10th of Marpenoth, 1492 (Highsun) Several hours pass as the siblings take the nice bath, Briar and Alatar keeping the water warm by practicing flaming hands above the water, Alatar mimicking his eldest brother until he finally got a solid flame going, impressing Briar. Once everyone was ready they all got out of the bath and they started heading back to exploring Axeholm, starting with the room furthest down the hall that they haven't checked. Opening the door, Briar finds this to be the castellan's bedroom, a stone bed frame with a rotten mattress, a few furnishings, and a stone fireplace to the south of the room. Upon investigating the fireplace, Brair sticks his hand up into it to see what he could find and he suddenly was bit by something. Pulling his hand out, he finds a fleshy Stirge bad bitten his hand and started to drink blood from Briar. The siblings come to his aid as 3 more stirges come flying out of the fireplace, each one attacking each sibling. Kia and Alatar both getting bit in the process, the siblings help take out a stirge bothering their siblings rather than their own stirges. Dealing with these pests quickly, they go back to check out the room, Briar finding an old sooty handprint on the back of the fireplace. He pushes on the back wall to find it's a false back, leading into a small vault with an iron chest. The chest lacking a keyhole, Briar spots in its place a small round indentation with an impression of a familiar symbol. He looks to the signet ring he recently acquired, then to the chest, and he tries putting the ring to the impression. Kia quickly tries to protest to make sure it wasn't trapped or dangerous, but was too slow to warn Briar as he slid the signet ring face into the impression. With a magical click, the lid opened to Briar. Inside, he found a Dread Helm and the Gauntlets of Ogre Power . Putting these items on, he turns to his siblings with a big ole grin, they seeing his eyes lit red from the effect of the helm, the gauntlets giving off a brilliant polished shine. Once they were done in this room, Briar wanted to gather the iron chest, finding it very useful to use as a safe form of storage. However, the iron chest was too heavy for him to lift, and despite wearing the gauntlets, he wasn't attuned to them and thus he failed to lift the chest, throwing out his back in the process. Kia, shaking her head, comes in, with a heavy grunt she lifts up the chest and walks it out, Briar shuffling after her in pain. Everyone figured it would be a good time to head back outside to tend to the animals, Kia bringing the chest to the cart while Briar chases after her asking for help with his back. Once outside, Kia and Briar take the time to fix his back while Naisys and Alatar stayed back a bit as Naisys noticed Phoenix sitting on the iron chandelier above them. Wanting to mess around a bit, she uses her ability to teleport to her blades to bamph up next to Phoenix, who is startled and flies off to the balcony. Naisys leaping off after him, catching the bird mid-air. She pats the bird a few times, despite its angered fluttering and cawing, her finger kept getting pecked by the bird. Once released, Phoenix flies up and scratches her face before flying off to find Briar, Alatar watching this whole thing with amusement. Once outside, the group heads back in to deal with the ghouls Naisys and Alatar found earlier. They head up to the western lower bastion and up the stairs to the upper bastion where they left the spiders. They found a group of ghouls feasting on the spider corpses and they quickly leap into action, Briar casting a fireball up into the room, hitting Kia and Naisys in the process but knocking down the health of most of the ghouls in the room. The party makes quick work of these nasty dwarven ghouls, Alatar dealing the final blow as he leaps off the spider pile and he drives his sword into the head of the dwarf. The blade sank all the way in, hitting itself into the body of the undead dwarf. Unfortunately for Alatar, he found that he couldn't pull the sword out of the dwarf. Asking his siblings to help, they each gave it their best but were unable to pull the sword out. While Benny Hill plays in the back of some of their minds, Briar gets the idea to call up his undead orc and half-orcs. Thankfully one of them was able to pull the sword out of the dwarven body, returning it to Alatar. After doing a little more exploring they check out the rest of the second story of the front of the fortress, finding a beautiful dwarven decorative shield of polished steel, a copper embellishment on the front showing the symbol of Axeholm on it. Kia excitedly takes this and she gives her old shield to Alatar. After this they find the stairs that head down to the other lower bastion. Their horse Freler hearing them come down he pokes his head through the arrow slit that was just big enough to fit his head, the party given a nice little welcoming sight of their horse and Phoenix standing on his head. Naisys noticing the mounted crossbow, she and Alatar quickly disarm it to avoid it going off in Freler's face. After this, they head out and explore a bit more, making sure everything was checked. They come across the tunnel Naisys and Alatar found earlier when they split off from Kia and Briar, Alatar's poor sense of direction making it hard for him to realize this was that hole, he went in to explore while the rest of his siblings head back into the mustering hall. Alatar finds his way up to the upper bastion again, recognizing the place and realizing where he was, he headed back down to find his siblings. Once they were all regrouped, they recount their tracks and the rooms they've been in, trying to figure out if they actually cleared the place. Brair remembered there was a door they did not check out in the western wing. Kia and Naisys hang back a bit while the boys go to check out the final room. Once there, Alatar opens the door to find a welcoming sight, a smithy, much like the one from their parents home. Upon stepping in, he was greeted by a massive dwarven ghoul that in it's prior life was likely a massive wall of muscle, this being the old Axeholm blacksmith. Alatar gives a startled "Oh shit!" causing the ghoul to spot him and attack. All in one moment, Naisys rushed to the sound of Alatar's yelp, makes a mad dash past them and into the room. Alatar was momentarily distracted by the blur that is Naisys, seeing her suddenly standing there in a thrown dagger stance, to which he looked back to see a spray of undead greymatter blowing itself onto him from the psycho-blade of Naisys. Alatar takes a moment, stunned at what had just occurred, before he looks over to Naisys with an odd look of admiration. Distracted by this, Naisys was taken off guard as a lone Stirge flew out of the fireplace, sees the group, and nopes out of there. Naisys threw one of her blades at it but ends up missing due to Alatar's look taking her out of it. At that, Kia comes in just in time to see the aftermath. Sighing, she helps wipe the ichor and grey matter off of Alatar, while Briar checks out the smithy and the tool storage, reminiscing of his father's forge as he recognizes all the various forging tools stored here. While Briar does this, he enlists the aid of his sisters to take the dwarven blacksmith's body into the fireplace but the heavy body was too much for most of them to get it fully into the fireplace, let alone its size being unable to fit properly. Despite this, Alatar wanted to get it in there. Shouldering it back against the hole, they hear a sickening crack as Alatar broke its ribcage, and a nasty wet fart was pushed out of the ghoul. The three back away almost instantly, the 400 year old body having the rotten gas expel from it, the smell was too much for them to handle as Naisys nearly throws up. Kia however got the worst of it and she quickly vomits into the nearby fireplace. Briar reemerges from his moment of reminiscing in the tool storage to find his siblings gagging and losing their lunch, reminding him of when he'd help his father in the forge and at the end of the day finding the siblings up to some new kind of activity each time, this one being no different. Chuckling, Briar with the rest of his siblings head out with a good sense that the fortress has been sufficiently cleared out. They head to the cart, seeing the sun has started to set, they head home towards Phandalin. A full day passes and they return just as the sun started to set on the next day, everyone fully attuning to their new gear. They all head to the inn, finding the townmaster not in the town hall, and they come upon the inn just as Tolben was just about to lock up for the evening. Tolben lets them in graciously, and they all wish him good night before they start to file into their rooms. Everyone, except for Alatar, who has been dry for over a day he bellies up to the bar, but then notices Tolben was not manning the bar. It was at that moment he hears Tolben lock the door to the inn and head out. Frustrated, Alatar starts to check around for any ale Tolben might've left out, but finds none. Alatar goes to check with his sisters to see if they had any ale, Kia threatens him to go to bed at the risk of losing his toes. Alatar goes to start and attempt to bother the other inn patrons by knocking on doors. He was stopped short by Kia and Naisys, who followed him out and they wrestled him back to his bedroom where Briar was getting ready for bed. Naisys having her limits reached she tells him she has something to help him sleep, but he needed to close his eyes. Alatar begrudgingly does as he's asked, laying down and closing his eyes. Naisys proceeds to whack Alatar hard on the temple, not enough to knock him out, but it was a hard enough hit to cause him pain. Getting a better idea, she draws one of her blades, looks it over, and then looks to the pommel with a small smirk. She thwacks him on the forehead with the pommel in another attempt to knock him out, but to no effect. Frustrated, Briar offers to take care fo him, asking the sisters to head to bed. They reluctantly agree, leaving Briar to deal with Alatar. Briar offers a spell he knows that makes Alatar seem dead but really isn't, causing Alatar quickly to stop and lay down, turning down the offer with unease. Briar lays down and they turn in for the night. Unfortunately, Briar was awoken to the sounds of Alatar trying to sneak out of the window. Briar, annoyed, gets up and he hands him 12 silver and tells him to just go. Alatar does so, heading out on his own quest to find ale while the siblings rest. Session Pause 11th of Marpenoth, 1492 (Evening)