In the previous session the group had cleared out a cave of goblins. The goblins had kidnapped their employer Gundren and his warrior friend Sildar, and tried to ambush the ox cart the group was tasked to bring to Phandalin. They had found Sildar in the last cave, but due to a lack of attention on their part Sildar had died. Now fortunately they were able to revive him with magical healing and got more information from him. Apparently Gundren and Sildar had fell foul of the same ambush. Interestingly the goblins were apparently looking for the family heirloom book that Gundren was carrying around with him. Sildar had heard from the goblins that the book and Gundren had been sent to Cragmaw Castle, where the king of the goblins lived. Sildar also revealed that he was an agent of the Lord's Alliance, a faction trying to bring civilization to the wilderness of the Sword Coast. He was on the way to Phandalin to look for another agent of the Lord's Alliance, a mage called Iarno Albrek, who had gone there two months ago but then disappeared.

After spending the night in the now safe cave, the group accompanied Sildar and the ox cart to Phandalin. That was profitable, because they were paid 10 gold each by Sildar, 10 gold each by Barthen's Provision for delivering the supplies, and 10 gold each by the Lionshield trading house for bringing them the information that supplies stolen from them were to be found in the goblin cave. They also learned that not all was well in Phandalin, as Barthen at first mistook them for members of a local mercenary gang, the Redbrands, who were extorting the locals for protection money. They went to the local inn to get a room for the night, and learned a bit more about the Redbrands, who had apparently killed a local woodcarver and kidnapped his family. But the players weren't inclined to ask around for more information from the other locals in the inn.

The next morning they went to the town hall, where the townmaster turned out to be a pompous old fool, scared of the Redbrands. Sildar more or less assumed control, and promised the group 200 gold for solving the Redbrands problem, and 500 gold for saving Gundren. They knew that the Redbrands were usually hanging out in the local saloon, and without further ado went there. The Redbrands in the saloon thought the group was just another group of prospectors or miners and tried to extort money from them. So the group just killed them. They explicitly didn't want to capture one of them for interrogation, but then questioned the barkeep of the saloon and found out that the Redbrands had a hideout in the ruins of the local manor down the road. Wanting to use the element of surprise, the group headed there immediately.

In the manor they easily found stairs down into the hideout. They didn't search the first room, but choose one of the two doors there to continue. That led them to a corridor towards another double door. Approaching the door, Landry the halfling stepped on a pit trap, but was too light to trigger it. However Erdan the druid behind him was in bear form, his weight broke the pit cover, and he fell down 20 feet. Instead of doing something about that, Popée used her mage hand to open the double door, revealing a room with 3 sarcophagi and 3 skeleton. They engaged in combat, with the group somewhat split by the pit in the middle, with only a small ledge to pass, requiring an acrobatics (dexterity) check. The situation was further complicated because there were three Redbrands behind the other door in the first room, who had heard the noise and now attacked from behind. So the group managed to get involved with 2 fights and 1 trap at the same time. They still won, but suffered many wounds, and Popée was knocked unconscious. After the enemies were all dead, Krosh managed to fall into the pit in spite of having advantage on his acrobatics check due to a rope, and fell unconscious as well. Finally the group all assembled in the room with the sarcophagi and decided to take a short rest to heal up. Unfortunately they rolled very badly for the "resting in dangerous locations" check, and were attacked by another 3 skeletons coming out of the sarcophagi.. So they took a second short rest before continuing. [DM's note: I was really surprised how much mileage I got out of two harmless groups of mobs and one trap, the players were really bumbling there.]

Opening the door to the next room, Landry detected two more Redbrands hiding left and right from the door. So Theren went into the room in dodge mode, and evaded all attacks. After that the group cut down the Redbrands quickly. The room turned out to be a prison, in which the Redbrands had been guarding a woman and two children. As it was getting late, we decided to end the session there and leave the interaction with the prisoners to the next time.