Thornhold Keep

Year: 1491, Month: Tarsakh, Date: 27th

Thornhold Keep

As Celery and I rise with the dawn, we realise we are back on the very same road as the one where we came upon the caravan from my Temple of Tyr that was attacked heading to Waterdeep.  

Once Celery and I have finished our morning prayers, we break camp and head north.  After a couple of hours on the trail we reach a place called Thornhold.  It is a big castle.  Leo is a true font of knowledge, telling us that it was once long ago held by the Knights of Samalar, but is now controlled by a clan of Dwarves.  This clan, the Stoneshaft Clan, is apparently not the friendliest towards non-dwarven travelers, although they normally allow travel weary visitors to camp inside the castle walls.  He has also heard a rumour that there may be an entrance to the Underdark in the castle.
 

A skirmish with some Drow

We reach the castle entrance but the drawbridge is up and the gates appear to be barred.  After a few minutes of unsuccessfully of us trying to get the attention of the Stoneshaft Clan, Leo turns himself into a gas cloud and seeps through the stonework into the right hand tower.  After a few minutes, the drawbridge begins lowering and we wait as it to slowly descends.

As it reaches to the bottom, the gates are open, but I see two drow elves, one holding a wand and who I presume is a mage, and the other a bared sword about 50' away in the castle courtyard.  A quickly move to narrow the gap, and draw my sword.  The warrior Drow notices me entering the courtyard and changes direction and rapidly closes the distance. Such poor form, he doesn't even grant me the honour of a salute, before engaging me.  However, my defences are ready and I easily block his flashing Scimitar with my shield.
Three rays of fire fizz past my head and hit the mage, closely followed by a fiery ball of fire energy which burns and scorches his chest.  Celery and Enya must have also seen the drow and countered the mage whilst I deal with the warrior.  The mage looks beyond me towards Enya with hatred in his eyes.  The mage raises his wand and directs his magic towards my companions behind me.  

I hear a 'sshh' like gas escaping from a Gnomish contraption, and as I look over my shoulder, a roiling cloud of yellowish-green fog engulfs both Celery and Enya.  

A bright streak flashes infront of me coming from a doorway to the battlements and blossoms with a dull roar into an explosion of fire and flame engulfing the Drow mage who drops to the floor a wrecked and smouldering ruin.  The fog surrounding Celery and Enya disappears as the drow dies.



A third Drow enters the courtyard and fires his crossbow in the direction from where the Fireball came but misses Leo as he emerges through the doorway and into the castle courtyard.

The warrior Drow attacks me twice more, but I parry his first clumsy attack, and block the the second with my Shield.  I continue the momentum of my shield block into the Drow in an attempt to drive him to the floor, but he takes a step back and manages to keep his balance.  However, the shove distracted him sufficiently for me to follow with two rapid slashes to his body with my sword.

Celery joins me in the melee and attacks with he enchanted mace, but the Drow is quick to react and deflects the blow wide.
 
A spiritual Mace of Lathandar suddenly appears behind the Drow warrior, but with some innate sense, he sways to the side just as the incorporeal Mace comes down where he was only moments before.
 
A spectral hound materialises by the third, crossbow wielding, Drow, and tries to bite his leg, but he kicks out at it with a glancing blow to its head and the bite misses.
 
I feel a sudden burst of energy and seem to be able to move much faster and have what seems eons of time to anticipate and react to my opponents attacks which i easily defeat.
The third drow is still engaged with the spectral hound which he hits solidly with a couple of slashes of his Scimitar.

I slam my opponent with my shield once more, and this time he looses his footing as he moves backwards and ends up on his backside.  I'm so fast, I do a 3 attack combination.  In his prone position, he manages to block the first attack, but the two following attacs both find gaps in his leather armour, the blade coming away covered in blood.  As he is trying to regain his feet, both Mace's of Lathandar pummel him. He tries to block Celery's attack, which leaves his head unprotected and the spiritual Mace crashes full in his face with a crunch of shattering bone and he drops back to the ground unmoving.
 
A second spectral hound appears by the remaining Drow. A concentrated ball of fire strikes him in the chest where he is already smouldering.  He winces in pain, and I sense this fight is almost over.
 
A hound bites the drow and hamstrings him and he stumbles to the ground.  The other hound leaps at his face.  There is an almighty tolling of thunder and blood starts oozing out of his ears and he also drops to the ground.
 
Even though the combat lasted only a few seconds I feel very lethargic and tired, and I lean on my sword to catch my breath for a coupe of minutes. Maybe I am not as fit as I thought, and resolve to train more before sleep each night.
 
Leo searches the corpses, but finds nothing about the Drow or why they are in the castle.  We notice that each Drow has a spider tattoo very similar to the Black Spider's emblem that we first encountered in Phandolin.   

The door to the main keep is locked .  I hammer on the door three times with my gauntleted fist, but there is no sign of movement or reaction from inside. 
Where are the Dwarves of Clan Stoneshaft? 

We take a rest and discuss what we should do next.