Evening all, sorry about the wait, it’s been a busy one here.

The last you heard from me we’d found Gundren and were heading to the Wave Echo Caves. On the way Gundren filled me in a little more on what’s been happening; the sly git had been playing his cards close to his vest when we met in Neverwinter.
Cousins Nundro, Tharden and Gundren had all heard the rumours of the Wave Echo Caves and had decided to re-open the mines together – Nundro and Tharden were already up there and Gundren was set to join them with supplies before everything went rusty. Gundren insists the only reason I wasn’t invited was that I already had a job at the time and they didn’t expect much hassle. The bastards made a very grave mistake.

Gundren went back to Phandelver to lick his wounds (plus I think he realised he wasn’t in my good graces) but he did give us some warnings about the mines; rumours of more undead and something worse lurking in the dark. Normally I’d have laughed these off as the nightmares of some surface-dwelling newhairs but our encounters so far have left me a little less sceptical about what might be skulking in the shadows.
Meanwhile the rest of our motley crew approached the caves.

We entered via the relief entrance marked on my cousins’ map and the air tasted rank. This was a sick mine indeed, there was a stench of old death and signs of ancient battles. I’m gutted to report that not all of the death was old though – we found Tharden’s body slumped against a scorched rock, just left as he fell. I gave him his Rites and interred him with the gold for his passage (after relieving him of his fancy boots, it’s his fault I’m here after all).

We did see some traces of a fight, so Tharden may have gone down swinging. Or it could have been Nundo, it was hard to tell with all the scuff marks. Either way, it looks like Nundo was dragged off by some beasties, I’d guess bugbears by the footprints. We followed their sign northwards a-ways until Star spotted an Ochre Jelly. I’ve come across these before back in the family mines, they’re nought but a pest if you catch ’em early enough but this blighter was a big unit. We steered clear and Bree kept her eye out for more which meant she completely missed the dead-man’s gate some cautious bugger had installed.
Proper dwarfish engineering meant the damn thing worked like a charm, even after a few centuries of neglect, and it split our group in twain. While we were trying to reset the gate another Jelly managed to corner Lycinda – I couldn’t see exactly what happened but by all accounts Lycinda did not appreciate the welcome and made her displeasure known. Once the others got involved I think even that opportunistic glob-shite was seriously questioning its life-choices. Seriously but briefly.

If Ochre Jellys were our only problem down here I’d be a happy dwarf. As we worked our way deeper into the mines we started coming across old skeletons; Dwarfs, humans and orcs. All of the blighters had gnaw marks on their bones, and I’m pretty sure rats don’t have teeth that big. This wee mystery was cleared up soon enough when some freakish ghouls tracked us down. Nasty creatures, they are, and tough as old leather. We all took a bit of a hiding before we finally cut down the last of those disgusting fiends.

I want to take a moment to say I’ve not been a mercenary all my life; I started working my family’s mine when I was a wee bairn and I’ve listened to the stories told by the greybeards of some of the wonders they’ve seen in other mines. Never thought I’d get to see some of them until today, when I see two!
The first was a Flameskull, which was just as terrifying to see in the flesh (as it were) as it was to hear about when I was yay high to a stirge on my màthair’s knee. Luckily for us, this one was created by allies and trading partners of the old miners way back when. Unluckily, some of the those miners weren’t proper dead yet, brought back by some devilment and hell-bent on ripping apart the likes of us. Now being a dwarf from hardy stock I did not immediately fill my britches and instead managed to convince the old guardian that a) I was (distant) kin of the dwarfs in this mine and b) that the shambling remains of the dwarfs currently lurching towards us were no longer the dwarfs it remembers and were therefore no longer kin themselves. Seemed to do the trick as the zombies were immediately levelled and we didn’t get sucked into an arcane void. I didn’t let on to the others but I wasn’t sure that would work.

The other surprise was a Spectator which was guarding the Forge of Spells. Not quite what I expected, it’s very chatty for a creature with no mouth and seems to have taken quite a shine to young Bree. As much as it creeps her out it did offer us some nice new gear in exchange for a promise to help in the mine, plus a chance to get some shut-eye before we carry on our search for Cousin Nundro and the Black Spider.