Session 1: Goblin Arrows!

General Summary

Our story began in the seaside city of Tirian, where a dwarf named Gundren Rockseeker hired several guards to protect his caravan on the way to the small mining town of Phandalin. Gundren was more than a little secretive about the trip, saying only that he and his brothers had found "something big," and that he would ride ahead to Phandalin with his bodyguard, a human knight named Sildar Hallwinter.   Members of the caravan included the halfling Weatherby, along with human sellswords Jolm and Silva, all residents of Phandalin returning from a trading trip to the big city. The additional help that Gundren hired were three fresh-faced adventurers:  

• Coryn (the Empty-Handed), a human monk who had spent much of his life up to that point sailing the seas of Imminar;
• Malcolm Reynolds, a human wizard who had grown up an orphan on the streets of Tirian, surviving with the help of the Illusion school of magic;
• William Kornel, a human fighter, veteran of Palisana's army, looking for a place to put his skills to use.

  The caravan set out for Phandalin, following after Gundrin and Sildar. On the second day of travel they came across two more travelers, whom Weatherby invited to accompany the caravan:  

• Adelaide, a tiefling cleric and wanderer of Imminar;
• Marcus Farengan, a human ranger and hunter hailing from the town of Blackroot to the east.

  As the day wound down, the caravan left the open plains and entered the edge of the Neverwinter Wood near Phandalin. Just around a bend they found two horses, dead and lying in the path, pierced with black-tipped arrows. As they went to investigate, they were ambushed by a group of goblins, but managed to hold their own and defeat them.   Based on the horses and the surrounding terrain, the party (for they found they had become a party very suddenly during the ambush) determined that this was a common location for goblin ambushes, and located a trail leading away from the path, along with what looked like the track of a dragged body. With Weatherby, Silva, and Jolm volunteering to hold and guard the cart, the party set out to determine and perhaps eliminate the source of these goblin raids, and maybe even to locate prisoners they had captured.   The path took them to the entrance of a large cave...