Rooted! this ended up being fairly easy after I reset my machine. kept running into issues with user B*, after that everything was for the most part straight forward but still learned something new!
First you need to crack the password to uncrypt the contents of the file you found, properly configure hashcat for the type of file you are trying to crack. Then you can access the contents of the file by inputting the cracked password. If you made use of bloodhound for windows enumeration then you know which option to pursue after.
I really enjoyed this box!