Entering Cragmaw Castle

Following the stranger encounter from the wolves last session the look around shocked as the pack of wolves run away without causing significant damage to the party. Everyone decide to take a short rest before they move onto Cragmaw Castle. Its then Victor notices a strange item on the floor, a red playing card. As soon as he touches it his body glows and his soul is taken to the god Tymora the goddess of Good favor and known by others as the goddess of trickery. The goddess has watched Victor for sometimes and has seen how his own deity has squandered his talents. He gives the option to become a servant for her. As Victor has felt frustrated with his god over the recent months he decides to take a chance and agrees to pledge his service to Tymora. With that he is reborn his body melts as his armour crashes to the floor a new form is created around Victors soul. When the goddess releases him he lands on the ground in a new body almost designed for combat.

Astrid who has been lost for the last week on the back of her giant owl manages to find the party thanks to a moonbeam Desmond cast the previous session. She lands with her owl and it shrinks back down to it’s normal size and flies away. After some banter and some really bad taste jokes the drums that the party heard last session start again to the east of them. Astrid informs the party that she did see smoke from the east but didn’t know where it came from. Saying this the party look to the east and smoke coming up to the east. The party stealth towards the disturbance, they find a group of Goblins, Orcs and Ogres attacking the small Gnomish village of Mushroom Holm. As the beasts attack the village the party take advantage and attack the monsters from behind. The combo of Desmond and Astrid entangling the orcs and a ‘Hail of Thorns’ to destroy the orcs. The rest of the party attack the enemies while the gnomes put up a good fight against the monsters. It was then a small ancent looking gnome walks around the defending gnomes and unleashes a massive ‘Chain Lighting’ attack towards the attacking beasts, vaporizing the majority of the attackers.

The surviving goblins escape into the forest as the party looks shockingly towards the small gnome who just destroyed six massive monsters with one spell. There is a tense few moments while the party decide if it safe to approach the village but the old sorcerer bacons them to join him as he thanks them for their timely assistance. He invites them to stay the night and then he tells them that he will provide transport for them to reach Cragmaw Castle. In the morning the old gnome now known as Broz creates a teleport spell that transports the party directly to the front entrance of the ram shackled ruins of Cragmaw Castle.

The party attempt to sneak into the castle but make a little too much noise and as they try to enter the remains of the building Kal and Pfenix are attacked and find arrow shafts sticking from their chest. The party run into the castle to avoid arrows from the murder holes on the outside of the building. Once inside Desmond performs a check for traps, It was a good check but he misses a trap and as Victor walks towards one of the doors his new face makes friends with a lump of ceiling. The party checks the doors and discovber that there are goblinoid creatures all around them. They decide to split up three taking the doors to the north and the other three checking the doors to the south. The southern team of Kal, Astrid and Pfenix kick in the door that seemed to be where some of the arrows from the murder holes. They kick in the door as the Goblin inside attacks. This goblin is killed quickly but it makes a lot of noise and brings three other goblins from the room to the south to attack. Astrid, Kal and Pfenix kill two with ease, but ‘Keith’ the goblin, Cousin of ‘Bryan’ alludes and avoids the attacks for a good while as the team takes it’s time to kill the goblin.

The team to the north use Azrials item to scout out the area. Azrial finds that there are some larger goblins to the North West and what seems to be an alter with a priest goblin to the north east. As the party enters the store room the goblins to the west attack but these are not the standard goblins, these are much larger and stronger hobgoblins. As they attack they seem to take the damage and gleefully take the pain. The party try their best to vanquish these foes but they avoid almost every attack. Victor in his new body then draws talon and dives into the fray as he decapitates the first hobgoblin, Then the second and with his third attack he bisects the third in a frenzy of swinging blades.

The second goblin who was behind the second murder hole then rushes out of the room. It sees all the corpses of the other goblins and breaks into a run. Just as he leaves the castles through the main door Desmond ignites it as it burns to death on the door step. The party search the store room and find Sildars equipment that was taken from him when he was first captured.

As the party gathers in the northern room they prepare to enter the next room, and that’s where I ended it for the night.

It was a very good session, Lots of action. :)