(LMoP-7) Snake eyes!

What are the odds of rolling two ones in a row? Twice?

Gryff's incredible dice rolling skills come under scrutiny as the heroes prepare to head for Wave Echo Cave - and a date with destiny....and death.

Starring:
Gronn, a dwarven druid, played by Brett
Wolf, a young human fighter, played by Lorne
Ellenross, a human rogue, played by Hilton (absent due to being overseas)
Gryff, a halfling fighter, played by Jason
Ashnurak, a human wizard, played by Iain

DM comments: This time around I got Brett (Gronn) to deliver a recap of the last sessions events - and I think I'll do that from now on. It gives me a chance to sort my shit out, and let's me hear the adventure from someone else's perspective. Before we kicked off, we had a quick chat about levelling - as most of the party were not far off. Finally, we continued with an experiment - open combat rolling from the DM. So far the feedback has been positive.

Phandalin, destroyed 800 years before, is now starting to revive and our heroes have come through some stressful and dangerous times there. Is it nearing the end, or is it just the beginning?

Our intrepid explorers, not long back from their adventures in the westlands, are preparing for the trip to Wave Echo Cave and question Gundren who, in reality cannot tell them much. He explains that it was a touch search and that he and his brothers had only recently found it, but not yet been able to explore very much - until they had the equipment that the group had originally escorted in blog entry LMoP-1. The wagon stood ready once more, and the party headed out, on a cool, bright summer's morning.

After approximately ten miles travel, and very little conversation, apart from a brief chat about what to expect, they reached a stage where the wagon could go no more and Gundren handed out backpacks full of kit to the others. There was some grumbling.

Another hour of walking and the sun beat down from up on high, but there was regular shelter in the narrow crevasses and canyons through which they travelled - and each time they thought they were lost, Gundren would look around at landmarks only he could identify and then purposefully march off in one direction (also Brett's favourite band).

Gundren exclaimed in delight as they approached a particularly wild looking set of bushes, and behind them the party found a thin tunnel leading into the darkness. A light spell on Wolf's sword lead them through the crack for several hundred feet until it opened into a large cavern. Instantly, their worst fears were partially proved true - Tharden's body lay among piles of supplies (who would be the cousin of an adventurer in this party?!). Gundren roared in anguish and Gronn glowered in anger. Someone would pay - but not at Gundren's hand - he declared he would stay right there and leave the spelunking to the spelunkers. Still no sign of the other cousin, Nundro (but let's face it, he's probably dead if you apply the "Rule of Cousins" from this adventure).

The party climbed down a rope and headed off into the cave. Before long, they found the site of an ancient battle between dwarf and orc - skeletons and rusted armour lay scattered about the place. As Ash nipped forward to check for booty, the party was suprised (stealth roll 17!) by a horde of stirges! After an initial attack round that saw everyone but Wolf injured, a few stirges were stabbed before Ash, in desperation, Thunderwave'd the crap out of every stirge in the room, whilst miraculously (not to him) avoiding all of his colleagues. He celebrated loudly, much to the disgust of Gryff - who's a bit grumpy these days.

The next room, obviously some kind of storeroom held a different kind of surprise. Skeletons! This fight helped hone some tactics for the group (form a semi-circle around the doorway, where Ash cowered in fear could pick off weak enemies at will. After a fairly straightforward battle, the party continued their search. 
The party doubled-back and headed down another corridor, rough-hewn this time, and found themselves in a massive cavern, lit by carpets of fungus. The room itself was full of all sorts of massive mushrooms, small puff spheres sitting on shelves of other fungi and basically made the entire room a little weird looking. The party turned to the Druid, Gronn, for advice.

"Erm, I'm a forest dwarf, not a cave dwarf!".

"It's just fungus, hold your breath and walk through" said Ash, confidently. While the others tended to agree with Ash, Wolf stopped to consider some kind of protective scarf for his face - but wasn't quite sure what to use. 

"...but what about the poof fungus?" asked Gryff....to many guffaws and fnarrs.

Gronn, sick of waiting, rolled a large rock into the carpet of fungus and seemed unbothered by the small cloud of spores which rose in response. The party did, however, all take Wolf's advice and cover their faces before plunging into the room.....and the fungus let out a huge cloud of spores, filling the entire cavern.

"Run!" shouted Ash, "Get the fuck out - back the way we came!"

(since they had face coverings, I gave them all advantage against the poison saves and all made it - one of them "on the button" - damnit!)

The party decided to skip the poof room and go elsewhere (amidst more grumbling).

The party headed north in the cave, before finding a doorway which lead into what was obviously an old barracks. Crouching on the loor, gnawing on a number of centuries old corpses, hoping for the faintest hint of bone marrow, were three ghouls, who leapt at the party and viciously raked their claws across them, slashing faces and chests seemingly at will, but without further ill effect, apart from Wolf, who found himself unable to move. Just as the ghoul leaned forward to sink its teeth into his throat, amazed at its good luck and unable to resist the fleshy feast in front of it, Gryff leapt forward with a series of dazzling thrusts of his blades, driving the creature back, before Ash killed it with a fire bolt.

After negotiating a series of maze-like tunnels, the party found themselves in a room dominated by a large pool. "It's just a pool", announced Ash, and they moved swiftly onwards.

They entered the next room and were surprised to find a number of bugbears, ready for combat, but all facing the wrong direction - across from them was a doorway, blocked with furniture and blocks of rubble. What could possibly have bugbears so afraid? Unwilling to answer that question (or perhaps believing the answer to be, "us"), a short violent melee ended with the heroes taking a moment to discuss their next move over a number of dead bugbears (the highlight of this battle was Gryff rolling a 1, triumphantly reminding me of his Luck racial ability, and then rolling a 1 again!). Ash was all for unblocking the door and seeing what was beyond, but the others disagreed and the decision was to let sleeping doors lie and move onwards in a different direction.

The party moved on and, within a few turns, found themselves before a set of double-doors. Knowing that such a portal in such a place probably meant something nasty, the party burst the doors open and leapt inside!

Across from them, standing next to a table, stood a dark elf in black leather clothes and holding a staff with a spider on top. On either side stood another bugbear.

"I wonder if he knows where The Black Spider is", said Wolf.

Everyone leapt into action. The bugbears charged the group, Gronn and Ash prepared mighty magics while Gryff and Wolf slammed into the bugbears at knee and chest height respectively. Nezznar, the Black Spider, slammed his staff into the ground and as our brave heroes took a moment to await some kind of horrible doom, they saw nothing....but heard something horribly familiar - the skittering approach of giant spiders which ran down the walls, and flung themselves at the valiant adventurers! Ash lit up Nezznar with a witchbolt which didn't seem to want to stop zapping it's target, so the black elf did the only thing he could - he caast a compulsion on Ash, which seemed ever so reasonable, to "go and see what was happening in the corridor"....and Ash duly obliged, ending the spell before it could finish off the brave dark elf.

At that point, four things happened - Nezznar starting flinging magic missiles into warriors, Gronn engaged some giant spiders, the bug bears died and Ash found himself in the corridor which did in fact have something happening - the sound of heavy footsteps and angry voices heading their way!
Ash ran back into the room, just as Gryff and Wolf turned on the spiders blocking their path to Nezznar. Gronn had turned himself into a bear by this point and was laying into a spider. Ash took his last moment of actin to fling some firey doom over at their valiant foe and to everyone's surprise (the witchbolt had done far more than expected!), he dropped to the floor and the spiders vanished in a poof of....err, nothing.

Into the room burst a large black humanoid, nearly naked but well muscled, accompanied by a pair of bugbears. Gronn and Wolf took on the bugbears, while Gryff squared off with the doppelganger. Ash sent waves of fire and doom across their foes, his magics amazingly sliding around his comrades and causing them no harm.

(It's at this time that Gryff obtained his new nickname, Gryffendor "Snake Eyes" Pinecone as he once again replaced a throw of 1 with another 1)

After a series of desperate and impressive parries, Gryff fell to the floor, defeated by the beast in front of him. The others, in desperation, unleashed all they had in one last ditch attempt to fell the doppelganger, his bodyguards already dead, his heavy fists slamming into the heroes time after time before finally, with his final gasp, he whispered a curse into the air, "Vhalak, my brother, avenge me!" before he faded into the blackness...

The party quickly searched the corpses, before taking a moment to relax and rest before searching the rest of the cave.

The Black Spider was dead - but is this the end?

(LMoP-6) Oh no - my family is in peril (again)!

"Who'd be one of our cousins?"

Their patron (in some cases) is now back in Phandalin - and almost in one piece. Despite meeting his death at the hands of the odd shape-shifting creature at Cragmaw Castle, Gundren Rockseeker is alive once more, but Carp, Gryff's cousin, is missing and stories abound through the town of how the undead and orcs in the east are growing bolder - and the adventure continues...

Starring:

Gronn, a dwarven druid, played by Brett

Wolf, a young human fighter, played by Lorne (absent due to illness)

Ellenross, a human rogue, played by Hilton (absent due to overseas trip)

Gryff, a halfling fighter, played by Jason
Ashnurak, a human wizard, played by Iain

DM comments: Sadly we were down to three for this session, but those who were playing and I unanimously agreed to play on with just three players - there were some adjustments in the flow of the game to accommodate, but the party has proved resourceful (and often require extras!) so I had faith in them... hehehe.

Our heroes found themselves in Phandalin. They had recently returned with Gundren's body and, after some scraping and bowing, arranged for him to be resurrected by Sister Garaele, the priestess of Tymora. As soon as they realised he was alive, the rushed to his side...

"Gundren!" cried Gronn (not actual crying, I hasten to add), "it's so good to see you alive".....barely. Gundren was weak from the resurrection and had little strength in him. He offered them all a small cash reward, but supplemented it with a massive 10% of his business once it was up and running. If Wave Echo Cave was half as rich as they thought it was, money would never be a problem again!

After Sister Garaele confirmed it would be several days before he was fit to move any distance, the party began to plot their next move:

1. Carp was a priority - only missing for half a day, he couldn't have gone far - and the likelihood was that his disappearance was linked to the "hearings" of the strange creature they'd encountered in the crevasse under Tresendar Manor.
2. Sister Garaele had resurrected their friend - and she had also set them a task involving the banshee Agatha, near Conyberry - they were to find out what she did with the spellbook belonging to a man named Bowgentle.
3. The orcs and undead in the east were a menace and needed to be investigated.
4. Hopefully, by the time they returned, Gundren would be fit and recovered from his ordeal, to show them the way to Wave Echo Cave.

The party headed first for Tresendar Manor - and found the secret entrance blocked by rocks. How odd. A quick search of the area found a multitude of footprints - it was impossible to know who had been here. The party went up to the Manor house itself and let themselves in. Going through the kitchen and into the basement, they found themselves in the massive storage room below the manor - similar to before, except for the appearance of two goblins, standing to attention at the far wall, grinning like fools.

After a short discussion (the goblins proved non-aggressive) it transpired they were the newly recruited footmen of the Lord Nothic, Master of the Crevasse (fnaar!). Not long after the discussion ended, they both died without the grins leaving their faces. "Obviously ensorcelled" muttered Ash as they continued moving through the corridors (they remembered the secret door).

As they entered the crevasse cave, the strange voice once again filled their heads (thanking them for the previous supply of fresh flesh, "much better as it was so much wetter"), warning them of his increased power and how they had best leave before it turned nasty. Well, it did turn nasty, particularly when he referred to his latest halfling acquisition as "delicious" - Gryff flew into a rage and charged across the bridge, which collapsed under his feet! (A pretty impressive Dex save took him to the other side) Where he squared off with the Lord Nothic.

Both Gronn and Ash flung spells, with varying levels of success. The creature turned his gaze on Gronn (and this phrase caused much childish amusement) before Gronn also charged the long way around to grapple with the beast. At this stage, things went a little awry for the party. Firstly, just as Gronn got to the Lord Nothic, two goblins charged in behind the party and attacked Ash in the back. Secondly, Lord Nothic critted Gryff, causing quite some damage and making a few eyebrows around the table rise. 

As Gronn and Gryff wailed on Lord Nothic, Ash Thunderwave'd his foes and after taking some more hits (and moaning about lack of protection), then hearing more footsteps in the passageway, Ash flung a sleep spell out into the hall, dropping both goblins and his unseen foe in the hallway to the floor.

While this happened, Gryff and Gronn took swipes at the big mean baddie, who had obviously had enough. He struck Gryff with two mighty blows (a 19 and a 20 to add to the 20 from the round before!) reduced Gryff to unconsciousness (and incredulousness). Gronn, starting to feel the burn (from the Nothic's dread gaze), decided to armour up (Barkskin) and health up (Bear Form), ready for a huge climax (fnaar). 

Within two rounds, Lord Nothic was dead and Gryff was revived (it was so close to a Total Party Kill!). Gronn put the two unconscious goblins to the sword (well, dagger) and then checked the hallway, where they found Daran Edermath fast asleep!

They descended into the crevasse and found a number of items of interest - a large chest which contained a beautifully maintained magical shortsword (called The Talon of the Black Hawk) and a few potions. Oh and they found Carp's half-eaten corpse. Gryff was beside himself. Ash made the suggestion that Qenelle (Carp's mum) might benefit from the treasure they found here, minus the sword, which the rest agreed with.

They woke Daran on the way out and he confirmed that he'd seen a mysterious black humanoid talking with two goblins in the woods and when they had run towards the manor house, he'd followed them, knowing the party were in there. That was the last he remembered before waking up in the hallway - how odd...

They returned to town and Gryff gave his aunt the news. Lots of tears, etc, I drew the line at roleplaying a crying halfling woman whose pies were burning in the oven - and besides, I thought Gryff was going to have a breakdown, so I decided to skip over it a bit.

(I thought this section went pretty well, especially considering that the Nothic needed a boost and the vast majority of this part was made up on the spot - none of it came from the module - apart from the name of the bad guy and the map. I did decide on the missing boy at the end of the last session, but the rest was done on the night)

After a rest, the party headed east, deciding to visit Wyvern's Tor first, to investigate the orc threat. Once they arrived, a day later, they quickly found the orcs (thanks to Gronn crit'ing his Survival roll). One orc stood sentry outside a cave. Using his spider form (acquired from Thundertree), Gronn snuck up and poisoned the sentry - much to the disgust of Ash, who felt spider form was gross. Gronn wobbled his massive abdomen in delight at Ash's horrified look (in real life too).

They snuck into the cave and found a larger opening further back which held four orcs and an ogre. The party leapt into action - Gronn flinging some barbed spikes which leapt out of the ground, Ash casting wave after wave of flames into the orcs and Gryff charging headlong at the ogre to nibble his kneecaps before stopping a few feet short when he realised the ground was covered in brambles and thorns from Gronn's spell! He stood impatiently waiting for the ogre to come to him....

After several rounds, the orcs lay dead (at Ash's hands) and Gryff lay unconscious (at the ogre's club - yes, another crit!) and Gronn was bashing away at the ogre. Ash took the glory with some more flamey bits and while Gronn helped Gryff to his feet, Ash made sure to mention how he killed everything in the room whilst blowing on the end of his staff (his words, not mine). There was much grimacing from the others. They found some treasure, as well as some potion bottles containing perfume (which Gronn tested by tasting - yes, dwarves are odd).

After a brief search of the area outside, they concluded the orcs were finished and decided to head for Old Owl Well, where undead had been seen.

They found an old watchtower, next to which sat a brightly coloured tent. A quick recce from Hugin, the raven scout, found little but the stench of death and the party approached the garish tent and threw a rock at it to get the owner's attention. At this, the horrified party heard a chorus of moans and watched on in disgust as a dozen corpses shambled forth from the tower. As they prepared to fight, a short fat man with no hair and a massive tattoo on his face, with a strange red robe on, stepped out of the tent.

With a wave of his hand he stopped the zombies and spoke with the party. It turns out he was a mage from the land of Thay (he said with a flourish) but only Ash knew who he was (and even recognised his tattoo as being one of a necromancer). After hearing that the party had overcome the orcs and the party decided that he posed no threat as long as he was not attacked (he was only there for research, after all), they all sat down for a picnic of fine wines, cheese and bread. Before long, the party decided to scarper, finding it all a little weird.

They headed off to find Agatha and, before long, found themselves bypassing Conyberry and heading into the dark, spooky woods north. After following the trail through a mist-filled series of pathways and clearings, they eventually came across a hut of sorts, built from the roots and branches of nearby trees. 

They quickly entered and found themselves face to face with a horrifying visage which had risen up through the floor - after a bit of screeching and threats, the banshee finally gave them a chance to speak and, surprised at their politeness (it could have been fear), even allowed them to live. The party eventually remembered the silver comb Sister Garaele had given them as a present for Agatha and Gryff whipped it out - there was a sharp intake of breath around the room (and a look of joy crossed my face) as the banshee spoke next....

"What is it you want of me, halfling, I will answer one question!"...at that time, I somehow thought back to episode two of this series and Gryff's moment involving Ash's riddle and it was all I could not to wring my hands together in glee.

"Where is the spellbook........(and before I could answer, "It's in Ash's bag!")....of Bowgentle?" asked Gryff (it almost went a little funny as Gronn originally recalled his name as BoJangles). Foiled! I gave them directions to where she had last seen it, over a hundred years before. 

"Thank you for the information, " said Gryff as he bowed low, "I'm sure we will use it." he added as he straightened, much to the amusement of the others. The party beat a hasty retreat back to Phandalin before Agatha could change her mind and kill them all.

They returned to town, confirmed their actions to the relevant parties, collected some rewards, and one or more joined a secret society. Then, realising that Gundren was back to full strength, they decided that now was the time to hit the Wave Echo Cave and finally get their hands on the Black Spider! 

And the session ended.

(LMoP-5) "I search them for keys!"

Who would give keys to a goblin for safekeeping?

Gryff once more unwittingly provides the headline for our session as the party leave Thundertree and make their way to Cragmaw Castle. It's time to rescue Gundren and bring the Black Spider to justice for his crimes!

Starring:
Gronn, a dwarven druid, played by Brett
Wolf, a young human fighter, played by Lorne
Ellenross, a human rogue, played by Hilton (suspended due to being a big girl - and also overseas)
Gryff, a halfling fighter, played by Jason
Ashnurak, a human wizard, played by Iain

DM comments: once more, the party got a quick recap of what happened last week. As an ongoing feature, we are spending the first ten or fifteen minutes of each session going through some of the 5e rules - and it seems a popular decision so far. This week we did "What you can do in a round".

Thundertree, a ruined dump inhabited by ash zombies, twig blights, strange cultists, a useless druid and an angry, vain, house-hunting green dragon named Venomfang. Until a few hours ago, it also provided temporary shelter to our heroes, before a little slaughter and a rather nerve-wracking discussion with Venomfang has turned our erstwhile adventurers from, errr, adventurers into part-time dragon estate agents. Their aim now, to empty Cragmaw Castle and leave it open for Venomfang, thereby removing him from Thundertree! Let's see what happened next...

And so, that is how, 24 hours later, the party found themselves standing just inside the treeline of the clearing surrounding Cragmaw Castle. The first scout, was Ash's raven, Hugin. Despite his sharp eyes, he could make out little more than a set of seven ruined towers in various levels of disrepair, and two entrances - the main doors, which we smashed in and a side door leading to an iron door. Gronn, curious as to what things looked like closer, transformed himself into a small, ugly squirrel and scampered across the rough land of the clearing, up to the ruined castle. As he peeked in through the front doors, he was barely missed by a goblin arrow fired from one of the arrow-slits (and accompanied by goblin laughter)! He leapt away and continued his run around the castle walls. He found a postern door, at the top of some stairs on the south side of the tower and returned to the group, wary of any further arrow attacks.

They discussed their options. They discussed some other options. They considered their options. They deliberated over a plan. They almost arrived at a plan, before Gronn had an idea! Nearly a third of the session was over by this stage! He kept it to himself, but said he'd need a night's sleep before attempting it. Without sharing more, Ash became impatient and questioned the manliness of Gronn and Wolf - one of whom was supposed to be saving his cousin from torture and had agonised over every second lost (until now) and the other who was one moment headstrong and confident, while at other times displayed attributes of a far older and wiser warrior. After this turned heated, Ash walked from the camp and snuck up to the walls (after taunting the aggregate size of non-Ash testicles in the party). He returned to the group after identifying that the postern gate was, in fact, securely sealed.

After a night's (partially reluctant) rest, they set forth and approached Castle Cragmaw, ready for the trials that it might contain. As they approached the doors, Gronn cast forth a mighty spell, coating the entire area in fog, causing no end of confusion for the inhabitants of CC, as a small amount of navigational issues for his pals. Nevertheless, the party made it inside the front doors and felt along a wall until they reached a door.

Upon carefully opening the door and strolling in, Wolf found himself face to face with a pair of mangy goblins. After a brief set-to (during which Gryff almost single-handedly slaughtered them both) and Gryff checked their pockets for keys, the party continued their search and found a similar room on the other side of the main door. This time they leapt into the room and surprised another two goblins who were actually fighting over whether they should go squirrel hunting or not. They didn't last long. Gryff searched the corpses for keys.

Further explorations took them into a goblin barracks - their brief battle ended with a horrifying scream as Wolf cut the last of four goblins in half. As the party waited in horror at the noise (and Gryff searched their corpses for keys), four hobgoblins burst into the room and launched themselves at our undaunted heroes. They were reinforced by goblins from the next room and a fierce battle ensued - and the party realised just how dangerous a set of hobgoblins can be. Battered, they all took a moment to scoff some of Gronn's magic healing berries while Gryff searched the goblins for keys (at this point I may have gruffly pointed out that none of the goblins had any fucking keys on them!).

Next they moved into the kitchen, where they found nothing of value, and travelling deeper into the Castle, they first unlocked the postern door (for an escape route) and then nipped into the next room. In it, were two large hobgoblins - one charged the group while the other ran from the room...in horror, or to get help? We'll never quite know!

The group set about the remaining hobgoblin apart from Gryff, who set off in pursuit and shouted "Never leave a friend behind!" (at this stage, and ever since, none of us were quite sure whether he was talking to the hobgoblin or his companions). While they carved up the remaining hobbo, Gryff left his friends behind and followed the hobgoblin into another room...where he stopped short. No, really short, not just because he's a halfling. In front of him stood his quarry. Behind the hobgoblin was sat a bugbear nigh on seven foot tall and a wolf five foot at the shoulder. Next to the bugbear sat a dazed, bedraggled dwarf, obviously in a state of some confusion. Gryff nodded grimly and leapt to the attack! (he's in the group for finesse weapons, not brains). Just as he launched his attacks, the other swept in behind him, just in time to see a large black-skinned, naked humanoid swing his fists at Gryff's head.

As they all tensed themselves for combat, the bugbear (King Grol) leant over and placed his hand over Gundren's head, his talons tearing easily into the flesh of the poor dwarf, who squealed in pain.

"Stop this!", cried King Grol. "Stop now, or this pathetic creature will die before you can take another step!".

Everyone stopped and looked at one another.

"Let him go!" said Gronn.

"Yeah, let him go.....or else!" said Wolf.

"Have they got any keys on them?", said Gryff (this did not happen)

"I cast charm on the hobgoblin", said Ashnurak, (via text message)

King Grol stood to his full height, just as Ash and the hobgoblin began to talk as if old friends. Wolf and Gronn looked puzzled, but soon turned back to King Grol.

"Let him go, or I'll kill you!", threatened Gronn, backed up by a growling Wolf. Gruff watched on, wordlessly.

"For fucks' sake", said Ash, before swiftly swapping to OOC: "I meant to charm the bugbear not the hobgoblin!" but by this stage, the outraged requests to "let him go" had continued and so there was no going back (Sorry Iain!). 

By this time, the strange black humanoid had moved back to King Grol's side and, while our demented heroes looked on in horror, he changed in front of their very eyes, morphing into an exact replica of Gundren. Blood and all!

"Let him go!" growled Gronn.
"Grrrrr", growled Wolf.

"Sod this." muttered Ashnurak, as he cast a lightning bolt at King Grol.

(I think everyone was taken by surprise at Ash's actions, but he's proved impulsive more than once - and it adds some fun to the session!)

His bolt missed, but it set everyone off - Gronn and Gryff leapt at King Grol. Wolf leapt at the wolf. King Grol flung Gundren to one side, where he bumped into his replica and the pair of them tumbled off to the far end of the room, a tangle of bloody dwarven limbs and straggly unkept beards.

Within a couple rounds, the wolf and King Grol were dead, but before the party could rest, more hobgoblins, returning from an elf-hunt charged into the room, flinging coarse sacks filled with fresh elf heads at the adventurers, they slashed at Wolf and Gryff, cutting them down. Gronn and Ashnurak battled valiantly and laid their foes to rest, before checking on their companions. Gryff and Wolf recovered, but Gundren, alas, had succumbed to his wounds (I rolled a 1 on his death save! And since I was rolling them in full view, the group probably thought it was a good thing!). There was also only one dwarven corpse on the floor - where was that strange shape-shifting creature?

Gronn cursed his bad luck - to come so far and see Gundren die in front of them was a massive blow. All his promises to look after his family lay in tatters. His vows to honour his clan, ruined. As he brooded, Ash questioned the hobgoblin whom he'd befriended.

"Where is the map to the cave? Where does King Grol keep his stuff?" asked Ash. 

I dunno," said the dimwitted hobgoblin. "I think he puts his stuff under his bed, but I don't know nuffin. Except he was busy sticking it to that dwarf", he let off a low chuckle at the sight of the dead dwarf.

Gronn's temper got the best of him, and after a quick Heat Metal spell, the party's quandary over what to do with the hobgoblin was less of a concern and more like a poorly maintained barbecue. He gathered up his cousin's body and the party set off for Phandalin.

Their trip was uneventful and they reached the town the next day. They first went to the Townmaster's Hall, where they met Sildar. He was horrified to hear of Gundren's fate and told them how there had been strange goings on while they were aware. Someone had sworn they'd seen the dead woodcarver in the street, and many folk had said they had heard a strange voice in their heads, asking them to deliver "fresh flesh, the wetter the better" but none had seen anything! On top of that, young Carp, Gryff's cousin, had gone missing.

"Anyone else's cousin want to disappear?" grumbled Ash.

Sildar carried on regardless. "Perhaps you should take Gundren to the Temple of Tymora to see if Sister Garaele can help". Gronn leapt to his feet and went straight there.

They walked in on the sister as she was cleaning the shrine. 

"Perhaps," she replied, as they queried whether she could help. "How long has he been dead?"

"A day." ventured Gronn.

"And does he venerate Tymora?", asked Sister Garaele.

"Oh yea, verily. Can't stop taking about her." replied Gronn.

"Leave" and come back in an hour, said Garaele. Which they duly did. Upon their return, they found a sleeping Gundren and a drained sister. Gronn was delighted! When the sister queried them about the task they had agreed to undertake for her, she was disappointed to hear they hadn't even started. Gronn promised to help as soon as possible, as Ash asked what it was all about.

"Oh, that spellbook sounds interesting. Could I have it?" he asked, politely.

"The Harpers would not want such an artifact in the hands of an unknown", replied the Sister, much to Ash's disgust. He had a little sulk but soon recovered.

And with that, the party took a break. What next? There were still orcs, undead, a banshee, the missing halfling child, the creature in the crevasse and Wave Echo Cave to think about. Whatver would they do next?