Lost Mines Of Phandelver : 13 – Storming The Castle

Our heroes:

Euphemia “Mia” Tosscobble, the Halfling Rogue,

Count Erspell, the Elvish Mage,

Kui-Kui, the Human Noble Fighter,

Viggo, the Human Druid,

Dave, the Human Folk Hero Fighter,

& Eorlund Granitefella, the Dwarvish Cleric

After a restless night, the party awake in the morning, gather their belongings, and jumped into the wagon Viggo acquired. Taking the reigns, Viggo drove the wagon out of town and towards the hills, hoping they could quickly find the castle.

Within a few hours the castle came into view, the walls crumbled and the ceiling full of holes, yet still looming above at the top of the hill.

Viggo stopped the wagon a distance away and suggested they continue of foot as to attract the least amount of attention.

The party slowly made their way to the front door of the castle, seeing them to be closed. Erspell took Hotdog’s sight and sent the owl to fly around the building to hopefully get an idea of what was inside. He saw numerous goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears and even an owlbear.

Viggo, pre-empting the obvious fights they were going to get into, uses his wildshape power to turn into a giant red panda.

Mia spots an open doorway, thinking that is the best way to enter the castle. The party agrees, but then turn to Viggo, who is now far to big to enter through the door. Testing the sturdiness of the walls, Viggo climbed up to the roof to try and find a way in, while the rest of the party entered through the door.

The party enter a hallway with several doors to the sides and a curtain covering the far end of the passage. The group try to discuss what to do, but are interrupted by a goblin who came to investigate the noises. The goblin pulls a sword on Mia, as the Halfling was closest to the door. Mia quickly tries to spin a tale that the group is there to deliver a new war dog to the chief. As convincing as Mia tried to be, the goblin couldn’t understand a word she was saying. The goblin called back into the room telling his comrades to take up arms and attack. The ceiling starts to shake as Viggo suddenly breaks through, lands in the room in the middle of the goblins and bites the head off of one. A couple of the goblins are visibly shaken and terrified by what is happening and try to get away from the giant panda.

Erspell stays out of the room, but summons Hotdog to him. The wizard bestows dragons breath onto the owl choosing fire as the element. He releases the owl into the room, who starts to fly around blasting plumes of fire at the goblins, burning most of them.

Mia decided to test the battle capabilities of her dog and commanded it to attack one of the larger goblins, but in all the excitement and commotion, the poor dog accidentally bite Eorlund instead.

Hearing the sounds of fighting, more goblins storm the room joining the fight. Seeing the huge bear thing in the room, they quickly draw their bows and open fire. Viggo realising he is a bit to large of a target, climbs the walls again and escapes into the roof. As the goblins continue to take pot shots at Viggo, they don’t notice that Hotdog was swooping towards them and are incinerated in a flash.

With all the goblins dead, Dave found himself in the entrance hallway, to the east of the room, he saw a large set of doors. He walked up towards them, but his foot caught on a string. The was a more rumbling from the ceiling as it came crashing down onto him, luckily Dave was able to dive out of the way of the falling debris before it could cause some serious damage.

Viggo, while wandering the roof, stepped on a rotten beam and fell through the ceiling. Falling into a room with a couple of Hobgoblins. Hearing the crash in the next room, Mia quickly dashed in finding the two hobgoblins pointing their spears at Viggo. Without really thinking, Mia tried her “Hi, we’re here to deliver a panda” lie again… and the guards bought it! Telling the group that the boss was just down the hall to the right. Thanking the guards, Mia lead the group and into the back of the castle, where King Grol and a drow where having a discussion.

The bugbear Grol, not impressed with his meeting being interrupted, demanded to know who the group were and what business did they have there. Mia feeling lucky tried once again to claim that they were only there to deliver a panda and a war dog to him.

Not recalling that he had ordered any such things, Grol grew suspicious of the group, asking why he would need a war dog as he had a perfectly good wolf already, pointing over to the corner of the room, where indeed there was a sizable wolf. But next to the wolf was what really grabbed the party’s attention… Gundren! The dwarf was unconscious on the floor next the wolf.

Realising what needed to be done, Mia started talking about the dog, walking it around closer to the bugbear and drow, before giving Byron a command to attack

Gundren has been found, but can the party defeat the King of Bugbears and this mysterious drow?

The Adventure Continues…