On the 6th of Claw of Sunsets, Serawynn made her way towards the Rockseeker mines, having received word

from Bryna and

Pyralis that they required the cleric’s help in clearing undead from the old Phandalin mine. At the request of the others, Serawynn
had brought some holy water she had purchased in Phandalin to help with this.
She entered the highly fortified entrance to the mine, and was met inside by Bryna and Pyralis, and the mastiff Dagon, as well as
two people who were strangers to her. The first was the fancily dressed man known as Prince, who introduced himself to her as a
member of the artificer’s guild. The second was an unusually nimble tortle wearing a blue bandanna and brandishing
shortswords, named Leonardo. Dagon seemed unusually interested in licking Leonardo’s feet, despite being called to heel by
Bryna, who was doing a poor job of trying to control him.

Before the party re-entered the newly opened section of the mine, they took a moment to prepare. Leonardo unilaterally made the
decision that they should leave Dagon the dog behind, despite the mastiff currently being in Bryna’s charge. Serawynn then cast a
twilight sanctuary on the group to grant them strength and fortification. However, a moment later, she screamed out in mental
anguish, as the Geas she was under was triggered. Serawynn was incredibly confused and alarmed at this, as with Haldir no
longer in the group, she had not anticipated any type of penalty for casting her spell. With none of the rest of the group offering
any information on why the Geas may have triggered, Serawynn resolved to no longer trust or heal any of her adventuring
companions. At this, the skittish Leonardo headed off into the mine, choosing to explore a whole 40 feet ahead of the rest of the
group.
As Leonardo reached the large pit that made up the first cavern, he noticed a mysterious undead-looking figure waiting at the
entrance to the east. It in turn noticed Leonardo, and turned away, leaving down the corridor. Knowing that undead would be in
the area, Prince magically made the group smell like the dead as well, hoping that this would be enough to help them pass
through safely.

The party climbed down the pit and back up again, suffering from only a few minor falls. They continued from the north entrance
to a shut door that they had not yet explored past. Leonardo, reaching this before the others, opened the door with a loud creaking
and entered the room. Inside he could see a large, corroded iron brazier, and, picking up the nearest object, he found it to be the
femur of some sort of creature, riddled with teeth marks. Leonardo then ran from the room, tripping over some sort of body as he
did so, and screaming in fright as a rat ran across his face.
Leonardo made his way back to the rest of the group, and now having light and companions, went to explore the room again.
They found that the room was a very old barracks, filled with old dwarf bones, and bodies of orcs that looked to be about five
years dead. All had been eaten significantly.

The group moved on to another room across the corridor, and found a storeroom filled with old provisions and forgotten cakes.
One part of the room was collapsed, and there was a larger store cupboard to the north, however it contained nothing useable. As
the party searched the room, they heard noises of scuffling coming from the corridors behind and around them.

Leaving the store and finding the corridors empty, the group continued onwards towards the area where they had previously
fought a number of ghouls, entering this time from the lower level. As they approached the large room, they noticed that the
bodies of the ghouls they had previously slain were notably missing. Hearing noises in the corridor behind them, the party
entered the room in order to have an open space to fight, and as they did so, a number of ghouls and zombies emerged from the
shadows on the upper levels at both sides of the room, and more approached down the corridor from which the adventurers had
come.
As the party were surrounded, a dark ghostly figure in black decaying robes floated through the wall towards them. The figure
moaned and spoke in a raspy voice, telling the group “You have slain my servants, your presence here is offensive and your lives
are forfeit. Prepare to die.” Serawynn could feel the strong evil presence of the undead. It seemed that the figure wanted to
continue his speech, however before he could say more, Leonardo loosed an arrow from his longbow towards the spectral being.
At this, the surrounding ghouls and zombies moved forward in attack, with a feral, lolloping gait, and battle commenced. The
party were rushed from all directions and quickly became trapped by the unusually clever undead, until Serawynn’s ability to turn
undead also turned the tide of the battle. Many of the ghouls and zombies fled, with the remaining being quickly slain, and the
spectral figure disappeared into the wall from which he had come. The group found nothing useful on the undead bodies, and so
burnt them to ensure that they would not be re-animated.

The party continued to head north, towards the forge where Prince’s familiar had previously been destroyed by a fiery skull.
There were two entrances to the large forge room, one five foot wide and the other ten foot, so the group picked the wider one
and ventured down it, with Prince creating an illusion of magical darkness to obstruct them from view. In the forge room, the
adventurers could see two flaming skulls, floating about twenty feet in the air. Sneaking forward, the party launched a surprise
assault on the skulls, spreading out in order to avoid making themselves a joint target for the skulls’ large fiery projectiles.
As the first of the skulls was defeated, it fell from the air and began to speak in a robotic voice, saying “Intruder alert, Guardian
has been destroyed, begin regeneration”. When moving to pour some holy water on the skull, Bryna noticed that instead of the
undead bone she had been expecting, the head consisted of a mess of wires and cogs, that were slowly moving and clunking their
way back into place. Pyralis, taking some time to examine the skull mid-fight, was able to tell that it was a magical construct

Session 20
made to represent a burning skull, and that it was slowly rebuilding itself through its powerful magical abilities. She suspected
that it was programmed to obey the owners of the forge, and that only a dispel magic or remove curse spell might stop its
regeneration.
When the groups barrage of attacks finally took down the second skull, it once again began blaring in a robotic voice, this time;
“Alert, forge undefended, beware undead!” Only now noticing the bodies of two burned zombies in the room, the party realised
that they had, perhaps, been remiss in attacking the robot guardians. Just as they came to this realisation, the spectral undead from
before floated through the wall, and powerfully dispelled the magic on the skull that had just dropped to the floor. As if by
instinct, Pyralis picked up the other skull. The spectral figure approached her, introducing himself as Mormensque, and
demanding the skull from her, which Pyralis refused.
The group commenced battle with Mormensque, and with the undead that had fled previously, that were now approaching the
forge down the corridors. With some powerful magical missiles from Prince and a huge ball of fire conjured by Pyralis, the
undead forces were finally destroyed. However, the skull still in Pyralis’ hands was regenerating, and so she gave it to Prince
who tinkered with the construct until he ‘deactivated’ it, resulting in a fiery explosion.
The old forge room was home to a number of old rusted tools, but nothing much of use, and so the group took only the crystals
and inner workings from the un-exploded skull construct.

Bryna sensed a powerful magical source to the east of their location, and so the two owl familiars were sent out to scout ahead.
They found a big empty cave that used to be an excavated area, which had been mined out and turned into the main part of the
original mining complex.
The party headed into this large area, and as they entered, the ceiling lit up, full of reflective minerals in the roof that gave the
appearance of stars. This complex was clearly the heart of the place, and was full of the remnants of furniture, stone desks and
shelves, and dusty glass containers. And Bryna sensed that the powerful magical force was emanating from a room to the side.
Standing back at a distance, the group opened the door to the side room, which was weirdly intact, yet creaked loudly as it
opened. Inside, they were met with the sight of a large fleshy orb, sporting a singular large eye in the middle of its head, as well
as six more on long fleshy stalks. The party immediately shut the door again.
Talking through the door, the group questioned the beholder as to its purpose there. It told them that it was never given a name in
common and introduced itself by its name in its own language, which was a hideous, guttural sound. After some introductions,
the beholder opened the door again so as to better speak to the party, much to their dismay. The beholder explained that he had
been summoned by a group of wizards when the spellforge was originally created, to guard it, and was to let nobody past. He
could not return home to his own realm unless he were dismissed by a wizard in whose service he was working, or a
representative of them. The beholder provided a list of such wizards; any recognisable names were ancient, and the list included
Phandelver himself, and also the wizard Mormensque, who used to be a senior wizard involved in the operation of the mine, and
whose office lay just to the south. The beholder mentioned that the owner of the mine may also be able to dismiss it, and the
party discussed who he might recognise as the owner of the mine after all these years. The beholder explained that it had seen
nobody in the mine for the past five hundred years, aside from some bugbears a few years ago. However, its contract was to
guard the mine for 100,000 years, so it was still bound in service.

The group sent Prince’s owl familiar back to Gundren Rockseeker, with a note explaining their discovery of the Spellforge, as
well as the beholder, and asking if he would come into the mine and attempt to dismiss the creature.
In the meantime, they searched Mormesque’s office, which was a nice bunkroom-style living quarters. The party found no traps,
but did find a total of 310 gold pieces, three diamonds, and a wooden pipe adorned with platinum. They also found five books;
the first was titled “The Joy of Hex” and had been written by a warlock. The second was a wizard’s spellbook, which contained a
variety of spells. The third was written by Mormensque himself and was titled “Other Uses for Telekenisis”. The fourth was a
history book, “The Bare Totem of the Raging Barbarian”, and the fifth contained the incantations for the grease spell and was
called “Other Uses for Grease”. Some of the ‘uses’ in the final book were highly inappropriate.

Eventually, Prince’s owl returned, carrying with it three documents. One was a note from Gundren, stating that under no
circumstances would he be coming into the mine knowing that a beholder was present. However, the other two documents were
more helpful: the official deeds to the mine naming the Rockseeker brothers as owners, and a formal letter with the Rockseekers’
seal, naming the party as their representatives. Pyralis presented these documents to the beholder and explained that the
Rockseekers were the new owners of the mine and no longer required the beholder’s services. At that, the beholder delightedly
accepted, and disappeared, vanishing from this plane.
The group finally entered the room the beholder had been guarding and saw a contraption that looked like a large iron brazier
with knobs on, sitting over a stone plinth. There were four coloured sections that could form quadrants of the flame in yellow,
purple, green, and orange, however only the green section was active and working.

The party returned to the operational section of the mine, where Gundren and several other dwarves were excitedly waiting at the
entrance. They were, however, still not keen to go down themselves, and Gundren re-iterated that he would like the entire
complex to be cleared of any threats. He provided the group with a large tar-sealed barrel to use as an explosive to deal with the

Session 20
tentacled creature the adventurers had fought previously. Prince sent his steel defender to the bottom of the lake armed with this,
and after about twenty minutes of waiting, there was a large explosion out of which pieces of tentacles came flying.
Bryna then sent a familiar, this time a bat, to explore the remainder of the caverns. In one cave it sensed several large blobs, and
then with a puff it died. Gundren explained that poisonous fungi often grow where underground rivers come out of the rocks, and
that him and his people could burn these out later.
Prince’s familiar explored further and found a temple just north of the lake. This contained statues to the Dwarven God of
Mining, Dumathoin and the Elven God Corellon Larethian, as well as various human deities such as Tymora. The party went to
the temple themselves, and finding all the offering bowls empty, Leonardo offered some gold and a prayer to Tymora.
The group also checked the remaining caverns through which the great river and waterfall flowed, however found nothing there
except rocks and water.
They finally searched the two remaining unchecked doors on the furthest south corridor. One led to an office containing a set of
scales and a large thick iron chest with a strong lock that had clearly been bashed significantly. With Prince managing to open the
lock, they found a total of 510 gold pieces in various nominations, most likely the pay for the mine’s old workers. The other room
was a storeroom containing nothing much of use.

Having fulfilled their contract, the party returned to a delighted Gundren. He believed that the Spellforge would be reparable, and
so allowed the group to keep everything that they had found. When the Spellforge could be made to work again, he promised the
adventurers each a magical item; the spellforge was reputed for its ability to manufacture highly magical weapons and armour.
Whilst the dwarven runesmiths were very successful at the smithing and creation of items, even their most experienced were not
entirely sure how to get the spellforge running again. The party recommended the services of Uppandown the gnome, and
Gundren agreed that he would pay handsomely if Uppandown could help. The adventurers agreed to deliver the message to the
gnome that there was a top-secret contract available to him at the Phandalin mine, and that he would be paid 500 gold for a
consultation on this contract alone. Gundren also mentioned that he would likely be sending for a mage from Neverwinter to
investigate the Spellforge as well.
The party also discussed with Gundren the general issues in Phandalin and the surrounding areas. During their discussion, Bryna
mentioned the Despiter, and his emergence through a schism to the feywild. She also revealed to the group that she had had
visions of the completion of his plans- the Despiter had managed to bind a demon to his service using the magically powerful trap
she had seen in her dreams previously.

On the 7th and 8th of Claw of Sunsets, the party took advantage of the dwarves’ generosity, as they were willing to sell the
adventurers any smith-made items at half price. The group purchased a number of silver and cold iron weapons, or had their
existing weapons adjusted. Prince paid extra to have his sword made in a flashy purple colour. With their weapons procured and
their pockets full, the adventurers travelled back to Phandalin, where they sold the diamonds they had found for a total of 250
gold pieces.

Session 20