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Day 38 - Morning in Phandalin

The party wakes in the loft of Edermath's barn, and discusses their options for where to take themselves next. They know of a small treasure in Thundertree that they need to recover for saving the Redbrand's slaves. There are the Redbrands themselves, who the party only half-defeated, and is likely regrouping under Tresendar Manor since their leader, Glasstaff has not been seen, nor the wolves he stole from the party found. There is the strange wizard at Old Owl Well, but Edermath said he would look into that to find out more. There are the caves near Wyvern Tor, barely explored, but strangely full of all manner of humanoids who don't usually co-exist. What could they be doing together? Certainly, nothing good. And finally, Wave Echo Cave - the party wants to go, but Gundren's supplies have been waylayed, if Linene at the Lionshield Costar is to be believed.

As the group weighed their options, they heard a commotion outside, someone banging on Darran Edermath's door, yelling his name. As they leave the loft, they hear the man yell to Darran that the town is under attack, and the sound of screams and yelling starts reaching them.

The party runs from the barn to the noise, Lady Decap their Owlbear companion lumbering behind, curious about the commotion. They run over to the Smithy, and they see it is a huge party of goblins, hobgoblins and a bugbear. King Groll has returned, and they are tearing up the town. Men are fighting with the goblins and going down, woman are being assaulted in the street, and Groll has someone by the lapels, screaming at him.

"Where are the murderers that killed my brother Klarg!!!!!? I want those adventurers!"

There are maybe twenty five goblins, four hobgoblins and of course Groll. The invaders are way too numerous for the party to take on, so of course they run into the street and attack. Orryn attacks the goblins with his dagger, Dain with battle axe, Atlas with his furious fists, Immeral with spells from the shade of the Smith's building, Seraphina with ?????, and Nowhere with her flail. Kronk avoids the goblins and furiously runs at Groll who is still screaming at the terrified human whom he throws aside unconscious. As the others engage with the goblins and hobgoblins, Kronk lets out a lightning breath attack and scorches Groll and a handful of goblins behind him. He turns and attacks!

The team is fighting mightily, but the goblins are closing in and the hobgoblins are powerful and doing great damage to the party. Suddenly Lady D, the owlbear enters the fray and slaughters a couple of goblins, tossing them around in it's great beak like a dog with a dead rabbit. Edermath joins the fight, longsword in hand and reveals his skills as a swordsman as he dispatches goblin after goblin, and even Elmar Barthen enters the fight.

The team is fighting mightily, but the numbers of villians are too great, and they are being worn down one by one. Dain is pushed to the edge of consciousness, but pushes through with his Barbarian rage and takes out some of the goblins in a final mad burst.

A strange sound comes from the north - the sound of thunder, great enough to shake the ground, but there's no time to look. Suddenly, Groll strikes down K'ronk, who lays unconscious at his feet, and raises his morningstar to strike the killing blow. As he strikes down, a staff wielding cleric slides in to block the killing stroke on K'ronk. It is sister Garaele, who saves K'ronk's life, and then takes a mighty blow from Groll. The day is about to be lost, when a band of horseback'd mercenaries charges in and drives off the goblins, charging them down and ending their assault and their wretched lives. The fight ends with Immeral striking the final blow with a chill touch spell that kills Groll, and the day is won.

Garaele turns back to the wounded K'ronk and casts a healing spell upon him, and he thanks her profusely. Immeral suggests that they meet for a drink in the near future, and Garaele mentions her vows of purity and chastity and leaves with a smile.

The sellswords on horseback ask about the owlbear, but the group just laughs and tells him to let her eat the goblins - he has acquired a taste for them. The lieutenant introduces himself as Frant, and asks who is in charge. Both Nowhere and Daran amusingly speak up at the same time. Daran introduces himself as a townmember, and Nowhere says she is in charge of the adventurers. The man asks if either know the location of Sildar Hallwinter, and explained that Sildar hired the mercenaries, and they were to meet here in Phandalin. As they speak, Gundren emerges from the Stonehill Inn and presents himself. Nowhere informs the lieutenant that Sildar was killed by the very same goblins he drove off. Then Gundren introduces himself as the client that Sildar was hiring them to protect. He says that he wanted to wait until they arrived along with the supplies, but with supply routes being sacked from the east and west, he would like to head out immediately to "their destination".

"My men are ready" replies Frant. Lady D. belches.

As the party gathers their belongings and horses, Daran approaches the group, complimenting them on the fight today. "If I understand things right, you may still have some fighting to do." He hands them three healing potions which Nowhere secures. Then, at the direction of Gundren, the party heads east. Leaving town, the group passes Tresendar Manor, and the adventurers glance up at the unfinished business they have there.

Ironically, the secret entrance to Wave Echo Cave is not far from Phandelin. On horseback it takes most of the morning and some of the afternoon, but it is still far from evening when they reach the cave. They dismount and the lieutenant orders two of the mercenaries to stand guard at the entrance and watch their horses. Orryn communicates to Lady D. to go and forage, that they would yell for her when they came out of the cave, and she wandered off.

They wander through the passages, the mercenaries bearing torches for light, but the adventurers seeing clearly in the dark due to their unique heritages. They reach a large cavern with spring in one wall filling a pool about half the size of the chamber. The cold water is clear and seemingly fresh, and some drink their fill, but the party does not discern how deep it goes, or step the water, for dark pools in dark places host dark things, and nobody feels like a swim. The water escapes through a crack in the northeastern wall, and nearby a stair leads up into man-made tunnels.

Dain the barbarian listens to the door and hears deep voices speaking goblin. He peeks in to see five bugbears in a barracks-like room with a door on the other side barricaded. They close the door and make a plan. Four of the group tucks in on the north corridor, four in the southern corridor, which is collapsed a few feet behind them, and four back in the pool room. Dain bangs on the door and runs back to the others. The bugbears are not thoughtful creatures, so they charge out of the room and the party executes a surprise attack, but the bugbears are tough, and don't go down without inflicting some damage on some of the party. The melee is chaotic, no less so after Dain decides to barrel into the bugbears with his shield, knocking two to the ground for a few precious moments of battle, enough to help turn the tide. In the midst of the battle, Immeral notices that Gundren pulls his punch on an attack when he clearly could have trounced a bugbear. Still, the battle continued and one of the bugbears ran back into the room and tried to barricade the door, but Dain crashed through, smashing through a bed the creature tried to block the door with, and then Dain and party tried to grapple with the bugbear, but it proved too aggressive a foe.

In the end, they turned to normal combat and destroyed the creature. They toss the bugbears into the pool to see if anything unusual happens, but the bodies just sink into the darkness. One of the heavier ones floats and cascades off into the stream existing to the northeast.

Finally, Immeral turns to Gundren and accuses him of hanging back in battle. Gundren accuses Immeral of being mad, that he is there to avenge his dead brothers and that Immeral can leave if he didn't want a part of this. Immeral stood his ground for a bit, stating clearly that he saw what he saw, but did not want to take the argument further. Gundren was clearly upset, disbelieving the accusation and stating that nobody had a better reason for fighting through and finding his brother than him. Immeral walked off, unsatisfied.

NEXT - Battle With The Spider