3 Nightal 1490

Session 5 (Mar 21, 2025) - Level 3
The Fearsome Five do some questioning around town and end up getting in a street fight with some Redbrands

We begin the session in the Abandoned Temple to Silvanus (see session 4). We do some investigating and come to the conclusion that this temple is very old and based on the pictographic nature of the wall art, we determine that it was likely built before written language and due to seeing no real signs of a battle, we determine that it was probably re-inhabited long after it was abandoned. There clearly was once a strong druidic force in the area to justify having such a place of worship. If they still exist in the area, they are likely much smaller now. (Look for local Druid Circles near Phandalin). We investigate the orb further and determine that it is very evil and clearly represents the complete opposite of everything Silvanus stood for. He will be happy to have this out of his place of worship (although really the forest is his temple and he has no need for constructs like this.

Before leaving the cave, Haesten Dumnorix looks at the loot he is carrying and decides maybe it would be more usefull in someone else’s hands. He offers the Immovable Rod to Enthir Sylvanwind who he believes will be able to put it to more effective use in combat. He then offers the Bag of Holding to Adar Thelion who is our token rich boy and keeper of the bags (aka, the quartermaster). Adar Thelion decides to place the dark orb in the bag to keep it safe.

We travel back to town and meet Linny at Lionshield Coster to collect our reward. Regi and Taffy got a head start while we were investigating the temple and had already stopped by to tell Linny about what we found in the cave. We collect our reward of 25 gold each then Adar decides maybe we should show her the orb and see if she is able to tell us anything about it. She mentions she ahs no clue what it is but that there is a wizard name Iarno Albrek who may know a thing or two about it. Iarno is a member of The Lord’s Alliance and is considered to be a pretty solid dude that we can probably trust. Unfortunately Iarno went missing a few days ago and hasn’t been seen. Perhaps he was kidnapped or maybe he just left on his own accord, we don’t know.

• Linny mentions that she has a shipment of goods coming in a few day and that we get first dibs on anything we want from it.

We head to Stonehill Inn and head to our rooms. Before going to sleep Haesten decides to try out something new. He sits cross legged on the floor, rolls up a big fat joint with his most potent variety of herb that he calls “Bugbears Day Off” and takes a huge hit. He exhales a massive smoke cloud and focuses his mind on the image of a creature he saw often growing up in the woods east of Neverwinter. The smoke concentrates in front of him and begins to collect into a shapeless form. He then takes another big hit and exhales a giant smoke ring that he pushes towards the swirling cloud. As it passes over the cloud, the form takes shape and becomes an owl. Haesten has just cast Find Familiar for the first time and after seeing his Familiar he chooses the name Crookshanks.

The Fearsome Five all go to sleep and wake up as level 3 adventurers!

When we awake, Toblin Stonehill gives us a letter that appears to be from Sildar Halwinter asking us to meet him and “The Master” (Harbin Westin at the Phandalin Town Hall.

• We talk amongst ourselves and while discussing the events of the day prior and the temple to Haesten‘s god Silvanus, Adar reveals his god is Lathander, the god of dawn, renewal, and vitality and Enthir explains that he worships Mielikki the goddess of the forest and its creatures; patron of druids and rangers and also Daughter of Silvanus.

We head out to the Town Hall and upon entering, we see a greeting area with a reception desk and then a long hallway behind the desk with many doors along it. Sitting at the desk is Elsa (the Barmaid). It appears this is her main job. She doesn’t acknowledge our entrance and after some throat clearing then more forward announcements of our presence, she annoyedly looks up, looking at us like she has never seen us in her life, she asks if we have an appointment. We mention the letter and she says we may have to wait a while then proceeds to do nothing… We convince her to at least let The Master know we are here and she goes down the hallway to a door, knocks then enters. We wait another like 10 minutes and nothing happens. We walk up to the door and listen, not a sound is heard…?

Haesten decides to turn into a mouse and crawls under the door. He sees a fat, old and bald man wearing a pretentious suit sitting at a luxurious and self indulgent desk looking down at some papers. Elsa is standing not far from the desk waiting to be acknowledged. There is some kind of weird power struggle going on here. There is nothing else of interest in the office so Haesten crawls back out. He sniffs around to see if he can catch Sildar‘s scent. He does catch a trail and follows it to another door. He sneaks under the door and enters a large dark academia office with a couple armchairs flanking a wooden desk that is centered in front of a fireplace with a roaring fire. Sildar is sitting at the desk looking over a mess of papers that appear to be connected with strands of red yarn and push pins. Haesten decides to just turn back into his Half-Orc form right infront of Sildar and scares the shit out of him. After he catches his breath, he opens the door and lets Enthir, Sir Chetwynd and Adar Thelion into the office and begins to explain to them that he believes it is possible to rescue Gundren from Cragmaw Castle and that if we were to Destroy Cragmaw Castle and Rescue Gundren, he would reward us with 500 gold.

Sildar brings us over to The Master‘s office, walks in without knocking and casually dismisses Elsa. He introduces us to the fat man at the desk as Harbin Westin. We notice that not only is he fat, pretentious and has distractingly huge jowls, he is also wearing one of the most ridiculous top hats we had ever seen. He mentions he has a task for us. There has been reports of Goblins, Bugbears and a Ogre along the Triboar Trail east of Phandalin. He offers us 75 gold to Explore the Triboar Trail East of Phandalin. We tried to negotiate the reward up a bit since this sounds like a very dangerous task. Harbin being the excellent bureaucrat that he is, doesn’t budge. We ask if maybe he things it would be better to do something about the Redbrands and he says he is not worried about them and they are not important.

We decide maybe we should go talk to sister grail and follow up on what Narth had told us a couple nights ago. He mentioned he saw her leave town and come back looking quite roughed up. We head to the Shrine of Luck and find a statue to Tymora, the god of luck and good fortune. We see a beautiful young elven women with light robes and visible signs of cuts and bruises. This is clearly Sister Grail.

We ask her about what happened and inquire if maybe she encountered some goblins. She says there were no goblins but she did run into some trouble. Her employer, The Harpers, sent her to deal with a Banshee in a graveyard just outside of Conyberry. Banshees are normally incredibly violent, however, there were reports that this one was not attacking people but instead was approaching people and asking them questions. Sister Grail had investigated the Banshee and found that her name was Agatha and that she may have ties to a powerful wizard. This wizard is thought to possess a spell book that The Harpers want to secure.

On closer inspection, we start to see that although Sister Grail doesn’t appear it on first glance, she is armed to the tits and could probably easily kick all of our asses if need be. She mentions that when she approached Agatha the other day, she was immediately attacked by Agatha the Banshee who was screaming about a jeweled silver comb

Agatha offers us 3 healing potions to investigate and deal with the Banshee

• This would require is to head to Conyberry which is east of Phandalin along the Triboar Trail which would also likely mean we will end up coming across the Goblin’s, Bugbear’s and Ogre that Harbin Westin wanted us to deal with.
• We all pray to the shrine of luck and each receive a point of inspiration.

We decide that these two new quests can wait for now and agree to investigate these Redbrands. If we are wanting to do some questioning around town, it is unlikely that folks will be comfortable talking while these ruffians remain a problem. Haesten commands Crookshanks to fly a lap around Sleeping Giant Tavern and begins watching through the owl’s eyes. He sees an elf and a human outside that look like bandits. He also sees a red cloak disappear around a corner and into a back alley. He perches on a window and pears into the tavern, He sees a bunch of people drinking.

We agree to investigate the red cloak that went down the alleyway. We try trailing them, using Crookshanks as our eyes we try to stay just back on a parallel street. It appears to be 4 red cloaked individuals. They end up spotting us through the intersecting laneways and turn to approach us. They walk right up to us and try to take our stuff, we say no and start to fight.

• Haesten Dumnorix casts Entangle on three of them and 2 fail their saving throws
• Adar Thelion blesses the other party members
• Sir Chetwynd deals 13 points of damage on the one that passed his saving throw almost killing him
• Enthir Sylvanwind did something cool but i missed what it was called, he did 15 points of damage and moved the redbrand into the entangle.
• The two redbrands that can fight try to attack and do some missing
• Haesten Dumnorix uses Shillelagh and knocks out their leader.
• Adar Thelion casts toll the dead and strait up brutally murders one of them
• Sir Chetwynd uses his longbow and deals 8 points of damage to the remaining restrained guy.
• Everyone is down, we took minimal damage and we have their leader knocked out ready to be interrogated in our next session.