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5 Mirtul, (Day 41)

Cragmaw Castle

Evening

• Verna, Rig, Rae, and Mo prepare to enter the northeastern door off of the storage room where Verna heard goblinoid voices.
• Vala looks through the open doorways into the hall where Rae stands and casts Message, asking Rae if he needs any help. Rae says he thinks her friend Rig and Verna have this covered and that he’ll stay close by in case they need healing. Then he positions himself behind Bear Mo.
• Verna jumps in the air and kicks the door in. 
• Inside the room there are 4 hobgoblins, two lightly armored Hobgoblin Scouts and two more outfitted Hobgoblin Recruits.

BEGIN COMBAT

Round 1

• One of the hobgoblins attacks Verna, but misses, then disengages and runs away.
• Rig hides to the side of a doorway and holds her attack, waiting to sneak attack the next hobgoblin that attacks Verna
• A hobgoblin approaches Verna to attack and gets stabbed by Rig, puncturing his lung and bloodying him. He tries to attack Verna but misses.
• Rae casts Sacred Flame on the hobgoblin Rig stabbed, killing him.
• Verna climbs up onto the storage barrels and readies an action to stab anything that comes through the door.
• Bear Mo busts into the room.
• Rig feels a blade glance off the side of her armor, a small Goblin Assassin has slipped through the southern door of the storage room and snuck up to her.
• Back in the barracks, Vala, Sildar, and Orthanc hear more fighting commence.
  • Vala steps out of the way of the door and tells Orthanc that he is welcome to go fight, as is his way. She’ll stay and make sure Gundren Rockseeker doesn’t bleed out.
  • Then a small goblin with a tray of food enters and sees them, then yelps “Boss! Someone’s here!” dropping the tray and running away.
  • Vala tells Orthanc nevermind about leaving and asks him to please stay.
• A hobgoblin recruit takes out his longbow and fires and Bear Mo but misses.
• Rig abandons the hobgoblin combat entirely to try to track and kill the little goblin that snuck up on her. 
  • She opens the southern door that he entered through and an arrow wizzes past, barely missing her.
  • There are two Goblin Snipers facing her, clearly waiting. One has just fired his bow and missed. The other fires his bow and hits Rig.
• Behind those two hobgoblins, Rig sees the little assassin goblin that snuck up on her wearing black leathers.
• Rig stabs the goblin that shot her twice, killing him efficiently and turning her attention back to the goblin in black leathers.
• Sildar sprints after the goblin that just dropped the tray and ran south.
• Orthanc goes into a rage and follows.
• At the end of the southern hallway they turn west and look into a Banquet Hall where they see several goblins, including the one that dropped the tray and ran away.
  • Sildar turns to Orthanc and says “that is the fattest goblin I have ever seen” and points to a rotund little goblin wearing a cooks apron.
• A swarm of the little goblins attack Sildar, stabbing him, but don't do much damage.
• Vala decides to stay with Gundren and guard him, given the escape of the doppleganger Vyerith. She sits at the end of his bed, casts Chromatic Orb, and holds a mote of fire between her hands, eyes fixed on the northern door and waits.

Round 2

• The hobgoblin Rig stabbed in the lung, tries to shoot Bear Mo but misses so badly he kills one of his fellow goblins.
• Rae casts Sacred Flame on one of the hobgoblins but it misses.
• Verna rushes into the room and tries to stab one of the hobgoblins but misses, then disengages and runs away toward where Rig is engaging the new goblins. 
  • While Verna runs, she feels something pull at her ankle and hears a trip wire being activated. She manages to leap out of the way before the ceiling collapses, barely clipping her and only hurting her a little bit, 
• Bear Mo runs up on another hobgoblin and bites him and throws him, then slashes him with his claws but misses the second attack.
• The Lhupo pulls out a little talisman and starts chanting
  • Rig wants to kill him even more now
  • When he finishes chanting there is a globe of solid darkness covering the area around him, encompassing Rig entirely
    • From within the darkness Rig yells “Fucking magic!” and then gets sliced across her ribs by the shifty little rogue goblin
• Orthanc and Sildar hear from inside the room “What’s this? More meat for the stew! Meat for the stew!” then a long filet knife is flung at Sildar, who ducks out of the way
  • Orthanc turns to Sildar asking “Do you think they mean to do us harm?”
  • Sildar says yes, that the attacker is the fat goblin he told Orthanc about. 
• Sildar attacks the Goblin swarm in front of him, skewering two of them, then bashing with his shield. Having cleared the doorway, he moves into the room.
• Orthanc swings his greataxe at the goblin swarm, cleaving one of the goblins in twain. 
  • He yells back down the hallway to Vala, telling her to add one to the tally, then he gets stabbed a bunch by the Goblin Swarm. 
• In the barracks, Vala drops her spell and opens her journal to the Party Kill Counts page, and adds a mark to the “Cleaved in Twain” tally. Then she casts Find Familiar and summons Miss Tra, sending the tressym to Orthanc.
• One of the hobgoblins attacks Bear Mo but misses
• Rig tries to listen for the goblin that slashed her in the darkness and can’t hear which direction he went. She walks blindly forward until she runs into something.
  • She bumps into a goblin archer and stabs him twice, killing him.
  • She whistles 

Round 3

• Rae, also trapped in the darkness, tries to follow the whistle he heard while keeping a hand on the wall he’s nearest.
• Verna, standing at the edge of the pile of rubble from the ceiling collapse, traces the wall she’s nearest through the magical darkness and then opens the door in front of her
  • She witnesses, just as Sildar had described him, the fattest goblin she has ever seen, dressed as a chef. 
  • Verna dashes past him to attack one of the goblin swarm that has been attacking Orthanc, killing two of them.
• Bear Mo claws the hobgoblin in front of him, knocking him prone and then bites him.
• The goblin assassin is still moving within the magical darkness and slashes Rae, causing him to bleed.
• Orthanc swings his great axe at the goblin swarm cleaving two more in twain
  • Vala yells back down the hallway asking if he is bisecting laterally or vertically, then remembers who she’s talking to and asks “Hot dog or hamburger?”
  • Orthanc yells back Hamburger, confusing the fuck out of Sildar.
• One of the smaller goblins turns to the fat chef goblin, says “sorry boss, I see where this is going” and flees out the front door.
• Vala again adds tallies to her journal's Party Kill Counts page, and summons another Chromatic Orb, ready to attack anything that comes for Gundren.
• Two goblins fire their shortbows at Rig, missing wildly.
• Rig approaches one of them, slashing and missing, but then stabs him in the lung with her offhand weapon. She action surges, then stabs him in the throat, killing him.

Round 4

• Rae disengages from the assassin who attacked him and then escapes the magical darkness, collapsing onto some nearby barrels and groaning in pain.
• Then Rae casts Shield of Faith, a radiant sun with beams of light appearing above him
• Verna slashes the goblin chef, the stabs him in the side.
  • He cries out ‘Oh that kidney wont be good for food no more”
  • Verna replies “I can show you how to cook that kidney up. It’s fine.” 
  • The chef begs to be made into sweetbreads if he’s killed and Verna makes him no promises.
• Bear Mo slashes the hobgoblin in front of him, missing, but manages to bite him. The hobgoblin is bleeding profusely and barely standing.
• Rig hears the pitter patter of tiny goblin feet from within the magical darkness and then gets stabbed in the back
• The goblin chef runs past Sildar up to Orthanc, and notices Miss Tra, Vala’s tressym on Orthanc’s shoulder. 
  • The goblin chef says “that looks like a piece of sweet meat” and swings for Miss Tra instead of Orthanc, clipping off one of her wings and throwing her back against the eastern hallway wall, almost killing her.
• Sildar runs at the goblin chef with his longsword, skewering him and immediately killing him.
• Orthanc runs into the hallway with the magical darkness, walking right to the edge of the shadow and yells in “You still alive?”
  • Rae cries out “need help?” into the darkness.
  • Rig whispers a quiet “Shhhh”
• Orthanc attacks the nearest goblin with his greataxe, cutting him in half and, per their new system, turns his head eastward and yells “Hotdog!” to Vala. 
  • Vala tearfully echoes back “Hotdog!”
• Vala runs to the doorway, casting Misty Step to teleport to Miss Tra, then scoops her up while crying and says “I’m sorry” before running back to the barracks where Gundren is. 
  • Verna notes that it seems hard to be human, to grow such attachments to such fickle things.
• The two goblin archers fire their shortbows at Orthanc, hitting him but not hurting him much.
• Rig is dead set on finding the Goblin assassin, listening for his tiny footsteps, she traces the wall trying to locate him. 
  • She steps out of the darkness, looks for him, then steps back in.
  • Rig stabs blindly in the dark, missing with her main hand, but catching him with her offhand, distracting him so much he drops his Darkness spell. The hallway is visible again.
  • Rig tells the goblin assassin that he is fucked.

Round 5

• Rae casts Cure Wounds on himself and follows Verna to the Banquet Hall.
• Verna stabs and kills the goblin assassin while he is distracted with Rig. 
• Bear Mo continues to try to kill the hobgoblin he has cornered but misses.
• Sildar, who saw Miss Tra fall and Vala retrieve her, dashes back to the barracks where Vala is crying holding her bleeding tressym.
  • Sildar looks at the carnage, knowing it’s bad, and asks what Vala is going to do.
  • Vala knows Miss Tra exists in the Beast Wilds when she isn’t summoned and that she can heal there. She kisses her softly on her wee little head and apologizes again, then dismisses her to go heal.
    • Ethereal smoke envelopes her and she fades away. 
  • Sildar asks Vala if she’ll be alright, saying he doesn’t understand what kind of conjured creature she is
  • Vala explains that Miss Tra was her childhood pet who died when she was little. She hadn’t meant to summon her, hadn’t know she could, but she would heal in the beastwilds and be back eventually. 
• Orthanc in a rage, runs up to the remaining goblin snipers, swinging his greataxe and cleaving through both and killing them. 
  • He yells “Two more hamburgers!” to Vala
  • Vala wipes a tear off her cheek and echos “Two more hamburgers” marking it down in her journal.
  • Sildar, confused, repeats the word Ham-Burger several times, then asks “what is this hammed burger?”.
    • Vala explains the concept while ritual casting Find Familiar and summoning an owl.
• Bear Mo slashes again with his claws then bites the hobgoblin in front of him, killing him.

END COMBAT

• Rig tries to deal with the Owlbear situation
  • She takes a ration and dips it in a healing potion, then creates a breadcrumb trail leading outside.
  • She tells everyone to clear the room and they leave out the eastern door, shutting it.
  • Rig throws the owlbears door bar to the side and opens the door toward herself, hiding behind it.
  • The owlbear scoops up as much food as it can and scurries into the woods.
    • Verna believes it is hunting the doppleganger. 
• Rig steps over the dickless corpse she and Verna made and, wiping the blood off of her daggers on him, and asks who all the dead people were. 
  • Vala explains that they were the cragmaw clan, that this was the castle clearing job the party had picked up from Sildar months ago when Rig was still with The Party.
  • Somewhat hesitantly, Vala tells Rig that she’s gone a really long time, and that Vala has been looking for her and asking after her everywhere in the seventeen days she’s been missing. 
  • Rig says No, that can’t be true. 
  • Vala insists that it is, and looks at Sildar really concerned.
  • Rig says again that it can’t be,Someone would have come looking for her.
  • Vala says again, that she has been looking for Rig everywhere.
  • Rig sighs and says “not you”. 
  • Vala says that she tried to find any information leading her to the Aunt that she writes, Aunt Margaret, but couldn’t find an address.
    • Rig mutters “well that isn’t his name” but Vala doesn’t hear her.
  • Vala drops the topic of how long Rig was missing and instead asks “where the hell even were you? I thought you might have gone after Hammund” and she spits on the ground after saying his name.
  • Rig says she went down the well.
  • Vala is alarmed at this as she sent Miss Tra down the well and scryed through her eyes and there was nothing there. She tells Rig there was nothing there.
    • Rig insists that wherever she went, it was dark and she lost Persi.
      • Verna supposes that Rig & Persi went to another plan of existence where there was a difference in time. Then further supposes that the party is cursed as all of their friends keep disappearing.
  • The Party makes a pact to never return to The Lost Hills, as that’s where the trouble started.
    • Rig cries out “but my antiques!” thinking of all of the furniture she claimed at Wyvern Tor.
    • Vala tells Rig that Halia Thorton will be going to Wyvern Tor shortly to transport Orda and Silverwing to Waterdeep and she may be able to transport Rig’s antiques if Rig wants to talk to her.
      • Vala also mentions that Halia asked after Rig specifically.
• Mo tells the Party they should get a move on, and the Party takes a short rest and loots.
  • Verna and Rig start flipping the Barracks room, though Rig really wants to go to the meat room (aka, the room where the owlbear was imprisoned)
    • Verna says mattresses are a good place to start
    • Rig helps, saying “next you’re going to the meat room with me”
    • Verna responds “The last man to say that to me lost all his fingers.”
  • Under one of the mattresses they find:
    • 220 SP
    • 160 EP
    • 3 potions of lesser healing
    • Gundren's map to Wave Echo Cave
  • Vala happily exclaims that she’s glad the “Skin-Walker” didn’t have the map, she was concerned when it ran off.
  • Sildar takes a moment to explain what he knows of Skin-Walkers, commonly referred to as doppelgangers, saying “In my training as a knight, I've heard of similar creatures. I've never experienced one. They're extraordinarily rare and extraordinarily dangerous. I believe from Orthanc's description, it was a doppelganger. There's. I mean, they can perfectly mimic any humanoid or even other. Sometimes other creatures. And they're very strong and can be very hard to kill. One thing that we do know about them is that they are severely susceptible to silver. So even pressing silver against their skin cause them to burn.
    • Vala narrows her eyes and presses her silver rings to Gundren just to be sure, and is relieved when nothing happened.
      • Sildar says this is prudent.
      • Vala agrees, saying no one wants doppelgangers in Phandalin.
  • Mo asks what the doppelganger was doing and Vala tells him that it was torturing Gundren
  • Verna wonders why a doppelganger would be disguised as a Drow and Vala tells the newcomers about the letter The Party found in Iarno’s desk at the Redbrand Hideout from The Black Spider, a drow he answered to.
    • The letter detailed the capture of Sildar and Gundren and the transfer of Gundren to Cragmaw Castle for “proper questioning - specifically regarding the location of the Forge of Spells and any guidance on how to use it.” It listed Sildar himself as expendable. 
    • Vala also notes that it appears the Black Spider has managed to get questionable organizations such as the Redbrands and the Cragmaw tribe under his control and working for him.
    • It seems very likely that the doppelganger is a direct agent of The Black Spider and that’s related to why they were utilizing a drow’s form.
  •  Vala thinks for a moment and remembers that the Doppleganger would not attack her with the blade it carried, only its fists, but that it kept trying to stab Gundren. She asks Sildar why that would be.
    • Sildar asks what it was doing before she tried to hit Vala
    • Vala tells him the drow was torturing Gundren and then describes the whispery sound she heard with Verna’s help.
    • Sildar explains that dopplegangers have telepathic abilities and the ability to steal the thoughts and personality from the person they want to impersonate. He doesn’t know exactly how it works, but says Gundren may be able to tell them once he wakes.
• Rig and Verna finally go to the meat room
  • They locate a secret door leading outside, which is likely how the Cragmaw Clan got the owlbear in in the first place.
  • They find a lot of rotting meat
• Verna starts flipping all of the beds and picking through the pockets of every corpse.
• Rig enters the northwestern store room and finds:
  •  The bag Verna located earlier with the longsword, heavy crossbow, and Brigandine
  • 5 food rations
  • 1 Cask of Sembian Brandy
• Rig drags her loot back to the group
  • Sildar’s eyes catch on the longword pommel immediately and he asks where Rig found that.
  • She tells him Verna found it a while ago
    • Verna says that yes, she found that earlier, but if he wants it, she’s willing to hand it over. She’s learning something about this companionship business.
  • Sildar says “I can’t thank you enough, That’s my family's sword. And my crossbow, and the Brigandine I was wearing when we were attacked on the road. I thought it was all gone, that I would have to go on a quest to retrieve my family sword.”
  • He pulls the sword out of the bag and holds it up in front of himself alongside a holy symbol he has and starts murmuring a prayer. The party hears him say something about the One-Eyed God, The Watcher, and The Guardian, then the sword begins to glow bright white. The light shoots down the length of the sword and goes back into the pommel. 
  • He swings it a little, practicing, then stabs forward into the stone wall, sinking a solid foot of his longsword into the stone before wrenching it free.
  • He says “This is Winter's Oath, my families sword which was created at the founding of my house over a thousand years ago. I can’t give you enough praise for bringing this back.”
• Rig points to the hall where she killed several Skitterlings and tells Vala that there’s probably some good Alchemy goop
• Vala invites Mo to join her, knowing he wanted to check the pockets of the witch doctor. Rae joins as well.
  • Vala casts Detect Magic
  • When Vala enters the Hall, she immediately notices that there are multiple pantheons present, which is abnormal but makes sense to her given her childhood reading of The Wonders of Phandalin, and her more recent reading of Urmon’s Journal: An Accounting of Phandalin.
• Vala tells Rae and Mo of:
  • The pact between the dwarves, the gnomes, and the human mages
  • The prosperity of the region in the 10th Century
  • The town being razed by orcs in the 11th Centrury, shattering the Pact and leaving Wave Echo Cave to be lost to time.
    • Rae is the only other party nerd, and he is fascinated by this. 
    • Vala is hopeful something similar could flourish again in the region, that multiple factions could work together in peace under a pact. 
• Vala, Rae, and Mo notice a glint from within a barrel and investigate it, pulling out a Gold statue of a Sun Elf
• They also find a golden chalice, a golden knife, and a golden censor
  • Vala casts Message while looking at the golden knife and tells Mo “what happened in the woods… Rig must never know.”
  • Mo replies “understood.”
• Vala collects a vial of Skitterling goop for alchemy.
• Rae, Vala, and Mo return to the Barracks, where Sildar is checking over Gundren and has donned his Brigadine. 
  • Vala joins him to help with Gundren, lightly bumping him with her elbow and saying “looking good”
  • Sildar tells Vala that Vala’s new friend Verna was kind enough to return Sildar’s family sword. 
    • Vala is genuinely surprised by this
    • Sildar says “She’s a but rough around the edges but she seems like a good lass.”
  • Vala kicks the corpse of the Bugbear that was turned into dick soup and asks Rig and Verna if they would like to hang him up as they had discussed.

Late Night

• The party is interrupted by a booming voice from the south, saying, “Come out, you coward.  You smelly hairy beast.  I have returned.  And I am back to claim the tribe that is mine.”
• Rig feels that if the castle is claimed by someone else, the job to “clear Cragmaw Castle” is not complete. She wants to see how many are approaching in case the party can fight and kill them.
  • No one else seems to be particualarly hopeful the party could do so in their current state
  • Rig looks out into the foggy night and sees hazy torches, but can’t count how many.
  • Rig starts trying to drag the body of King Grol to the entrance to try to parlay with the approaching force.
    • Vala helps her drag him.
  • Verna considers running and abandoning them
  • Orthanc follows Vala and Rig 
• Halfway to the entrance, the voice booms again “All right, Grol, that is enough.  We are coming in.  And anyone that is left alive will be will become the first victims of the blood shield tribe. Shield wall forward.”
• Rig and Vala are trying to Parlay, but the approaching force cannot hear them.
  • Rig attempts to use a whistle and lantern to try to communicate with them . It does not work.
• Orthanc eventually casts Druidcraft to amplify his voice and yells “Castle’s empty, lots of stuff in here that you could make use of. Anyway, as proof here you go” and chucks the body of King Grol out the door.
  • The shield wall continues to advance
  • Rig says “You’re not very patient, it took us a long time to drag him here.”
  • Vala adds “Yes, and we’re little!”
• The advancing leader calls out “I know not the voices that speak to me but if you are there when my lackeys get there, we will cut you down with Grol and the rest.
  • Rig, exasperated, says “We already killed Grol. Put your tits away, he’s already dead!”
  • Vala backs her up “King Grol is dead, this is king Rig.”
• Orthanc gives up and scoops up Rig and Vala, retreating as fast as possible.
  • Rig token resists.
  • Vala goes limp noodle, fully complying. 
• While they’re being drug back to the northern exit where the party is waiting, Vala casts prestidigitation repeatedly, snuffing out every light source she can to cover them in their escape.
• When they get back to the party, Orthanc sets down Vala, who says thank you. 
  • Rig kicks him, causing Orthanc to drop her, cracking her head on the wall and rendering her unconscious
    • Orthanc picks Rig back up.
• The party prepares to flee.
  • Rae quickly distributes magical light sources 
  • Vala sticks by Sildar, who is carrying Gundren, in case he needs healing or casting as cover
  • Sildar says, "Thank the helmed god, lets get the fuck out of here.”
  • Verna takes off into the woods and the Party follows.

Next Session: Session 022: The Bloodshield Search Party: Flight AND Fight →