11th day of Tarsakh

Leaving Agatha’s hut, we return to the ruins of Coneywood, but as the day is yet young we decide to press on and see what the problems at the Old Owl Well are. We find a trail heading that direction and follow it – soon it becomes apparent from the tracks that prospectors have been using this trail recently. I stop occasionally to see if I can hear or smell any traces of orcs nearby, but am unable to.

Around midday we reach an untidy campsite next to a stream occupied by a number of human and dwarvish prospectors and miners. They talk to us, and welcome us when we mention that we have been sent by Sildar to investigate their problems at the Old Owl Well. The explain that they were prospecting up their recently, and wanted access to the well there (which is the source of the stream we are currently standing by) as a water source. However there is a man there in a tent, and when they approached him, he set a pack of zombies on them. We offer to go and try and resolve the issue. They also mention the problem of orcish raids, and we say we will look into that as well.

Garrett and I scout ahead of the clank brothers to have a chance of coming on this man unawares. We reach the crest before the old tower and see it for the first time. It is obviously very old and very ruined. The tower is only 15-20 feet high now and surrounded by rubble. There is also the low ruins of a curtain wall around the top of the hill as well. We can see a colourful tent pitched in the bailey. We wait for the clanks to come up and have a brief council of war. I am in favour of circling around the hill and ambushing the occupant of the tent from all sides at the same time. Aramil however suggests that we should talk to the occupant first, which is an interesting approach, but one we decide to go with. I still circle around the hill with Garrett though, while Aramil and Elaina approach frontally. When they reach the bailey, the door of the tower opens and a horde of zombies comes shuffling out. Aramil waves his holy symbol at them, and all but one go back into the tower. A man has emerged from the tent by this stage and Aramil engages him in conversation. Obviously impressed by our ability to dismiss his zombies, he talks to us, and explains that he is a wizard from Thay called Kost and the zombies are his servants that he uses to protect him from the orcs while he investigates this tower. He is interested in knowing who built the tower, and offers us some money if we will ask Agatha the question for him. We suggest that he should give her a present, and after initially demurring, he provides a jewelled box to give her. He also offers to reward us if we will deal with the local orcs, and we agree to do that as well. We get an agreement from him that he will not harm the prospectors and will allow them to mine near the tower provided that they don’t disturb him. He agrees and we return to the prospectors and explain who is is and what he wants (mainly to be left alone).

We return to Coneywood and then back to Agatha’s hut. Garrett enters again, singing a song, but she throws him out because he had already asked a question this morning. Aramil enters instead, and she accepts his (Kost’s) gift and tells us the name of the wizard the built the tower (the name is meaningless to us).

It is late in the evening now, so we return to Coneywood and camp for the night in the same place. This time, we are attacked by stirges in the middle of the night. Only Elaina, who is on watch, avoids being bitten and manages to kill hers. Garrett and I also kill ours quickly, and Elaina attempts to help Aramil killing his with her sword. She is rather enthusiastic though and her sword blow, while killing the stirge, does quite a bit of damage to Aramil.

After the excitement, we settle back to enjoy the rest of the night, which is uninterrupted.

12th day of Tarsakh

In the morning, we head towards Wyvern Tor to find the orcs. It takes us most of the day (Wyvern Tor is a long way away) before I start to sense the presence of orcs in the wind and through the earth. We find that they are encamped in a cave in a ravine, and I feel that there are probably only a few of them in this raiding party. We spot a lone sentry, who doesn’t spot Garrett or myself, and I manage to kill him with a single arrow, albeit enhanced with Hail of Thorns.

Garrett and I then sneak up to the cave mouth, and see another 6 orcs, including one who is obviously a chief, sitting around a fire inside the cave. Garrett and I prepare spells while the clanks join us. As they do, Garrett and I step into the mouth of the cave. I fire another arrow on which I have cast Hail of Thorns at the chief and the two orcs on either side of him, while Garrett casts Shatter on the fire. Aramil and Elaina then step forward to protect us from the orcs attacking us. The orcs are suprised, and we attack again – I shoot another arrow at the chief, killing him, while Garrett casts Sleep, which drops all but one of the remaining orcs. However the ear-splitting noise of the Shatter spell has awakened an ogre who was obviously sleeping in a niche that we hadn’t seen before. He rushes us an strikes Elaina, although the blow is stopped by her armour. We engage in battle with the ogre, and manage to kill it without loosing any of our numbers. The last orc manages to escape in the confusion though. We loot the cave for treasure, and decide to camp the night here as we are so close to sunset.

13th day of Tarsakh

Next morning, we return to Kost and tell him his information, and collect our reward.

Returning to Phandalin via the main road (as the Redbrands seem to be too cocky to set watchment) we stop by at Sildar to break the bad news about Iano Albrecht to him, and return Thel Dendra’s body for burial.  We explain that we haven’t managed to kill Glasstaff yet, and need rest before we can take him on again.

9th day of Tarsakh

We return to the Stonehill Inn for a meal, and yet more adulation from the general populace.  After a good, and uninterrupted, night’s sleep, we return to the catacombs via the back entrance we found last time.  Unfortunately, the dungeon turns out to be completely deserted – Glasstaff and his bugbears have done a runner!  Disappointed, we return to Phandalin via the Sleeping Giant tavern.  We stake out the tavern, and observe a female dwarf bustling around the kitchen door.  Garrett goes over to engage her in conversation, and finds her thoroughly unpleasant.  She recognises him, and accuses him of having ruined her tavern by driving away (or killing) all her clientele.  Our view that she should try and raise the standards of her establishment fails to get much traction.

We return to Sildar and break the bad news to him, but declare our intention to track him down, as we suspect he has fled to Cragmaw Castle, whence we need to go to free Gudrun.  However, Sildar doesn’t know when Cragmaw Castle is.  At the Town Hall though, we do see a notice about travellers on the Triboar Trail being attacked by orcs based near Wyvern Tor.  Sildar also mentions that he is concerned about reports that prospectors in the mountains to the east near the Old Owl Well ruins have been chased away by undead monsters.  The Old Owl Well is an old watchtower from the magical Netherill Empire, and he fears that there might be some old, bad magic there that is causing this problem.  The Old Owl Well is also relatively close to Wyvern Tor.

We go to Halia Thornton, who is also disappointed to find that we haven’t killed Glasstaff, and refuses to pay us as we haven’t completed the task she set us.  We show her a bundle of his correspondence with his orders for alchemical reagents (but minus the letter from Black Spider that identifies him as Iano Albrecht) and she agrees to give us half the fee for that.  We ask her about Cragmaw Castle – she doesn’t know where it is, but suggests that Quentelle Alderleaf might know.

We return to Ma Alderleaf, but it turns out she doesn’t know where Cragmaw Castle is, but she thinks that Reedoth the Druid does know.  Unfortunately he was last seen leaving Phandalin heading for the ruined village of Thunderleaf, which is back up the Main Road towards Neverwinter.

Finally, I drop in on Sister Garaele again, to pick up on her request to deal with a banshee.  She is grateful that we have dispatched so many of the Redbrands, and tells us more of what she wants from the banshee.  It turns out that the banshee is called Agatha, and she wants to ask her the location of a spell-book that once belonged to Bowgentle.  In return she has an ornate silver comb that she is offering.  If we will go to Agatha’s lair and exchange the comb for the information, she will give us 3 potions of healing.

We undertake the perform this mission, and set out up the Triboar trail.  Agatha’s lair is in the forest opposite Wyvern Tor.

11th day of Tarsakh

It takes us two days to reach the ruins of Coneywood, but the journey is uneventful.  Once there, the route into the forest is easily found, and rapidly leads us to a large hut that we assume is Agatha’s.  Garrett enters and uses his charm and musical prowess to flatter her, give her the comb and get the question answered.  Bowgentle’s spellbook was traded over 100 years ago to a necromancer called Tseonarth from Iriaebor.

We quickly leave the prison in two groups, so that we can all share the 5 red cloaks we have, and regroup in the corridor with the locked door.  I am all in favour of continuing on while we have the initiative and element of surprise, but the others think that the family will slow us down and they are vocal in their desire to return home as soon as possible.  We therefore decide to leave by the route we came in, rather than through the dusty hall we haven’t yet entered.  We enter the cavern with the chasm in the floor, and this time it is Garrett who hears the strange voice in his head.  He starts to try and talk to it, and it responds, asking for nice fresh meat.  We continue to ignore it, but as we are passing through the cavern, Mirna suddenly points at one of the bodies in the chasm and starts screaming.  Apparently it is the body of her husband.  We quickly silence her and the children and bundle them out of the cavern before they can raise the alarm.  We rush down the corridor and into the storage room, and then up and out of the dungeon.  We decide to return to the village by the direct road, even though it goes right past the Sleeping Giant which the Redbrands drink in – we bundle the rescuees up so that they are not easily recognised, but in the event, no one is paying any attention to us.

We decide to return the rescued family to Sildar, as being the person who is most likely to be able to continue to protect them from the Redbrands.  We then repair to the Stonehill Inn and spend an hour ‘resting’.

Revived, we return to the manor.  Having noted what appears to be a lack of sentries on the way in last time, we decide to take a more direct route this time, and we don’t appear to be noticed.  We enter via the spiral staircase as before, and the store room appears like no one has been there since we left – the torches are burning low now and several have gone out.  We proceed into the large cavern again, and hear the voice again, except this time we see where it is coming from.  Beyond the pillar on the far side is a strange, one-eyed humanoid that seems to be the source of the mysterious voice.  It asks again for fresh meat, in return for letting us cross.  Garrett suggests the bodies of the Redbrands that we killed in the storeroom earlier, so we go back and grab two of them and haggle with the strange creature.  We ask it where Glasstaff is, and it points to the northernmost passageway.  We drop the two corpses into the chasm and proceed up the northern passageway as it watches us.  The corridor doglegs and then descends a flight of stairs before ending.  At the end, there is a door on either side.  We listen – the right hand door has the noise of bubbling and boiling; the left hand door has the sound of carousing.  We open the left hand door and enter – 4 drunken Redbrands are sitting around a table gaming with dice.  Garrett uses a sleeping enchantment which unfortunately only affects one of them, and the rest of us attack the other three.  The fight is vicious, but we are victorious in a couple of rounds.  We wake the sleeping one and question us.  He confirms that Glasstaffs laboratory is beyond the other door, and also that the other door in this room leads to the further rooms where three bugbears are quartered.

We decide to face Glassstaff rather than his bugbears, so burst into the laboratory.  The room beyond is filled with alchemical equipment, but otherwise empty.  There is a further door however, so we burst through that into the room beyond, which is luxuriously equipped as a study.  On the far side is a secret door, which is starting to close.  I rush forward, bow drawn, to try and shoot down whoever is leaving.  Beyond the door is a flight of stairs going up.  A figure at the top flings an ineffectual incantation at me and dashes through another door before I can get a shot off.  I follow again and burst into the workshop through a secret door that we hadn’t spotted before.  I rush to the entrance to the cavern, and see Glasstaff crossing the wooden bridge over the chasm.  I cast a quick enchantment and release my arrow at hit.  The spell multiplies the arrows in the air, and the bundle of arrows hits him square on.  He staggers under the impact, but flickers his hand and hits me with a battery of glowing arrows of his own.  I collapse unconscious, but Elaina and Aramil tell me that they rounded the corner a second or two later.  Seeing reinforcements arriving, bows in hand, he gestured again disappeared in a silvery mist!

Aramil swiftly heals me, and I send the others back to ransack his rooms before he reappears with reinforcements – assuming that he has teleported to wherever the bugbears are, while I keep watch up here.  There is nothing of interest in the laboratory other than some monkshood powder, but the study contains a bundle of correspondence.  Critically amongst these is a letter from the Black Spider, addressed to Iono Albrecht, talking about ambushing us.  It appears that Iono Albrecht, Sildar’s friend from the Lords’ Alliance, is actually Glasstaff – from the brief glimpse I caught, his appearance does appear to match the description given.

We decide to leave to regroup in the village and inform Sildar of this new information.  The others grab one of the dead Redbrands from the mess-room to offer to the strange one-eyed creature in order to get back again.  The strange creature seems very distressed by our attack on Glasstaff though, and refuses our offer, attacking Garrett, Elaina and Aramil instead.  I shoot him as he charges, wounding him with an arrow, but he mounts some sort of horrific mental attack on me that knocks me unconscious again.  Aramil dashes over to heal me again, leaving Garrett and Elaina fighting the creature alone.  Garrett takes some heavy damage, although not before landing a couple of good blows himself, but Elaina is having difficulty getting a good hit in.  Having healed me, Aramil rejoins the fray and I also start shooting the creature when I can get a clear shot in.  Finally, we manage to kill it.

Resting wearily on our swords, we patch up our bruises and decide that it is probably time to retreat and rest our wounds, even though we have wounded Glasstaff and would dearly love to finish him off.  First though, prompted by Garrett, I climb down into the crevasse to retrieve Tiem’s body for his family.  Down there, I notice a chest concealed under one of the bridges.  In there, we find some coins, gems, a potion of healing, a scroll of augury and an ornate longsword, which Elaina identifies as Talon, a magical sword of repute that belonged to Sir Aldith Trisander, who was once lord of this manor.

We hear the sounds of bugbears approaching down the south-west corridor so decide to ‘bug’ out.  I can feel a current of fresh air coming up the southern tunnel, so we decide to see if this leads to the tunnel entrance in the woods.  It does, so we return to Sildar.

Having left the Redbrands ruffians safely in the town lock-up, we retire to the Stonehill Inn where we are bought round after round of drinks by grateful locals.  It seems our rooms are on the house as well, so we carry Garrett up to bed and get a good night’s trance, having first taken care to secure our rooms against any possible reprisal from the Redbrands.  Our rest is uninterrupted however, and we descend in the morning for a good breakfast (except in Garrett’s case, who we just dunk in a coffee pot to sober up).

8th day of Tarsakh

Through the haze we remember a couple of things that people have mentioned the previous evening.  One was an off-hand comment that the Miner’s Exchange never seems to be bothered by the Redbrands.  Possibly this is because Halia Thornton is too tough for them, but we get thinking about what she offered us, which was a bounty to kill Glasstaff and take his correspondence.  For someone who was so anti-Redbrand, it is interesting that she doesn’t want us to eliminate the Redbrands entirely.  But, if she was the second in command of the Redbrands herself, and was ambitious for promotion, hiring some dumb muscle to kill her boss might be quite a cunning strategy.  Food for thought certainly, and a reason maybe to not completely trust Halia.

Sildar also asks us to keep an eye out for a friend of his called Iano Albrecht, a short, black bearded wizard who disappeared here a few months ago.  Like Sildar, he is a member of the Lord’s Alliance, and he is concerned that the Redbrands may have kidnapped him.

The second was something that Pip Stonehill said, about a halfling friend of his, Care Alderleaf, who had found a tunnel entrance in the woods, but had been scared off by the Redbrands.  Pip isn’t around (he is running errands) but Toblin directs up to Care’s mother’s farm, which is at the end of the track that leads towards the forest and the ruined Trisander Manor, which we have established is where the Redbrands have their hideout.  We find the farm easily, but Care is also running errands, and his mother, Quelline, doesn’t know exactly where the tunnel he claims to have found is.  We decide to look for ourselves, and I spend a couple of hours carefully scouring the woods, but find nothing apart from some tracks that someone has taken great care to try and cover over, meaning I am unable to determine what had made them.

The others are getting bored by this stage, so we decide to investigate the Manor directly.  Various other rumours come back to us at this point.  Glasstaff is rumoured to lair there, at the western end, and there are supposed to be many captives there, guarded by skeletons.  The Manor itself is pretty ruined, and we see no signs of any lookouts or traps on the approach.  In one corner of the ruins, in the remains of the kitchen, we find a spiral staircase descending.   Many tracks lead too and from this entrance.

I descend alone, relying on my stealth and darksight.  It descends one turn and ends in a door.  I listen, but don’t hear anything.  I go back to beckon the others down the stair, and then open the door.  It is unlocked, and opens easily onto a gallery above a large cellar, containing an open cistern, and a large number of barrels and crates.  I descend down to the floor of the cellar and listen at the two doors, but hear nothing.  We gather at the western-most door, mindful of the rumour that Glasstaff lairs at the western end of the cellars.  We open the door and surprise three Redbrands resting in their beds.  The room is too small for anyone other than Aeldrin and Elaina to enter, but we make short work of the ruffians, although one of them does manage to scratch me with their blade before we take them down.  The room has two double bunks and more barrels and crates, but no other exits.  We take their red cloaks as a disguise, and return them to their bunks, mop the floor quickly and extinguish the lights, hoping that a casual inquirer will think they are asleep.

We return to the other door, which opens in to a short passage that leads to a large vaulted hall which ends in two bronze doors, green with age, embossed with a mourning angel.  Dust lies thick on the floor, and it is apparent that no one has entered this hall in a very long time.  Since we are interested in finding Glasstaff, rather than a bunch of undead, we decide not to proceed further.

The chamber appears to be a dead-end, but the tracks above tell us that this is unlikely, so we start searching behind all barrels and crates.  Finally, we find a secret door in the south-western corner.  It opens into a long, unlit corridor that doglegs to the right before opening into a large, rough, lit cavern.  The floor is divided by a long rift, crossed by two plank bridges.  Two rough stone columns hold up the ceiling.  I advance cautiously to check the nearest bridge, and the crevasse.  There is a charnel smell in the air.  The rift is only 5-10 feet deep, and has rough, easily climbed sides.  There are bones littered on the bottom, possibly the source of the smell.  I instantly think of the stories I have heard of ghouls; terrible undead scavengers that eat the dead.  The plank bridge looks little used, and rather fragile – I suspect it would collapse if crossed.  I make my way north on this side of the crevice, and hear a quite voice in my head telling me to come back and cross the bridge.  I ignore it, and it pleads with me to come across the cavern.  I continue to ignore it.  At the northern end, the cavern opens into a worked area, and I beckon the others forward.  Aramil also hears the strange voice.  The worked area is a workshop with tools and yet more barrels and crates.  In an alcove in the north-eastern corner we find another secret door that opens into a north-south corridor.  There is a door opposite, which is silent and locked.  There is also a door at the south end of the corridor, which we open, having first heard nothing.  Beyond is some sort of crypt.  There are two large bronze doors at the south-eastern corner, which look familiar, plus three coffins, each with a skeleton standing before it.  They turn and look at us with empty eye sockets, but do not attack.  We close the door and are preparing to retreat, but then have a sudden surge of inspiration.  There was also another, normal door on the eastern wall, and the rumour mentioned that captives were guarded by skeletons.  Maybe the red cloaks that we are wearing are what is stopping them attacking us?  Elaina picks up Garrett and carries him under her cloak, and we re-enter the room and cross to the other door.  The skeletons make no effort to interfere with us.

At the other door, we listen and hear noises of laughter and screaming.  Assuming that someone is being tortured, we burst in.  The room is not large, and the northern and southern end are barred off as cells.  In the northern one is a young lad, in the southern, two women, who are being poked and prodded by two red cloaked men in the main part of the chamber.  We rush forward and engage them.  Garrett deploys his enchanted invective to good effect, and we swiftly kill the two men.  We search their bodies for keys to the cells, but find none.  Elaina, frustrated, seizes the gate to the southern cell and wrenches it open, allowing the two women to emerge.  They explain that they are Mirna and Nilsa Dendra, wife and daughter of Thel Dendra who we had heard was brutally murdered by the Red Blades a few days ago.  The lad in the northern cell is their son/brother, Nars.  Elaina attempts to wrench that door open as well, but fails.  It is made of tougher stuff.  Aramil lends a hand, but even together they cannot budge it.  Then I remember the tools back in the workshop.  I sneak back, encountering no-one, and grab a couple of crowbars.  Elaina and Aramil once again get to work on the gate, encouraged by the last of Garrett’s inspiration and a prayer from Aramil.  At last they succeed in opening the gate, freeing Nars.  There is a large pile of clothes in the room, and they quickly find their own and dress themselves more decently.  Mirna offers us a family hierloom if we will free them from this dungeon, but I instantly reply that we would free them anyway, and having just lost her husband she is almost certainly in more need of the money than we are.  Garrett aims a swift kick at me, but I avoid it.  We check the clothes to see if there is anything that might have been worn by a short, black-bearded wizard, but find nothing.  Possibly this means he is still alive.  Mirna mentions that the guards change relatively frequently in this cell, so it is not a safe place to take a rest.  We prepare to leave, although there are now seven of us, and only five cloaks.  How will we get the chickens across without the fox eating them?

Having caught our breath – we proceed stealthily up the corridor.  There are no more chambers until we reach the bridge over the stream, where I spot a goblin sentry again.  My aim is poor in the dim light though and the shaft misses.  Fortunately he rushes towards me and I make short work of him with my sword.

Concerned that his battle-cry may have alerted his comrades, we move forwards, but become aware of the noise of a waterfall up ahead.  Slowing down, as the sound may have masked his cry, we peer round the corner, into another cavern.  There are two pools of water at the base of the waterfall, held back by low stone walls.  One has been breached – obviously the source of the flood that almost swept us away.  Three goblins are waiting, but seem oblivious of our presence.  Elaina, Aramil and I draw our bows and step out, each aiming to kill one of the three goblins.  Aramil and my arrows strike true, but Elaina misses and her goblin runs from the room.  We pursue, before it can alert the bugbear, up some stairs and into a larger cavern – we are too late to catch it before it alerts the others.

The cavern is full of loot, and we can see three goblins cowering behind it.  To our right are some stalagmites, and a growling noise coming from behind them.  A deep voice booms out, asking us who dares to approach Klarg.  I start to offer a chance for him to surrender, but suddenly a wolf leaps past the stalagmites and attacks us.  I hit it with an arrow as it charges, and its jaws fail to grip on my leather vambraces.  A swift slice from Elaina then finishes it off.  Garret performs another incantation and the three goblins fall into a deep slumber.  We then hear a scuffling noise from behind the stalagmites, and guess that Klarg is attempting to escape via the shaft into the wolf stable that we saw before.  Instantly, Aramil, Elaina and Sildar rush out of the cave and down the passage along the stream, to try and block him off from escaping.  I rush past the stalagmites and see him climbing down the shaft – I fire an arrow before he disappears out of sight and hit him.

The others rush down the passageway and reach the entrance to the wolf-cave before he reaches the bottom of the shaft – we have him trapped.  He rushes to meet us, and with a single blow smashes Elaina against the wall, knocking her unconscious.  Aramil and Sildar are momentarily panicked by the ease with which he dispatched Elaina, but press their attacked anyway.  Garrett takes the opportunity to deploy his bardic wit and invective against the bugbear, and Klarg is obviously unsettled by it as his next attack is mistimed and misses, allowing Aramil to land a hefty blow on him.  Meanwhile I have jumped down the shaft myself, and attack him from the rear.  My sword thrust runs him clean through, and he slumps to the ground.

In the cavern above we find a small amount of money (about 30 gp each in total) and some restorative potions, as well as a lot of bulky trade goods they have been looting.  We carry this, load by load, back to the wagon, which takes the rest of the afternoon.

7th day of Tarsakh

Next day we return to Phandalin, and restore the looted trade goods to their rightful owner, Halia Thornberry.  She is grateful, but continues the longstanding local tradition of complaining about the Redbrands.  We agree that they are a local menace, and she offers to pay us some more money if we can capture their leader, Glasstaff, a human wizard, and capture any correspondence he has.   We agree to investigate, but decide that dinner and a bed beckon for the moment at the Stonehill Inn.  As we step out of the trade store though, we are confronted by 4 ruffians in red cloaks who tell us that we are not welcome in Phandalin.  We protest that we are not looking for trouble, but they reach for their swords.  We draw first and each strike at our opponents, severely wounding three of them and killing one.  Garrett then once again uses his incantation to put them to sleep, and they fall to the ground.  We bind them and take them, with an encouraging crowd, to the Town Hall.  There we are met by Harvin Wester, the Mayor, who seems a thoroughly weaselly character.  I suspect that he will release them the moment our backs are turned – he seems more annoyed with us for antagonizing them, than please that we have eliminated some vagabonds.  Sildar however, steps forward, and reveals that he has been sent by the Lord’s Alliance to bring some order to Phandalin, and that he will be taking over that responsibility from Harvin.  Harvin seems relieved to be handing responsibility for keeping order to someone else, and invites Sildar to take them into custody and look after them.  Satisfied that Sildar won’t be on their side, we retire to the Stonehill Inn for a well deserved drink and meal to celebrate our new found abilities.  Unfortunately Garrett still doesn’t seem to be able to hold his ale.

5th day of Tarsakh

After a desultory overnight stay in Phandalin, we awake and get ready to leave.  I find the shrine of Tymora and meet Sister Garaele, who turns out to be a fellow elf.  She knows nothing of my quest, although she shares a desire to rid Cragmaw Castle of goblins.  However, she has a more pressing need to find out some information from a banshee, and wants my help with this.  Nervous of distraction while Sildar and Gundrun are still in goblin hands, I promise to return when we have freed Sildar.

Garrett has been buying pitons or iron spikes or something, but the transaction is soon finished and we set off back down the track.  We encounter no problems and camp for the night near the place where we were ambushed.  Next morning we find the ambush site, and see no disturbance.  We scout around, but find no other ambush.  We then proceed cautiously up the goblin track and our caution is rewarded when I spot a snare trap, and then a pit.  They are obviously expecting pursuit.

After a few hours, we reach a low bluff that matches the description that the goblin gave.  There is a cave mouth with a small stream issuing from it.  There are briar patches that approach the cave mouth, so Garrett and I cross the stream to sneak up through one set that go closest to the cave mouth, while the other two advance along the foot of the cliff in the bushes there.  Our fieldcraft is rewarded as we find a watchpost with two goblins who are completely unaware of our progress past them in the bushes.  We leap out and each dispatch a goblin with a single stroke, soundlessly disposing of the guards.  Emboldened, we enter the cave entrance.  Immediately on our right are steps up to a larger cave with two chained wolves that snarl and strain to reach up.  We rapidly dispatch them with arrows and examine the cave beyond.  At the far end is a narrow chimney which has been used as a midden, presumably from a cave above.  We consider climbing up, but decide we would be too vulnerable while making the ascent, and decide to continue up the main passage along the stream.

Turning the corner, we see a branching corridor on the far side of the stream, and a rickety bridge crossing the passageway about 20′ ahead, and 20′ above us.  There is movement on the bridge – a goblin sentry has spotted us.  I loose an arrow and hit him, but he scampers off.  Worried that he will raise the alarm, we jump across the stream to the branching corridor.  As we are half crossed though, a surge of water comes down the stream.  We are buffeted, but all just manage to hang on to the cave walls and prevent ourselves being swept away.  Cunningly, Garrett casts a minor magical illusion of the sound of us being swept down the stream to try and convince any goblins listening that we are gone.

We continue up the corridor, which slopes up in a series of rough ledges, before intersecting another corridor.  To the left, this opens out to a large cave, where we see five goblins preparing a meal.  So far we have not been spotted.  Garrett uses another spell to cause a magical slumber to fall on them, and I kill the last one with an arrow.  Aramil and Elaina rush into the cave – there is a high ledge on one side, and a larger than normal goblin has leaped up.  He holds a scimitar in one hand and the hair of a bedraggled human captive in the other, and threatens to kill him if we do not negotiate with him.  I, being the only one who understands goblin, shout at the others to stop and tell him that if he releases the captive, who I assume is Sildar, we will spare his life.  He says that he will give us the captive if we bring him the head of the bugbear Klarg.  The captive raises his bruised and bloody face and says in a weak voice ‘Don’t trust him!’.  I make an instant judgement and let fly with my nocked arrow, wounding him, but not preventing him from pushing the captive forward off the low cliff.  He falls ten feet to the cave floor and lies in a crumpled heap.  Aramil rushes forward and pronounces a benediction on him to try and stop him dying. Elaina leaps up the stone steps and strikes the great goblin, but misses. Garrett tries for another incantation but it has no effect.  I shoot another arrow but it misses wildly.  The great goblin swings at Elaina and catches her a heavy blow on her shoulder which renders her shield arm numb, but despite this she swings her sword round and under the blocking swing from his scimitar; it catches him across his stomach just below his leather jerkin and carves deep through his belly, almost reaching his spine.  He looks astonished as he sees his guts slide out in front of him before he topples forward, dead.

Elaina rests on her sword and massages feeling back into her shield arm.  Garrett quickly dispatches the sleeping goblins.  Aramil is now able to use one of his healing incantations to restore the captive to consciousness, and indeed heal many of the wounds he has suffered during his captivity.  It turns out that he is indeed Sildar, and is most grateful to be rescued.  We offer him the great goblin’s scimitar as a weapon, which he accepts, but are unable to find any armour for him to wear.  He is enthusiastic to accompany us to wreak his revenge on these goblins and clear out these caves from this scourge.  We clean our weapons, retrieve unbroken arrows and have a quick drink before turning to continue our quest.

This being the journal of the travels of Aeldrin Oakwood, once of Selenica, ranger of Dymrak, now chosen of Oghma.

It has been a halfmoon now since I acted upon the visions that I have been receiving for the last several moons. The visions were clear, if confusing – I have no idea why I should have been chosen by Oghma to receive these visions, for I have never worshipped or paid reverence to him. The message was clear however; I am chosen by him to travel to Cragmaw Castle and cleanse his shrine there. I assume that I have been chosen, unworthy as I am, for my many years hunting goblins in the Dymrak, for he has also revealed that it is they who desecrate his shrine.

The vision also told me to go to Phandalin, and meet a Sister Garaele there, at the shrine of Tymora. I found Phandalin on my map and so headed west out of the Dymrak. At the first homestead I reached, I inquired of the road to Phandalin, but the owner, Pyotr Sukiskyn, had not heard of the town at all. Looking at my map he remarked that it was missing a town called Threshold as well, which was on the road to where Phandalin apparently once was. These humans change things so fast.

Anyway, I took the road to Threshold without any major incident, and found a bustling human town. There are a new set of men here, from Thyatia, who seem to have taken over the rulership of Traladara recently; they call it Karameikos now. At Threshold, I enquired of Phandalin, and discovered that it does still exist, but is a mere village now, having been over-run and pillaged by orcs many years ago. As I was asking for information on it, I was approached by a dwarf named Gundrun Rockseeker. He recognized me as a ranger and offered me employ escorting a wagon-load of supplies from Threshold to Phandalin for him, as he was concerned about bandits and goblins on the road. I readily agreed to take his commission, as I was already intending to make that my destination, and being paid to travel my own road seemed a stoke of fortune. He introduced me then to three others that he had hired to protect his wagon; two half elves, one a priest of Helim, the other a sell-sword, and a halfling who seemed altogether too fond of his own voice and opinion on all matters.

3rd day of Tarsakh

The journey to Phandalin was initially uneventful, until the third day around noon. Rounding a corner as the track made its way through a cutting in dense forest, we saw two horses lying in the roadway ahead. I moved up and identified them as belonging to Gundrun and his bodyguard, a man named Sildar Hallwinter. There was no sign of either dwarf or man, but as I looked for more clues, two goblins leaped from the undergrowth and attacked me. As I turned and drew my swords, I felt an arrow hit me in the back – an ambush! One of the goblins then hewed my leg, and I collapsed to the ground. I came round as Aramil, the priest, cast a benediction to heal my wounds. The two goblins by me were dead, so I snatched my bow and killed one of the two ambushers on the hill above with a single shot. Elaina, the half-eleven warrior, felled the other with an arrow. We saw that actually one of the other goblins that had attacked in close combat was merely asleep; it turned out that Garret the halfling actually knew some magick as he had boasted the previous night in his cups.

Casting around, I found tracks belonging to many goblins leading to the north-west. It looked like they had dragged their captives or victims in this direction as well. Returning, I questioned our now-bound goblin captive. He revealed that he was part of a goblin tribe led by King Groll at Cragmaw Castle, although he was part of a warband led by a bugbear called Klarg in some nearby caves. According to the goblin, their king had been paid by a mysterious stranger called Black Spider to kidnap the dwarf, so they had ambushed the two of them. The dwarf would be sent to Cragmaw, but the bodyguard was destined for the goblin cookpot.

We rapidly evaluated our options. We could follow the goblin tracks to their cave now, and try and rescue Sildar, but that would mean abandoning the cart and its supplies, and we were also weary and wounded. Questioning of the goblin revealed that Sildar would probably be kept alive for a while, so we decided to continue to Phandalin first and see if we could recruit help.

4th  day of Tarsakh

We arrived at Phandalin after another uneventful day on the road. There we delivered the cart and supplies to Barthan’s Provisions as required. The halfling seemed very jumpy when we approached Phandalin, and admitted that he had once lived here, but had fallen in with a bad set known as the Red Blades. Talking to Elmar Barthan, he revealed that Gundrun had two brothers, but they were not in town at the moment. It seemed that the whole town lived in fear of these Redbrands, who were a bad lot entirely, running a whole protection racket. We were paid by Elmar and left Gundrun’s wagon with him, and took rooms at the decent inn in town, where we heard more tales of the bad deeds of the Redbrands. We tried to see if anyone would help up rescue Sildar or deal with the Red Blades, but the local population seemed completely cowed. Even a half-elf called Darren Endermarth who Elsa the barmaid claimed was a great warrior claimed that he was too old to help us out when we spoke to him.

Disillusioned, we retired to bed. In the morning, we decided to do some quick shopping and the go and see if we could rescue Sildar. I need to see if I can see Sister Garaele as well quickly, if only to find out why I am here. Especially if I am going near to Cragmaw.