Session 1: Report
General Summary
The party gathers for libations and scheming at the liveliest inn and adventurer haunt in all of Sunndi. There they meet the battlescarred but kindly Blount Hardrock (proprietor) and his partner Cord the gray orc from Montesser in Old Medegia. With Nelly and Kelly the halfling staff underfoot, the party is offered a job to escort a wagon of goods for his cousin, Gundren Rockseeker, to the town of Karrigan on the frontier with Ahlissa and in the foothills of the Glorioles just beyond the eaves of the Rieuwood. Gundren and locally famous warrior Sildar Hallwinter have left on ahead to attend to business in Karrigan and the party is to escort the goods to Barthen’s Provisions in exchange for 10 gp each. It seems that Karrigan has experienced quite a boom as new mines are being opened on the western face of the Glorioles range and the three Rockseeker brothers have opened a new claim there themselves. But, there have been problems with goblin bandits along the way.
The fine-clothes proprietor Song Cull interjects that she too needs protection to run clothing goods to Karrigan and (much to Blount’s displeasure) buys her way into the expedition. The party generally enjoys the remainder of Freeday before Brewfest and sets off the next morning for Karrigan with a two-horse wagon and Song and her assistant on their smaller one-horse wagon.
Under the pelting rain of a late summer storm, the party is ambushed by goblins at the Rieuwood eastern crossroads on the Triboar Trail about halfway to Karrigan. After a warning from an alert Zizz, the party quickly defeats the bandits and captures one “Dar” for questioning. It becomes clear that Gundren and Sildar were ambushed previously and a force of up to a dozen Cragmaw tribe goblins took them away to the “eating cave” in the Cragmaw hideout about 4 miles deeper into the forest. They were instructed specifically by their leader, the hobgoblin Klarg, to look for Gundren and capture him alive. The order to Klarg came from King Grol (chief of the Cragmaw tribe) by a messenger who told Klarg that someone named the Black Spider was paying them to capture Grunden and bring his personal effects back. Cragmaw Castle is 15 miles further in the forest beyond the cave hideout and is where Grunden might be taken if he’s not at the hideout or eaten. Dar helps the party avoid traps along the forest trail (which Edge noticed anyway) and brings them to the verge of the cave hideout before fleeing from fear from the Lizardfolk, who had been munching on the remains of some of the recently deceased goblin ambushers. Song protested the diversion but is following the party with her attachè from a distance to not be set upon by goblins on the remainder of the road. What will the party find at the entrance to the Cragmaw hideout?
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