Trip to Cragmaw Castle

The Journey
Our Party, having chased off Venomfang and destroyed the ash zombies, twigblights, and spiders of Thundertree, finally learned of the location of Cragmaw Castle where Gundren Rockseeker had reportedly been kid(dwarf)napped to. Without delay, the group headed south along Neverwinter Wood towards the castle.

3 Oblivious Orcs
Along the way south on the first day of travel, Anwyn spotted 3 orcs looking into the forest. Anywyn, Kallista, and Celandine all decided to sneak up on them so that Kallista could detect their thoughts. She was able to determine that there was some sort of animal that ran into the forest and that the orcs were very hungery, and trying to determine which way they went. Celandine motioned to Eldith and Tobias that they were about to attack, and the group surprised the orcs with painful spells and stab wounds. When the orcs were either lying dead on the ground or turned into a fine mist via an Elk-ram, the group looted the bodies, finding some gold and a letter written in scratchy orc-ish.

Through the Forest
After a good night's sleep at the southern tip of Neverwinter Wood, the party headed into the forest to make their way to Cragmaw Castle. With Eldith leading the way and navigating through the woods, Kallista stumbled across a goblin scout named Marcus. She attempted to deceive the goblin, saying that they were actually headed towards Thundertree, but he saw through her lies. Thankfully, Celandine was able to intimidate him into staying with the group instead of running off. Marcus met Deekin, and while they chatted, Deekin tripped and skinned his knee, but Anwyn was there to help.

All of a sudden, for one reason or another, the party was set upon by a pack of baboons that had been trailing the party since they entered the Wood. With some acrobatics to climb the trees, Tobias was able to chase off the pack with some help from Eldith and her friendly pack of wolves.

During this attack, Kallista, still trying to befriend the goblin Marcus, attempted to perform a sort of play to convince him that they were, in fact, the good guys, while Celandine tried to persuade him to stay. These actions put Marcus off, so he grabbed Deekin and put a knife to his throat while backing away towards a clearing up ahead of them. Anwyn, trying to save the life of her friend, attempted to help Marcus see the light and renounce his evil ways, but the Goblin deity Maglubiyet had already taken hold of the creature. Thankfully, Tobias returned from the trees and saw this scene unfolding, and decided to bury a handaxe in the face of Marcus, ending the stressful encounter.

The clearing up ahead turned out to be Cragmaw Castle itself. The party had finally made it!