Threftor suggests a plan for tackling the dragon to the cultists’ leader Favric, to which he immediately agrees without a moment’s thought. Indeed he seems rather too keen, which raises suspicions, so Enderman charms him with magic. Now that he has a new best friend, Favric gleefully tells the wizard that the cultists are going to offer the party to the dragon (whose name is Venomfang) as a tribute. Enderman pretends to go along with this and everyone approaches the tower.
Joe volunteers for the rather hazardous job of opening the negotiations and announces that there’s a lovely mostly empty castle not too far away that would make a much more prestigious new lair. As a sweetener, they will throw in half a dozen cultists as slaves! Despite the radical change in plan the cultists are actually in favour of this new suggestion and after a little convincing Venomfang agrees to it too. The dragon commands his new slaves to pack up his loot and they all depart Thundertree without a drop of blood being shed.
The party gives the now-abandoned old tower a thorough search in the hope that the dragon has left some of his hoard behind and although they find no treasure they do uncover a rusty old battleaxe that emanates magic. Dwarvish runes on the blade read ‘Hew’.
After some debate the group decides their next course of action is to complete the mission for Sister Garaele, who asked them to persuade a banshee named Agatha to answer a question about a spellbook. Agatha’s location is the other side of Neverwinter Wood so under the guidance of Shade they set off across the forest.
The banshee’s lair is a dome-like shelter woven from the warped branches of trees with a low doorway leading inside. Threftor volunteers this time and creeps in with trepidation. Inside it is sparsely furnished with ancient furniture of elvish design, but before he has much chance to admire this the air grows cold and a powerful feeling of dread grips him. A cold, pale light flickers in the air and takes on the form of a female elf, her hair and robes waving in a spectral wind and her beautiful face twisted into a hateful expression. “Foolish mortal” she hisses. “What do you want here? Do you not know it is death to seek me out?”
Threftor keeps his nerve and asks Agatha what she knows about the location of a spellbook belonging to the legendary mage Bowgentle; in return he offers the jewelled silver comb that Garaele had provided. To his great relief she smiles coldly and replies that she traded the book to a necromancer named Tsernoth from the city or Iriaebor more than a hundred years ago; she doesn’t know what became of it afterwards. Armed with the answer he needs the halfling doesn’t hang around to find what the banshee plans to do next.
The retired adventurer Daran Edermath had asked the party to look into strange goings-on at a place called Old Owl Well; apparently someone is digging around in the ruins and some prospectors have reported being chased from the area by undead. The Well is an old watchtower from the ancient magical empire of Netheril and Daran worries that dangerous magic may be dormant there. As it isn’t far away they decide to head there next, but on the way out of the forest they are attacked by a swarm of stirges. This is a difficult fight and Threftor is rendered unconscious, but the beasts are defeated and after some resting everyone is brought back to health.
They head to the ruins the next day and perched in the rugged hills they spy a crumbling watchtower, so old that the walls are only mounds of rubble enclosing a courtyard of sorts. Next to the stump of the old tower is a colourful tent, but no-one is in sight. However as Threftor makes a stealthy approach, the others see several zombies emerge from the tower. To warn the halfling, Joe shoots one of them; this gets his attention and Threftor runs back. A stout, red-robed man with sallow skin bursts out of the tent and demands to know what’s going on: his answer is another arrow from Joe.
The zombies – evidently commanded by someone – and the mage take cover behind the rubble while the party move closer, also keeping to cover. Joe sneaks around one side but Hadron evidently gets too close, as two zombies emerge to attack him. He is cut off and more zombies converge on him but he calls on the power of his Life domain and his god, Marthammor Duin, to drive them back. Meanwhile Joe has got into a position where he can see the mage hiding and puts an arrow in him; the red-robed man returns fire with magical bolts and Joe is badly wounded.
Beset by three zombies, a desperate Joe leads his pursuers on a long, curving route while the rest of the party dispatches the other zombies and the mage. He is able to keep them at bay until his friends can reach him and finally all the enemies are destroyed.
The mage’s comfortably-appointed tent has a chest with some money, a potion, a scroll and a magical ring but – to Enderman’s disappointment – no spellbook.
The final item on the agenda is the reward offered by townmaster Harbin for taking care of the band of orcs that has been bothering travellers on the Triboar Trail near Wyvern Tor, a prominent landmark not too far to the south. After another rest to recover from their injuries the group sets out to hunt down these orcs.
It takes a long time and much scouring of the bleak terrain before any trace of them is seen, but eventually Shade detects the faint smell of smoke on the wind. Ascending a rugged ridge on the lower slopes of the tor, they spy a cave mouth fifty yards away down a ravine. Hunkered down by a boulder twenty yards from the entrance a single orc is keeping watch.
With the use of magic and cunning this sentry is silently taken out without disturbing the denizens of the cave. A fiendish trap is then devised involving a zone of silence around the cave entrance, archers poised in cover up the ravine, attackers hidden above the cave entrance, and a puddle of lamp oil ready to be lit across the cave mouth.
This preparation turns out to be very prudent because when the orcs emerge it turns out that there are seven of them and they are accompanied by an ogre. The blazing oil burns the first orcs to come out and forces the others to hold back and use their javelins. When these are spent, they rush out with their greataxes and the ogre with his greatclub, but the fire and the excellent positioning of their opponents means that they are not able to do significant damage before they are all defeated.
Recovering the orcs’ moderate loot (including, oddly, three vials of perfume), the heroes return to Phandalin to collect their rewards and recuperate …