Assault on Cragmaw Castle

10am:
The party arrived at Cragmaw Castle. The castle consists o f seven crumbling towers o f different
sizes and heights, but the upper stories are all in varying states of collapse. A short flight of steps leads up to a terrace in front of the main entryway. Past the wreckage of a pair of sundered doors lies a shadowed hall. Round towers loom over the entrance way, with dark arrow slits looking down on
the terrace.

Thorrk turns himself into a spider and proceed to climb into the castle via one of the arrow slits. Carefully he climbs unto the ceiling and explores the castle interior upside down! He found a few goblins in rooms in the south area of the castle.

He saw rubble in the south side of the castle creating a gaping hole which he uses to explore the outer south side of the castle.

He tried climbing to the top of the castle but as he goes higher the wind got stronger to a point he risked being blown away. Carefully he works his way down and continues to explore the area just inside the main entrance.

11am:
In his excitement, he forgot that the wild shape ability only last and hour and he turned back to his half-orc form and fell 15 feet to the ground. The fall stunned him.

His messy fall alerted the goblins from the south barracks and hobgoblins from the north barrack.
The mobs proceeded to pound on Thorrk mercilessly.

Thorrk wild shaped into a Dire Wolf, while the party scrambles to climb to the terrace to aid Thorrk.

The mob decimates the Dire Wolf and Thorrk is in danger of being torn to shreds by the hobgoblins.

Orbit flew and lands on the terrace but was afraid to rush in to help Thorrk. He shoots at one of the hobgoblin using his crossbow. The bolt pierces the hobgoblin's shoulders and injuring him badly.

Oskar, Skye and Myarmos is still desperately scrambling up the stairs to reach the terrace.

The slaughter of Thorrk continues next week.....

Back to Phandalin

The trip back to Phandalin takes 3 days. On the 1st day, the adventures was confronted by 9 goblins, The fight was so easy that Thorrk broke out in song. It was an infectious song with a silly melody that the whole group starts to hum along. They were killing the goblins and humming this silly tune. This irritated the goblins to no end and one of them shouted, "kill that singing half-orc! Once we're done with him, the rest will sober up and scamper!"

Unfortunately that was the last few words he uttered before Arwen shot him in the throat with her bow.

They dispatch the goblins without breaking a sweat and continue their journey to Phandalin.

It was noon when they reach Phandalin. They headed straight to Stonehill Inn for lunch. While they were having their lunch, Sister Garaele walks into the tavern and greeted them. She asked if the party explored the ruins where the said nose ring is to be found. This info was given to the party by the banshee Agatha. Skye said they have yet to explore the ruins as they just came back from Thundertree. Sister Garaele bids the party good luck and sits in the next table and called to Elsa, the barmaid, for some lunch.

Skye excuse himself and heads out to Barthen's Provisions to sell some valuables.

Sildar Hallwinter walks into tavern and head to where the party was. He asked if they manage to find any news on Gundren Rockseeker. Thorrk show Sildar the location of Cragmaw Castle, which he believe is the location where Gundren is captured. Sildar stressed to the party the urgency to rescuing Gundren as time is running short and he fears for Gundren's safety.

After much discussion, the party heads out to Cragmaw Castle, which is located in Neverwinter Woods.....

Ruins of Thundertree - The Green Dragon!

7 am: The party decides to head up to the tower up in the hill. That's where the cultist leader, Favric, says to meet up and treat with the green dragon.

8 am: As they walk up the winding pathway to the tower, they can see that there is a cottage adjoins the tower to the left. Both the structures looks to be in good condition, except for a huge gaping hole on the roof of the tower.

Myarmos notes that the cultist was nowhere to be found. He wonders why.

Oskar runs forward as the party approaches the building. The pathway ends at the cottage door. In front of the cottage, there are corpses of two hideous giant spiders, apparently dragged there. Their bloated bodies are puckered and blistered, and appear to have been mauled by a large animal. The stench was unbearable as Oskar moves in to investigate. These spiders had their abdomen slashed by some huge claws and green rotting ooze leaked out from these wounds. Oskar deduce that the giant spider was killed not more than a day.

While Oskar was inspecting the corpses, Orbit flew up to the gaping hole to see what's inside the tower. As he hovers over the gap, he saw 2 glowing eyes looking back at him! It was the green dragon! "Who disturbs my sleep?" Says the green dragon in a deep baritone voice.

Trying not to anger the dragon, the party walked into the tower via the cottage door to introduce themselves. Skye and Myarmos tried to persuade the dragon to leave the tower. Orbit perched on the wall of the gap (can pony perch?) and observe at the improbable situation as it unfolds.

Unfortunately instead of calming the dragon, Skye and Myarmos made matter worse and the dragon attacks the party.

The parties attacks was not effective against the dragon. The dragon rears his head and spew a poison blast at Thorrk, Skye and Oskar, Skye overcame by the poison and fe
ll senselessly to the ground. Both Thorrk and Oskar was wounded badly by the poisonous fumes.

Myarmos and Orbit was shocked by dragon's devastating first attack and was speechless. Oskar sensing the impending doom, drops his longsword and knelt before the dragon, begging for his life.

The dragon finds it amusing that a normally proud mountain dwarf would do such a shameful thing to save his friends, that he decides to spare all their lives. The dragon warns them that the next time if he ever see them again, he would not be so merciful.

The party drags the unconscious Skye outside, away from the dragon as fast as they can. Myarmos stabilized Syke with a spell.

While the party was still stunned by the event, Favric and his cultist band turns up. They were surprised that the party was alive! Myarmos accused Favric of lying about the dragon.

There was a tense moment with both parties, but the adventurers decided not to create a scene as some team members are hurt pretty bad and getting into a fight now is very disadvantageous.

Favric, having no intention to get into a fight, turns around and head back to their hideout.

The adventurers decides to rest at Reidoth's place.

9 am: Reidoth grudgingly let them in for a short rest. Myarmos was extremely unhappy and upset over the dragon and the cultist incident. He was fast to accuse Reidoth of sending them to the dragon, to a certain death. Reidoth was furious over this accusation and demanded the party to leave his house immediately.

Outside, Myarmos suggest that the team should head back to Phandalin to rest and rethink what to do next.......
 

Ruins of Thundertree - Part 3

2pm: Favric offers an alliance with the adventurers to seek a treaty with the dragon. The party agrees, but they would like to explore some more. Favric says to meet up at the dragon's tower.

The party moves westwards towards a ruined shop. The entrance door is rotted through, from the looks of it a simple push would have caused it to break. Myarmos cast a Thaumatury cantrip at the door. The force of the spell blasted the door to pieces.

Inside the ruin was a mess. Broken shelf, furniture and rubble everywhere. After a careful search, Skye found a small wooden case under the broken shelf. Inside this case is a gold necklace with a fine emerald pendant, which belongs to Mirna.

From there, the party move north east and enters into an open area which looks like a town square. In the middle is a statue of a long forgotten hero.

3pm: To the northeast of the town square, the party can see a building that is in a much better condition than the rest of the buildings in Thundertree. Further examination suggest that it is an old garrison. Oskar walks in and triggers the ash zombies inside the building. They wakes up from their long slumber and attacks the party. After a grueling fight, the party manage to kill the 6 ash zombies.

4pm: The party then decides to explore the building to the south of the town square. Oskar walks ahead of the party and looks into the building. It looks like a weaver's cottage. While he was looking around, 6 Twig blights sprung from the thickets in the south and ambushed the party.

All except Orbit was surprised by the attack. Orbit rush in to aid Oskar but was overwhelmed by the relentless attack of these twig blights. They slowly chipped away Orbit's health!

Myamos and Skye attacks from afar and finally drops the last remaining twig blight. By then, Orbit was heavily wounded.

In lieu of Orbit's wounds, the party decides to rest for the night and camp inside the weaver's cottage, each taking turns to keep watch.

7am: The night passed uneventfully and the party had a good night's rest. The morning mist was thick and the air feels damp.

After a hearty breakfast consisting of rations and hot coffee, the party sit around the camp fire to discuss the next course of action....