but suffer severe wounds in return which I use my new healing spell to cure.  Aramil and his hobgoblin ineffectually trade blows.  Garrett casts Dissonant Whispers on another goblin, who flees.  Elaina fights the hobgoblin leader and his wolf, who put up a brave fight.  The leader is finally killed, and his wolf and the hobgoblin who is sparring with Aramil flee.  We decide that we need to get out of here fast, so grab the mules and leave as quickly as possible.

27th day of Tarsakh

We return to Phandalin without incident and with Gudrun.  Sildar gives us much gold for killing the goblin king.  However I have not fulfilled my geas of cleansing the shrine of Oghma at Cragmaw Castle, so I, at least, must return.

15th day of Tarsakh

We return to Phandalin after an uneventful trip down the Triboar trail.  Somehow all the lands around seem more welcoming and normal after our defeat of the orc menace that was threatening the area.  We report to Sildar about Kost and the prospectors, and also our defeat of the orc threat (we neglect to mention the single orc that escaped – we will deal with him later).  I also return to Sister Garaele and tell her about Agatha’s response.  She is pleased and gives me the 3 potions of healing that she promised us.  She is also interested by our various exploits and pleased by the way that we handled our various encounters, and suggests that I would make a good recruit for the Harpers.  I had been considering this for a while, but just hadn’t met a representative of this secretive organisation, so I agree to join.  There seems to be no formal ceremony or oath-taking, but she informs me that I am now a Watcher of the Harpers.  Being a clandestine organisation I am to tell nobody (whoops!).

We enjoy another restful evening and night at the Stonehill Inn.  Even Harbin the mayor seems pleased with us, telling us that there has been no reprisals from the Redbrands, and the town fells better for their absence.  It turns out that us getting rid of them was one of his best ideas.

16th day of Tarsakh

We arise early and set out for Neverwinter, as being the shortest route to Thundertree.  Elaina is keen to return, as this is the village of her birth, from where she was exiled after it was destroyed in the eruption of Mount Hotenow 40 years ago.  The ruins have been cursed ever since, so this once prosperous village was never reoccupied.

On the road, we join a caravan, which makes our journey to Neverwinter safe and rapid.

19th day of Tarsakh

We arrive in Neverwinter in the afternoon and find an inn to stay in (last time I was here I was so poor I had to sleep under a hedge).  We also purchase 2 mules and their tack in order to carry our equipment for us.

20th day of Tarsakh

We set out for Thundertree along a well marked road through prosperous agricultural country.  As we approach Thundertree though, the great Neverwinter Wood looms ahead and the land becomes deserted.  The track leads to Thundertree, but at the entrance we find a sign saying:

Danger – Plant Monsters and Zombies

Do Not Enter

The village beyond is ruined and overgrown.  A tower on a tall mound looms over the centre of the village – intact apart from the roof which is partially ruined.  We tie our mules to the sign, and enter the village.  The first few hours are just ruins, and we poke our heads in to see if there is anything left.  Suddenly, some of the shrubs around us shake themselves and tumble towards us; lashing us with thorny whips.  The fight is relatively short, and we hack eight of them to pieces, while only taking a few scratches ourselves.  We resolve to not examine any more of the ruined cottages.  The next building is more complete, although the roof is sagging.  The sign outside identifies it as having once been a tavern.  The door is shut, so we peer in through the windows.  The inside is divided into two rooms, a bar, and a kitchen cum brewery.  We decide not to investigate.  Turning a corner as the road winds round the base of the mound, we see a house ahead which appears completely intact, with a closed, iron banded door and heavily reinforced shutters.  We guess that Root{} the Druid might be living there, so walk up and knock on the door.  An unwelcoming voice responds and asks us who we are.  We identify ourselves and state we are looking for {} the Druid.  It asks who sent us, and we say that Ma Appletree mentioned the druid.  At this point, he opens the door and rapidly ushers us in.  He tells us that he is worried about the shrub-monsters and also the ash zombies, several of which he has locked in the tavern that we looked at – a close escape.  However he tells us that a more immediate issue is the green dragon that has taken up residence in the tower!  Although he does mention that the dragon has at least killed some of the giant spiders that live on the mound around the tower.  This all sounds a bit tough to be frank.  Plus he mentions that there are some black-robes strangers wandering around Thundertree as well, who may or may not be associated with the dragon.  We tell him that actually we just came here to find out the location of Cragmaw Castle, and he happily shows us where that is on our map of the region, explaining that we will be doing the area a favour if we rid it of the goblins who are there.  I explain that I have been charged by Oghma with the same task in a dream.  He also mentions that he knows of the location of Wind Echo Cave, and will tell us if we help him drive the dragon away from the village before it settles her.  We explain that we feel that we should go and rescue Gudrun as a matter of priority, but will return to help him in a few days.  He is happy to let us go and will wait for us to return.

We return to Neverwinter, and then down the Great Road and up the Triboar Trail to where we were first ambushed.

23rd day of Tarsakh

We find our way back to the goblin caves and find them unoccupied.  We clear out and camp in the large chamber that the goblin chief was using.

24th day of Tarsakh

The night passes uneventfully, but as we are leaving, we see a party of six hobgoblins approaching the cave.  They don’t appear to have seen us so we duck back into the cave.  Garrett goes up to the bridge over the stream to watch for them entering, and the rest of us go back to the cave with the water reservoirs.  As we hoped, one of them is still full of water.  We wait until the hobgoblins enter, and then Garrett casts a minor illusion of a noise further up the main passage.  As they come to investigate, Aramil and Elaina break the dam, releasing another rush of water down the passageway.  All six hobgoblins lose their footing and are swept out.  We rush down to engage them while they are not on their feet.  They are bruised, but are starting to get up.  I shoot one with an arrow, wounding it.  Garret casts a Sleep spell, which affects 4 of them.  Elaina and Aramail rush forward to attack them, followed by me.  We attack the remaining two and kill them in a couple of rounds of combat.  We bind and search the others, and find a scrap of parchment with a badly drawn picture of Garrett and a reward for 25 gold pieces for his capture, signed with a black spider.  We try to question the remaining hobgoblins, but they refuse to talk or be intimidated, so I behead them.  While Aramil and Elaina repair the reservoir walls in the cave in case we want to use this location again, I craft 6 stakes and place the heads on them outside the cave.