Found and Lost

The party continues exploring Cragmaw Castle, suffers several kinds of defeat and returns to Phandalin.

Synopsis
Brottor and Caldarion in the bugbears room with a tied up drow Vyerith and an unconscious Bugbear. Nate and Akemena went ahead to scout out the castle. Nate stumbles onto a heavy barred door and opens it, finding a sleeping owlbear within. Quickly closing the door again, him and Akemena go back to ask the bugbear about this owlbear. The bugbear just replies that he likes having the owlbear around but doesn't really do anything with it except using it to intimidate people. Akemena doesn't really believe this but also doesn't get any other answers out of him. So they continue exploring the appaerently deserted castle. Shortly afterwards Brottor and Caldarion join the search, leaving Droop to guard the prisoners. Gundren decides to stay with Droop too, not knowing if there are more fights ahead. They go through a door Akemena previously avoided because she felt that there was something lurking inside there and got attacked by a Grick. Hearing the noise of the fight, Akemena rushes to their aid only to trigger a tripwire and be buried beneath falling rocks and rubble. Brottor and Caldarion eventually manage to kill the thing and immediately proceed to hack it into pieces. They then notice that they are in some kind of chapel and proceed to the room that contains the altar, whereupon they find a small lapis lazuli statuette of a fish. In the next room, they also find the bloody and discarded armor and weapon of Sildar Hallwinter.

After finishing the tour of the castle and finding nobody left inside, they return to Droop, Gundren, and the prisoners, only to find Droop, Gundren, and the bugbear dead and the drow gone. Caldarion falls into a rage, accusing everyone of not tying the Drow up well enough and proceeds to carry Gundren outside and bury him. The other three decide to try to track her through the woods but unfortunately eventually lose her. So they head back and also proceed to bury Droop, and have a small funeral for the two of them. Then they decide to head to Neverwinter in order to meet up with Leona.

Heading towards Thundertree, as soon as they leave the forest, they start hearing the whoshing of wings coming towards them. Flying low over the tree is Venomfang. They try to hide among the trees, but the poisonous gas coming from his mouth flows around them and knocks eveyone unconscious.

Waking up a few moments later, they see Leona sitting next to them. She tells them that they were almost to Neverwinter, when they saw the dragon coming back and circling over the woods. They did not make it in time to warn the party about it, but did manage to save them from slipping away into death. After a short rest and some healing from Reidoth, who had been fetched by Nesim, everyone makes their way to Thundertree to get cleaned up. Leona then tells them, since she did not yet get any time to research Castle Naerytar, it will take her at least another tenday. As she has the feeling that the characters still have some unfinished business, they agree to meet up in Phandalin as soon as everybody is ready. With that, the party decides to head back to Phandalin in order to inform Sildar about everything and bring back his equipment.

Sildar is sad hearing about Gundren's death, but also takes it in stride, as he is used to losses due to unfortunate circumstances as a soldier. So they decide to go to the inn and drink for their fallen friend. Nate sits to the side and starts composing a song about how a bard named Nephadius and a ranger almost killed a dragon. Akemena picks up on the name change and confronts Nate about it, but he claims it is just because he thinks Nephadius is a better name to get famous than Nate is. Eventually, they all turn in; Brottor and Caldarion very drunk and mostly just on the lawn behind the inn.

The next day, they decide to head to Old Owl Well first in order to acquire one of the statuettes before heading to Wave Echo Cave. So they head out, but are ambushed on the road by Glasstaff and his remaining Redbrands. In the ensuing battle, Akemena goes down several times, as well as Nate and Caldarion, but they eventually manage to kill all the Redbrands and hit Glasstaff unconscious.

Adventuring Party

 * Nate Westerland
 * Akemena
 * Brottor
 * Caldarion

Returning Characters

 * Droop
 * Gundren Rockseeker
 * Vyerith
 * Leona Erlathar
 * Nesim Waldara
 * Reidoth
 * Sildar Hallwinter

New Characters

 * Glasstaff

Quests

 * Finding Cragmaw Castle