August 27th, 2019
Players
- Maardaar the Warlock (Matt)
- Morgana the Druid (Liz)
- Ender the Rogue (Steven)
TOWN BUSINESS
Our party leaves the Blighted Tree behind and heads back to Phandalin. Along the road, they meet two humans on horseback displaying the flag of Triboar. Rob and James are both wearing red sashes over their amateur looking armor with numbers stitched into them – #5 and #7 – and explain they are part of a patrol of The Twelve from Triboar. The Lord Protector of Triboar – a retired human ranger named Darathra Shendrel – has sent The Twelve out because of reports from merchants by goblins. They ask where they can get some food before heading back, and everyone goes to the Stonehill Inn.
Over some glog the two explain that The Twelve is just a temporary gig – in real life they are farmers and blacksmiths. Triboar is not a part of the Lord’s Alliance, so must provide for it’s own common defense. Once a month, they draw hats out of a Bag of Holding and any able bodied person who hasn’t had a turn that year is put on duty to help keep order in the town. They ask the party where the Townmaster is so they can deliver their news, and head out of the bar.
The party sees their buddy Halvin, drunk and ranting about his cows again, which are still decomposing in his field. This time he’s sure an owlbear is responsible.
A damp dwarf woman sits alone at the end of the bar staring into her beer, and does not seem to be having a good time. They approach her carefully and ask how she’s doing. She replies she was on a merchant ship – trying to get passage to Neverwinter from down south and earn some coin – when the boat was led astray by the lighthouse in Leilon. Strangely, the lighthouse displayed a green light and ran them straight into the rocks, where other ships were also wrecked. She swam to shore and walked into town. The party tells her Halvin’s got a barn she can crash in, and points her out to him.
The party picks up rations at Elmar Barthen’s store – where he again mentions Nundro & Tharden Rockseeker (Gundren’s brothers) still haven’t been seen – he has a cart loaded with their supply order out back where it’s been sitting for weeks. He knows they were working a mining claim, but were very secretive about it’s location. The party next heads to the Miner’s Exchange and meets Halia Thornton, who is measuring out gold nuggets for a dwarven miner at the counter. The party asks to see her oldest map of the area, and she pulls one out of a wood case from the shelf of mining records behind her. The map shows a place called the “Wave Echo Cave” – supposedly the legendary mine of Phandelver. Many have come before and looked at this very map, set out to find the cave, and come up empty handed. She says as far as she knows, the Rockseeker dwarves were mining somewhere southeast of town, although they never put in a formal claim at the Exchange.
CASTLE AGULATHA
The party heads out southeast of town since that seems to be where everyone agrees the Rockseeker brothers were last seen. As they enter the foothills of the Sword Mountains, they come to find a wooded glade between two hills. Before them is a ruined castle, door torn asunder, seven round towers rising up in various states of decay and leaning haphazardly. The ground is littered with bricks, broken columns, and is overgrown by trees and vines. This ancient castle has seen better days.
As the party examines the castle from a distance, a patrol of goblins led by the toothless Yeemik the Hobgoblin comes by. The party hides behind the debris as they pass and continue to the west side of the castle. Figuring it best not to barge through the front door of an obviously occupied castle, they go around to the east and discover a locked side entrance unguarded. Ender quickly picks the lock, and then they enter into a dimly lit hall with two doors: one wood with the sounds of pots and pans and goblins arguing, and another boarded up from the outside where they can hear the cooing growl of some sort of beast. As they decide what to do, the door to the banquet hall opens suddenly and a goblin wearing a pot for a helmet comes out. He demands: “You no here for soup? Where are my onions?” Mistaking the party for the merchants bringing supplies. They lure him out and then quickly push him into the darkened tower where the owlbear resides. They hear screaming inside, then silence.
The party decides they best fuck these goblins up before they figure out they have an intruder, and they set about doing that and clearing the banquet hall. Even though reinforcements are called, the party is victorious without much trouble.
They then continue into the main hall of the castle, empty except for dust and several doors, the most prominent of which leads north through wide double doors. As Ender approaches the door and examines it, he realizes there is a tripwire trap under foot. He is able to disable it so the party can continue through that door.
THE DEFILED CHAPEL
Entering into what once was a family chapel, now with collapsing walls and in much disrepair, they see stone carvings in the walls and a large curtain separating the room in half. As they examine the carvings they see the figure of an elf, which they believe to be showing a kingly elven Ilsundal. In an inversion of the dark ritual they witnessed within the tree, Ilsundal is wounded – holding his heart with one hand – and bleeding onto the roots of the tree. But this scene is a triumphant one, showing his ascension from the forest around him.
Morgana wild shapes into a Giant Spider and creeps up the wall and peers around the curtain. She sees 3 hooded figures chanting before an altar. The carvings of Ilsundal have been covered up by the symbol of a large spider drawn in blood on the wall. On the altar sits what appear to be mechanical torture instruments. Everything is soaked in blood.
The party attacks with the element of surprise, finding the figures to be goblins. This is going well until a Grick drops from the ceiling and also joins the fray, cornering Ender away from everyone else. After exchanging some blows, one of the goblins approaches Morgana’s spider form and withdraws with horror – he bows before what he thinks is his god in the flesh. Maardaar then expertly persuades the goblin in charge they are escorting the spider god to the master of the castle.
Ender persuades them to give up their supplies, and the goblin leading this foul chant takes off his blood soaked cloak and hands it to him: it’s a Cloak of Elvenkind. They see on the altar the name of the family of this old castle: AGULATHA.
THE BLACK SPIDER
The goblin escorts them through a barracks, where Yeemik is keeping watch outside a black curtain and immediately jumps up as he recognizes the adventurers from their previous encounter: “What are you doing here???” He draws his sword and runs through the curtain screaming a warning.
Entering into a large chamber which has been turned into a makeshift shelter with a table, bed, and burning brazier is a very large Bugbear chief holding a menacing morningstar weapon and a black drow elf sitting at the table. Against the other wall is an unconscious dwarf – Gundren!
The drow asks them why they dare intrude in his castle. The party says they are here for Gundren, and the drow explains that his injuries are the result of a “mining dispute” and that the goblins got a little carried away with their rituals – good help is hard to find. He says he wants to bring an end to this trouble – the Rockseeker brothers had attacked one of his camps at the mine, and so the drow was just protecting himself and his investment. Gundren briefly wakes to yell “Fuck ya drow! I ate the map and I’ll fuck your mother too no matter what you do to me!”
The Black Spider offers them a 10% claim in the mine’s profits as a compromise if they leave peacefully. The party says hell no, but suddenly Maardaar feels a suggestion over taking his mind: this is a great idea. He says maybe they should take the deal after all, but Morgana – now human again – reminds them it is Gundren’s claim to make, not theirs.
The party attacks. Yeemik is quickly murdered where he stands, and the drow begins to cast his dark magic: first disappearing into a black orb of darkness that surrounds his figure. The bugbear chief though is not so easily dispatched and quickly does serious damage to both Morgana and Ender putting them in mortal danger.
The Black Spider sends a disembodied spectral hand out of his black orb, and it goes straight to Morgana and grabs her glass dagger. It successfully takes hold of it, and the dagger disappears back into the dark. The bugbear strikes again, and Morgana is knocked unconscious. The black shadow surrounding the drow shrinks to nothing and he is gone.
Ender and Maardaar both fight back with fire: Maardaar with his spells and Ender kicking over the flaming brazier into the bugbear. The fight ends with both Gundren and Morgana unconscious, but the party victorious.
