The party decides to follow Gundren’s map to Wave Echo Cave. On entering a large cavern they immediately notice two things; firstly, that they can hear the rhythmic thunder of pounding waves despite being nowhere near the sea, and secondly that there is an encampment here. Amongst the three bedrolls and pile of supplies lies the body of a dwarf; with a heavy heart Hadron recognises it as that of his cousin, Tharden. But maybe Nundro is still alive somewhere.

The northeastern section of the cavern has collapsed, forming a ten-foot-wide, twenty-foot-deep pit which Shade explores, using a rope that has been tied nearby. A rough-hewn tunnel heads northwest and east but Shade can hear animal sounds to the east so the group decide to take the other route.

This leads to a maze of low, partially-worked mine tunnels. Heading mostly north they come to a medium cavern with a dark, still pool, with a fishy smell and a shore of broken shells. A pebble with a light spell on is thrown in but the pool looks less interesting than the stairs heading up to the east so that’s the way they go.

Across a corridor heading north is a door. Shade listens at this and hears grunting and breathing coming from the other side, so once everyone is prepared Fallan throws the door open. Behind it is some sort of barracks-room, on the opposite side of which is another door that has been barricaded, but you don’t have time to investigate this as the occupants of the barracks – five bugbears – would like to talk to you about where the fuck you think you’re going.

The fight is joined as Enderman bathes the bugbears in a fan of flames, but in retaliation one hits Balrag with a very heavy blow. Fallan kicks the brazier onto one then strikes another with his axe, who tries to flee towards the barricade but is brought down by an awesome strike from Hadron’s Guiding Bolt. Fallan’s axe takes down a couple more before Hadron finishes off the last one with his magic axe, Hew.

Finding little of value in the room apart from a few coins and a potion of Vitality the group decide to take down the barricade and proceed through that door. Ignoring some stairs down to the south, they enter a large chamber that must have been an important part of Wave Echo Cave’s original operations; it is dominated by a blast furnace and mechanical bellows once powered by a waterwheel, which sits in a now-dry 10-foot wide channel cut into the floor. The furnace is cold and dark, but heaps of coal are piled nearby, along with carts full of unrefined ore.

More than a dozen withered dwarf and orc corpses are scattered around the room, still wearing the remnants of their armour. Floating above them is a skull engulfed in green flame. Not liking it one bit, Enderman hits it with a magic missile.

The thing retaliates by firing multiple rays of flame. The group withdraws to the corridor but this proves disastrous as the skull sends a fireball their way, catching them all in a tight space and causing much damage, enough to knock Hadron unconscious. In a rage Fallan rushes into the chamber to engage the thing in melee, while the others hang back and attempt to treat their wounds without a cleric. However things go from bad to worse: not only is Fallan unable to hit the skull because it flies out of his reach, but several of the dwarven corpses stand up and move to attack him while the skull hits him with a magic missile.

Unable to strike the skull Fallan leaps across the trench to fight a zombie, but discovers that at such a distance from the light source he is unable to see. As he tries to leap back again he stumbles and falls into the channel, but is still able to hit one of the undead.

In the meantime Hadron has been restored to consciousness with healing potions and once he has his surroundings he brings out his holy symbol and calls upon the power of Marthammor Duin, forcing all but two of the zombies to flee. The flameskull has taken several hits by this time and also retreats, with Fallan striking it a blow as it goes.

The flameskull and the bulk of the zombies flee north along the trench and Fallan in his rage runs after them, his exhausted, injured and somewhat exasperated companions following not far behind. The channel opens onto the east side of another cavern, this one split by a wide rift. A stream pours out of the west wall then tumbles down into the rift before flowing out again to the north; several ropes are secured to iron stakes along the western edge, leading down to the chasm floor.

The cavern is not empty. The fleeing zombies have fallen into the chasm, destroying one, but the remaining three are trying to climb the opposite cliff. In addition, two bugbears are on the chasm floor with another at the top on the far side accompanied by a drow; the flameskull is also on the far side of the rift.

The bugbears throw javelins and try to follow the drow in retreat, the two in the chasm scrambling up the ropes to do so, but one of them is caught and killed before he can get away. Fallan manages to climb one of the ropes and physically grapples the flameskull, but the two remaining bugbears return and force him to let it go in order to defend himself against them. However as the skull flies out over the chasm Fallan dives on it and brngs it crashing down onto a zombie, finally crushing it and extinguishing its green flame.

Though spectacular, unfortunately this manoeuvre leaves Balrag alone on the western side facing two bugbears and the drow. They take him down and he begins to bleed out. Leaving Enderman on the east side, everyone else tries to get to Balrag in time to save him. When Shade kills the last bugbear the drow flees and Fallan heads off in pursuit, but then Enderman is attacked by an ochre jelly which had crept up on him unseen. He tries to climb down the cliff but is still attacked, forcing him to levitate out of its range to stay safe.

Giving up on the drow Fallan comes back and hurls his axe at the jelly, but this only splits it in two. However Enderman and Shade are able to finish off these, avoiding the use of slashing weapons.

Sadly, poor Balrag is no more. Broken in morale and body, the group retreats to the bellows room but their troubles are not over: the two zombies who fled east have returned. One of these is dispatched quickly but the other just will not go down, until eventually a combined strategy from Enderman and Hadron destroys it.

The survivors retreat to camp to lick their wounds.

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 …