Murder Hobo Squad: A Lost Mine of Phandelver/Dragon of Icespire Peak & Beyond D&D 5E record (Beware Spoilers!)

With bless cast on Araloth, Karson and Bilba the party moved quickly across the narrow causeway, hoping to get past the Harpies before it ran out.  As they headed out the Harpies on the southern platform soon noticed them and started to sing, entrancing some of them.  Araloth and Bilba were able to put a couple of shots in to the one that could be seen while everyone else tried to advance.  Ramond, Talindra, and Melandrach were charmed and tried a few times to climb the cliffs, with a lot of slips and falls.  Araloth focused on running up the path as fast as possible and made it to the tower ahead of everyone.  Thorivor was charmed at first but quickly resisted and put a couple of seeking arrows in to the wounded harpy who had retreated out of sight, killing it.  Melandrach made the climb as he reached the wall around the harpy nests and two harpies advanced to attack him.  He tried to skirt around the Harpies before vaulting the wall, but lost his grip and fell back down, narrowly missing the climbing Talindra.  He picked himself up, dusted himself of, and ran up the path, overtaking Devere.  Araloth pushed up the front door and found himself in a large empty foyer and just ran for the door in the direction of the Harpies.  He rushed straight through a room with an altar and frescoes on the walls, not stopping to look around, busting open the next door.  Stopping in the doorway he attacked the closet Harpy before retreating through the door.  Ramond channelled his divinity to turn himself in to a Peerless Athlete and then ran up the steep incline, no longer charmed.  Talindra had finally made her save so cast Shatter at the Harpies, killing another and wounding the third, before heading along the winding path.  Melandrach made it up the path and entered the Lighthouse just as the final Harpy decided this was too much and flew around behind the tower out of sight.  Araloth ran outside and saw the Harpy was gone and shouted out to the group.  He then began searching the nests.  Devere entered the building and ran towards where he had last seen the Harpies.  Meanwhile, Melandrach entered the altar room and looked out the window.  He could see the harpy so opened the window and tried to fire his bow at it, but missed.  The Harpy just flew further out to sea as fast as she could.

With the fight over for now Devere took a moment to look around the Altar room as the others came up the path.  The walls of the fifteen foot-high room were adorned with frescoes that depicted ships being tossed on stormy seas, with a dark and terrible god looming above them and smiling. Set into the west wall was a dirty, salt-encrusted window.  A stone altar with lightning bolts carved into it stood against the south wall. A metal rod descended from the ceiling above the altar, splitting in two before it embedded itself into the stone altar.  Devere tried to search the altar, but got a short sharp shock from it and then he heard a pronounced silence as a dull humming noise stopped that he didn’t even realise he had been hearing.  He said he felt a bit funny.  Melandrach turned to look at him and the occasional small spark of electricity could be seen sparking around his eyes.  Karson stood guard over the other doors in the foyer.  Having finished the climb and seen the bodies, Ramond ran through the room towards the foyer.  As the group started to gather around the lighthouse Araloth ran through and opened the double doors in the foyer, revealing a spiral staircase and another ground level door, which he immediately opened.

This 15 -foot-high room has two north-facing windows. A barnacle-encrusted chair stands against the south wall. Sitting in the chair is the Half-Orc Moesko, clad in Splint Mail armour made from metal plates over reddish-purple giant octopus hide. Resting in his lap is an opalescent conch he took from Miraal the sea elf.  Either side of the door stands two Half-Orc guards, wearing hide.  They all have unusual clawed gauntlets on.  They are styled after boars and the rusks come out in to sharp blades which could be used as weapons.  He shouted out what he had seen and then retreated to the foyer.

Karson ran through and landed a couple of blows on a guard.  Devere stepped in to the stairwell and Guiding Bolted the same guard before backing up.  Ramond moved in between the guards and Smote the same one, almost killing him, allowing Thorivor to finish him off.  Talindra scouted around the outside of the tower and peeked in through the window.  The surviving guard moved, chanted and cast Lightning Bolt through Ramond and Karson.  Karson survived purely because Bless was still active.  Moeska stayed sat in his seat and also chanted, casting Lightning Bolt at Ramond (DM: Both bolts rolled noticeable above average.  It was getting scary in there.  Ramond was on 1hp at this stage.  A full Bolt could perma-kill him at this stage).  Melandrach stepped over the guard’s corpse and flurried radiant sun bolts at the other guard while hurling insults at him. Bilba put an arrow in the guard while hiding at the back.  Araloth ran in to flank the guard with Ramond and stabbed him up.  Karson moved in and also cut him.

Having seen the lighting flying from a distance, Devere came to an understanding.  He moved in to the room and without casting a spell, fired a Lightning Bolt from his hands at Moeska.  Ramond took this opportunity to touch himself with a Lay on Hands. (DM: There were a lot of jokes about how the cleric never does any healing and the Paladin is the only one casting classic cleric spells).  Thorivor finished off the guard as Talindra peeked through the window and cast Shatter at Moeska, avoiding his allies.  Moeska stood up from his seat, putting down the conch shell and picking up his trident.  As he walked forward he shouted out, “How dare you burst in to my throne room.  Talos shall have you!”   Without casting, he then threw a Lightning Bolt through Devere, Ramon and Melandrach who were conveniently all lined up nicely (and already OOC making jokes about their bad positioning), downing Ramond and Devere.  Melandrach moved up to apply a flurry of blows to Moeska while Bilba put an arrow in to him.  Araloth and Karson stabbed him and then Thorivor killed him with one last arrow.  The group then quickly scrambled to heal Ramond and Devere.

The party gathered together in to the throne room and searched the bodies while Taildra did a Detect magic ritual.  Araloth revealed he had found a potion in the Harpy nests.  The potion, Splint Mail, Moeska’s bracelet and a ring on his trident were magical.  Araloth tasted the potion (Water Breathing) while Talindra ritually identified the rest (Splint mail of Lightning Resistance, and the ring and bracelet are paired items that let the bracelet’s wearer call to his hand whatever weapon the ring is placed around).  Melandrach picked up the Conch shell and they couldn’t help but notice that it was exceptional.  Whatever conch had grown this had apparently been dieting on some interesting materials as it had opal material built in to it.  It would likely be worth quite a bit.  Araloth wanted to appraise it, but Melandrach and the others wouldn’t let him as they were going to give it back to the Banshee.

While all this was going on the group discussed throwing Moeska’s body out of the window, but Devere wanted to inspect it further.  When they removed its armour they noticed his heart was missing and there was a hole in his chest.  Devere was concerned this was a consequence of the charge currently still coursing through him.  Devere had no idea what he was looking at though.  Ramond took a look and came to the conclusion that ribs had been broken and healed and any other damage had had plenty of time to heal over.  He decided the heart had been carefully removed on purpose, possibly as a means of controlling them.  They left the body where it was and Ramond put on the armour and they took a short rest.

Half way through their short rest they could hear footsteps coming down the stairs.  Talindra quickly cast an illusion of the door over the closed door and everyone upped weapons and got ready to defend themselves.  Karson popped open the door and peeked through the illusion and could see a naked half orc coming down the stairs with a hole where his heart should be.  He stepped through the illusory closed door and stabbed the half orc before retreating and dodging his free strike.  Araloth did his usual drive by attack, ending up in the altar room to avoid lightning.  Devere had a look up the stairs and then backed up in to the room to inform the others and to see if the new guy looked like the dead guy, but really couldn’t tell.  Meladrach flurried him and Thorivor put an arrow through him, but he unleashed a Lightning Bolt through Melandrach and Karson, almost downing Melandrach.  Ramond beat him to within an inch of his life but Bilba landed the killing blow.

Deciding resting had proven to be an unworkable idea, the group gathered themselves and head up the stairs.  The next floor up proved to be just the open flat roof, with a lightning rod reaching high in the sky above the altar room.  Further up the stairs, the pinnacle of the lighthouse beacon was partly open to the elements and surrounded by a narrow walkway topped by an iron railing. Three open archways allowed the beacon’s pulsating green light to spill westward over the sea. This light was so bright that it hurt the eyes of anyone trying to look at it.  While they couldn’t look directly at the source of the light, they noticed it looked like a heart, but ten times larger than usual and it was just floating in the air.  Araloth tried to search it for traps, but with the light in his eyes he wasn’t able to find anything with his disadvantaged check.  Talindra tried to see if she had any understanding of the magic at play here but came up blank.  While Talindra cast Sacred Flame at the heart, Araloth fished through his bag and threw a coat over the heart to partially mask the light.  Now they could look more at it Talindra cast Eldritch Blast at it.  It rattled and shook, crumpled in on itself and then dropped to the floor.  Araloth picked up his coat and the large heart was now like a shrivelled up blackened walnut on the floor.  Araloth poked it with his sword a little to no effect.  There was some talk about relighting the lighthouse at around 10.30am and about getting someone to man the lighthouse (The banshee?  The crab?  Someone from town?) but they let it drop for now and went to return the shell.

The banshee Miraal drifted out of the rocks as they approached and asked if they were done and had her shell.  They offered it up to her and she took it gratefully, visibly calming as she did.  They asked if she knew anything about Moeska missing his heart or what was going on up there.  She was none the wiser.  She thanked them and slowly faded away.  As she vanished, the conch shell dropped to the floor and the quickly scooped it up to sell later.

They then headed over to Mur’raih the Giant Crab and told him his mistress was at rest.  He had a quick look for her and then said he’d go and get them a piece of treasure from the sunken ships.  They asked if he could check the rest, but he said that if anyone hangs around the ships for too long the sharks come for them and he didn’t want to get eaten.  While he was away they discussed drinking the potion of water breathing and going themselves, but decided to leave that for another day when they could send more than one person to face the sharks.  When Mur’raih returned he was carrying a cutlass in its belted scabbard, with a small pouch still attached to the belt.  They thanked him and said their goodbyes and headed back towards town.  While sat on their wagon Talindra identified the new weapon and pulled 3 small diamonds from the pouch.

Split Armour of Lightning Resistance

Rare, Requires attunement

This split mail is made of rows of blackened metal plates attached to an unusual mottled reddish purple leather, apparently made out of Octopus Hide.  It is both tough and rubbery.  This armour bestows resistance to Lightning damage to its wearer.

Bands of Returning

This clasped metal band and bracelet are paired magic items.  The ring is placed round the grip of a weapon and the bracelet is worn by its user.  As a bonus action the wearer can command the weapon to return to their hand, passing through the intermediate space.  If the weapon is being held or restrained, treat the weapon as having a Strength of 26 (+8) and a Dexterity of 10 (+0) for the purposes of any checks.

The band can be attached to any weapon and can be adjusted to fit.

Sea Captains Cutlass

+1 Shortsword

This fine cutlass has a pocket on its scabbard containing a matching flask.  Every day at dawn the flask refills with Rum.  The scimitar grants its wielder immunity to the effects of the poisoned condition while they are touching the hilt.  On a critical hit this weapon bestows the poisoned condition to its target who becomes drunk.  They can make a Con save DC 14 at the end of each of their activations to resist this.