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

On the wagon back to town Talindra started asking questions about what they had all just seen.  The converging triple lightning bolt symbols the Half-Orcs were wearing had jogged a memory loose.  She revealed that upon originally arriving in Phandalin she had been given a vision.  The shrine in town was under assault by ice and lightning.  It struck the shrine and destroyed the whole area.  She suspected these guys are related.  Ramond said he heard the heartless guy call out to Talos, who would be the angry evil god of storms and destruction.  Worship of Talos is illegal in most places.  He is not part of the main pantheon so is not as well-known as some other gods.  Araloth wondered what they were doing there.  Turning the light off so ships would crash?  Devere said the green light was probably drawing the ships on to the rocks.  Ramond said the green light wasn’t bright enough so ships couldn’t see the rocks in time.  Talindra suggested that the destruction could be an offering to Talos.  Devere was concerned that his new sparking eyes might mark him as a worshiper of Talos and that might get him arrested.  Araloth suggested he discharge himself, but he opted not to for now.  Using the Sending Stones Devere told Gundren they were on their way back and would be ready to go after lunch tomorrow.  Gundren responded, saying he would be ready but he was worried about his brothers as they had not come for a resupply, but ran out of words before he could explain.

The journey back was uneventful and when they arrived in town they went straight for a hot meal at the Stonehill Inn, where they saw Gundren already eating.  They joined him and ordered food and exchanged pleasantries.  Gundren explained he had spent the last few days getting supplies together ready for the mine.  Along the way he had been asking about and his brothers hadn’t been seen.  They should have come back to town a couple of weeks ago to resupply on the essentials but they had not.  Gundren was worried if something had happened to them as was keen to get moving to check on them.  They had been camping a short walk from the mine entrance.  The party agreed to head out after lunch and a chance to plan and shop.

While the party did some shopping (DM: Lots of private messages while people were talking.  Got a little confusing),Talindra went to speak to Townmaster Harbin Wester who once again refused to open his front door.  She told him what they had found at the lighthouse and that it needed restaffing.    He said it was managed by Neverwinter, but he would send them a letter to inform them.  Talindra also asked about any possible reward for the job, but Harbin said the town didn’t really have the money to spare for that but he was grateful for their efforts.

They spent a while shopping, arguing about money (DM: They party has decided that Araloth is a penny pincher and it’s definitely Araloth and not his player.  This is becoming a focal point for RP), and planning for the future.  Talindra has a project she wants to work on and Thorivor wants to spend some time brewing healing potions before they face the dragon.  Ramond doesn’t like just walking around town with 600gp in his pockets and wants something better to do with it.

When they were done they met up with Gundren outside the Inn.  Gundren had gathered together his own wagon filled with supplies and had hired four people to help get the mine up and running, once the party had cleared it for them.  Following Gundren’s directions they all headed east out of town and arrived at the Rockseeker campsite with around an hour of daylight left.  The place looked clear and unused.  Hunting around they found an old campfire that had been buried and covered, and a few prints.  They place didn’t looked like it had been used for a week, perhaps two.  Gundren’s plan was to camp here while the mine was being cleared but people didn’t feel safe here, knowing something may have happened to Nundro and Tharden.  Gundren didn’t know if they had abandoned the camp for some reason, or if the Black Spider had found them.  They hunted around and found a suitable new site nearby.

While everyone set up the new camp, Karson, Bilba and Araloth had Gundren lead them to the mines entrance to scout it out.  Ten-ish minutes later he pointed them to a gap in some rocks hidden from the surrounding area by the terrain.  The gap was just about big enough for a person to squeeze through and had evidence of being man made.  Gundren said he had dug through the rock here to reach a natural tunnel shortly behind it that leads directly to the mine.  They looked around while never entering and found old footprints that looked around two week sold entering but not leaving the cave.  They retreated a safe distance and watched the area for 20 minutes but didn’t see anything of interest.  Karson hid a bear trap by the entrance and they went back to camp and everyone got a good night’s rest.

The next morning they left Gundren and his miners behind and returned to the cave entrance.  The bear trap remained set so Karson disarmed it with a long stick and put it back in his bag.  Bilba and Ramond had Light spells cast on a stone for each of them and they all squeezed in to the cave one by one.  The cave soon opened up in to a wider tunnel and Talindra summoned her owl familiar and sent him ahead to scout revealing a room ahead.  The entrance tunnel lead into a large-cavern supported by a natural pillar of rock and containing three stalagmites. In the western part of the cave, behind the column of rock, were two bedrolls and a heap of ordinary supplies-sacks of flour, bags of salt, casks of salted meat, lanterns, flasks of lamp oil, pickaxes, shovels, and other gear. Amid the supplies, the body of a dwarf miner could be seen, dead for at least a week. The north-eastern section of the cavern had collapsed, forming a ten-foot-wide, twenty-foot-deep pit. A sturdy hemp rope was tied off around a nearby stalagmite and dangled down the side of the pit, at the bottom of which was a rough-hewn tunnel heading northwest and east.

Araloth went to check out the rope and the trench.  The rope looked securely tied around a stalagmite with nothing at its other end and no one could be seen in the trench.  Araloth stood guard while the others explored the chamber.  Devere inspected the corpse for time and cause of death and found some old bruises and a few cuts, but the final would appeared to be a series of around 5 small sharp bruises in a grouping to centre mass, like someone had repeatedly poked him to death with a stick.  Araloth said this looked like it was done by a person and not an animal.  Melandrach said it sounded like Magic Missile.  They had been blasted with Magic Missile before and it did match their old wounds.  Upon close inspection Meladrach said that this was Tharden’s body.  He had met Nundro and Tharden before and was the only one in the group who had (DM: backstories finally being relevant and looked at!  Yay!  It did take a prompt from me for everyone to check though).  Devere finished searching Tharden and concluded that someone else had already stripped him of everything of interest, but that his boots looked unusually clean, new and high quality and didn’t match the wear on the rest of his outfit, so they took them.

After checking the crates (Just mining and camping supplies) they descended the rope in to the trench, except for Melandrach who showed off by jumping safely down the 20 foot drop (DM: Bloody Monks!).  Talindra sent her owl for a quick scout through both exits, revealing something of a maze to the north west and some branching tunnels with a distant light at the far end to the east.  They had a discussion about which way to go and chose to head towards the light as that might be a sign of a surviving dwarf.  Bilba and Ramond shielded their lights.  Araloth and Karson went ahead to scout while the others gathered ready to react.  As the paths forked they split up, while staying nearby and the party advanced up behind them.  Araloth found his pathway widening to become a larger chamber.  Many tunnels intersected at this natural, thirty-foot-high cavern.  The walls were carved with simple reliefs showing dwarf and gnome miners hard at work. Below them, nearly two dozen skeletons in rusted scraps of armour were scattered across the cavern floor. Some were dwarf skeletons, while others were orc remains. Half a dozen large brass lanterns stood in niches or on ledges around the cavern, but none were lit.  Araloth went to see if there was any oil in the lanterns, but anything that had been there had long since dried up.  While he was doing this the sound of flapping and chirruping could be heard from above as ten flying insects dropped off the ceiling and came to attack him.

He stabbed the nearest and ran back to the group as arrows flew over him and Devere Blessed his allies.  Karson moved in to attack another as the Stirges flew in to the front lines and attached themselves to Araloth and Melandrach, drinking their blood.  Talindra stepped forward and unleashed a Shattering wave in the midst of the bugs, hurting his allies, but killing all the bugs.  With Bless active, the party decided to get productive and explored to the east, revealing a glowing cavern.  Dense carpets of weird fungi covered large sections of the floor in this cavern. The growth included puffballs a foot across, weird shelf fungus grown on stalagmites, and large stalks and caps a good five feet tall. Some of the puffballs glowed with an eerie green phosphorescence.  They turned around to explore the last corridor behind them in the hopes of preventing any surprises creeping up on them later.

Melandrach listened to the eastern door, but heard nothing from within.  While he had his ear pressed up against the door, he felt more than heard a sound.  A single low deep thrum and tremble, like a large heavy pounding sound a long way off, carried through the rock.  Araloth listened at the other door but heard nothing.  Araloth opened his door and revealed splintered stone benches and heaps of rubble from a partially collapsed ceiling filling this room. Amid ruined stone bunks and toppled weapon racks were the bones of several dwarves and orcs.  Melandrach opened his door.  This chamber was once an office or storeroom of some kind. A large stone counter bisected the room, set with three dusty balance scales made of iron. Cubbyholes carved into the north wall were stuffed with dusty paper scraps. Several long dead corpses – gnomes and orcs by their look – were sprawled across the floor.

As the group discussed the possibility of using these rooms for resting later and Ramond said they should fully search these rooms now rather than later as they should never plan on returning anywhere, Araloth and Devere entered the west room to look around.  As the group continued talking the bodies on the floor surrounding him pulled themselves together and the dead rose around them and nine skeletons attacked!  Two rounds of combat later the skeletons were dead and Melandrach had needed a heal spell.  They searched the room and found nothing of interest.  Expecting the same in the other room, they moved over and prepared for an attack, but nothing happened.  Araloth went to the cubby holes and started looking at papers.  They crumbled at his touch so he tried to read some where they sat.  The ink was faded to almost nothing, but he could make out some dwarven writing.  This looked like records of weigh-ins and disbursements from the mine.  Ramond checked behind the counter and found a rusted but study lockbox.  Araloth gave it his all but couldn’t pick the lock.  Bilba gave it a try and almost had it, but failed.  Talindra saw no harm in trying and effortlessly popped the lock to find it stuffed with coin.

By this time a few people were interested in a short rest as spells were running low and some needed healing.  They also wanted to Identify those boots they thought would be magic.  Talindra identified them (DM: Boots of Striding and Springing, which Bilba put on) and they had a rest while the Owl kept an eye out at the junction. As they sat around resting they all slowly noticed a tremor through the ground.  A short shake.   A dull thud only felt at first, but once they knew it was there they could just about here it.  About once every two minutes a single quake happened, like something heavy but far away.

DM: It was about 11pm on a Sunday so we called it there as any encounter could go on for a long while.  They are maybe two hours in to their adventuring day and on the final stage of the first major story arc at last!