Entering Axeholm. Fighting Spiders.

(Area map hexes are 25 miles wide this week. I think?)
 
Having located Axeholm, we immediately leave. We cross back to the other side of the valley and find a good spot to watch. We have some cover against the mountain and some trees to hide us. We also have a good view of Axeholm. We spend a couple days watching. We see that the area is active. There are bears, and Orc and Hobgoblin patrols. I even saw a Giant who was remarkably stealthy go by. Our watch convinced us that no one was obviously using Axeholm as a base.
 
On the second morning one of those Orc patrols was unlucky enough to run into our camp. Luckily we saw them coming and were ready. There were about 10 or so of them and we tore them apart in short order. It was nice to show how much more combat effective we have become. As we finished burying the bodies (under stones), a huge goat came up and Tuath made a new friend. We cleared out of the original camp and make a new camp a couple miles away. We spent another night without incident and headed to Axeholm in the morning.
 
At first we were stumped by how to get in. The obvious entrance was blocked by a portcullis that we were unable to move. Someone notices chimneys on the mountain side and we climbed up to investigate. The way was steeper and slicker than expected. Tuath took a pretty hard fall. After checking out the chimneys, Balderdash produced pitons and we anchored a rope and used a rope down a chimney for entrance. We found ourselves in an old guard room. Balderdash was finally able to acquire a shield as there was one hanging in this room. We found nothing else of value. There was only one door.
 
On heading out, we found a large room with spider webs. And then spiders. Very large ones. I was quickly hit with webs and restrained. I was still able to cast spells so I blessed the rest of the party and went to work with Spiritual Weapon and Toll the Dead. It was a messy fight with everyone getting webbed but we were victorious without too much challenge. Studying the room, we determined that we were above the main entrance. We could see how the portcullis and kill zone worked.