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

The party spent 3 days in the mine doing occasional guard duty as old shafts were reopened.  Occasionally a rat swarm, a jelly, or a skeleton would be revealed and dealt with, but mostly the party got some down time to do with as they wanted.  Devere announced that he wants to stay and protect the mine for now and returned some of his magic items to the party, but kept his new mace. (DM: Real life is clashing right now.  We hope to see him return later).  They party made plans for the next week or two.  Talindra wanted to stay here for a few more days and finish a project she had been working on in the Spellforge.  Thorivor wanted to return to town and develop his potion crafting.  Ramond wanted to head to Neverwinter to do the kind of serious trading that can’t be done in the backwater town of Phandalin.

They headed back to town, leaving Talindra and Devere behind.  When they got there Ramond went off to buy a saddle and barding for his new summonable horse while the others parked the horse and cart.  As he returned to the group they were greeted by an older looking Druid who introduced himself as Reidoth (DM: They have a quest to find this missing druid.  It took a few minutes for them to put two and two together, at least out loud for me to hear).  He said he needed some help with a threat and the animals he’d been speaking to had suggested them.  The animals had told him about their adventures in Neverwinter Wood dealing with goblinoids at Cragmaw Castle.  (DM: The druid was supposed to be an NPC who didn’t leave Thundertree but when Devere said he was leaving over Discord in the morning I had another friend offer to sign up with a healer and I suggested he rewrite this character and make it his own.  Had he not I think they’d have spent a week in Neverwinter shopping before going to Thundertree and I’d have had Reidoth be a dragon’s lunch by then)

He’d been checking up on the ruins of Thundertree a few weeks back and an injured young green dragon had crash landed there and taken residence in an abandoned tower.  He’d had a conversation with this Venomfang to ask her to move along.  She’s said she was too injured (big visible wound across left side of neck and in to the wing a little) and just needed a place to heal up and would leave when she was strong enough.  An injured dragon was still too much for Reidoth so he didn’t push the issue and chose to watch events from a safe distance.  It’s been a couple of weeks and the dragon has shown no signs of moving on and just seems to be getting more comfortable, and now some dodgy folks in robes and masks have moved in to town too.  This is far too close to Neverwinter for such a threat to get a stronghold and so Reidoth has come looking for aid in removing that threat, one way or another.  The party agreed to help and used the Sending Stones to call Talindra to town.  They ate lunch and got to know each other and then headed towards Tresendar Manor to speak to Sildar Hallwinter.

At the top of the hill they can see that the ground floor is ready for use, but the upstairs is still being worked on.  When they enter they are greeted by Sildar who calls four soldiers to attention behind him.  There’s a chat about how things have gone and Sildar congratulates them.  He then says his work in town is done.  He came here to find Iarno and make sure his mission is a success.  Iarno was sent to town to establish a constabulary to guard Phandalin and now Sildar has the manor ready for use for that and some special agents (the party) protecting town.  He’s had four junior members of The Lords Alliance stationed at the manor and it’ll be their job to act as town guard, under the leadership of the party.  He had one last request of the party.  If this mission is to be a lasting success then there needs to be some locals in the constabulary, not just Lords Alliance soldiers.  If it’s just outsiders then sooner or later the townsfolk will see them as such, and treat them as invaders.  The constabulary needs to be seen as part of the town so needs to have members of the town within its ranks.  The party have been asked to keep an eye out for suitable people to recruit and perhaps train.  Sildar said he’d be heading off to Neverwinter in the morning to get his next assignment.  The party said they were heading that way too and Sildar asked to join them on the road.

They rested up and the journey to Neverwinter was uneventful.  They arrived late on the third day and got rooms at an inn.  They spent the next day selling off their gems, trinkets, and second hand weapons and armour without going overboard looking for the best price.  They stayed a second night and headed towards Thundertree.  They got within sight of two with an hour or two before sunset so while most made camp, Araloth, Karson and Reidoth (in the form of a giant spider) went for a quick look around town.  They skirted around the outside at first and then crept in to town when they couldn’t see any threats.  Araloth climbed up a building for a better view as Karson went ahead.  As he was sneaking through some bushes under cover of twilight a twig snapped underfoot and it let out a grating chirrup.  All the bushes around him started to shake and chirrup and tried to attack him.  He was surrounded by Twig Blights!  A short and easy combat ensued as twig blights are weak and Karson gets 5 attacks on round one now so killed 5 of them before anyone could act.

Once the Twig Blights were dead, they got a little more cautious.  They climbed up a building for a better view and Reidoth pointed towards where the shifty men in cloaks had been seen.  They sat around and watched for half an hour and eventually one of them came out for a smoke.  They’d seen masks and cloaks like this before when they’d been sent to deal with Claugiyliamatar’s hobgoblin army.  These were more dragon cultists!  They crept back to camp and discussed what they’d seen.  Thorivor (DM: After I’d given him a swift kick under the virtual table to look at his backstory) revealed that this was his home town and he’d seen the recent state of it before.  He shared what information he had on the local monsters.  Twig Blights, Giant Spiders, and Ash Zombies (Zombies somehow infused with ash from the eruption decades ago).  All things that Reidoth had already mentioned, but this reinforced everything).  They got a good night’s rest and prepared to head out the next day to meet Venomfang.

It was about 11pm and doing anything would have kept us there for a long time so we called the session for the week.