1-5 Nightal
The adventures of The Western Shield as recorded by Revi.
1 Nightal
The first morning of Nightal saw the group preparing to leave Phandalin on the Triboar Trail and head north towards Neverwinter. I couldn't pass up a chance to pay my respects to Tymora, so before leaving, Gef and I met with Sister Garaele, the keeper of Phandalin's Shrine of Luck. She encouraged us to find out more about the previous day's kidnappers and what was happening to the spellscarred of the region. Jacob wandered over to the town's shops and came back with more arrows than I've ever seen one person carry.
After wrapping up our business in town, we joined up with a caravan heading north. The caravan also included Clorde, a merchant whom Gef had met in the square during the festival the day before, and Jarvy, a bard whom everyone had met in the inn. After a short distance on the trail, the caravan ran into heavy traffic and was reduced to a slow crawl. During the lull in travel, Clorde wandered off the trail and over to a large rock. Jacob and I became suspicious of Clorde and started investigating, only to find that his merchant cart was empty of goods and only contained a Mintarn Mercenary uniform stashed behind a hidden door. As we snooped, Clorde set off a small flare over by the rock and drew the attention of a nearby patrol of Mintarns. Jacob ran off towards Clorde to put a stop to the signal while Gef and I continued searching the cart. It became apparent that further searching was fruitless and Gef transformed herself into a draft horse to hide from the approaching guards. When the guards got close, Jarvy panicked and immediately snitched on Gef. Jacob saw the guards' approach and ran from Clorde to hide in the woods. The Mintarn guards searched Gef and I and found the badges of the Sons of Alagondar we were carrying, so the two of us and Jarvy were transported to the Mintarn camp and locked in a prison wagon. Jacob silently followed the guards back to the camp from the treeline that ran near the trail.
At nightfall, I lured two guards over to the wagon with a magical trick, Jarvy charmed one into opening the door, and Gef poisoned the other with a quick spray from her hand. Jacob showed up five minutes too late to be any help. The four of us quickly snuck over to the tents to reclaim our gear and, realizing just how outnumbered we were, fled into the woods near camp.
Deep in the woods, we came across a sign in Druidic that Gef said indicated that we were entering Thundertree and that the area was not safe. Jacob ducked into a few buildings to see if there was any cover for the group to set up camp for the night and ran across several reanimated beings. We quickly silenced those creatures, then set up to rest in the structure with the best cover, but we were interrupted by a living tree. After extended ineffectual attacks on the tree, Gef drank one of Jarvy's many potions, which turned out to be a Potion of Growth and enlarged Gef to double her normal size, allowing her to more easily dispatch the tree. Threat eliminated, the four of us settled in for the night.
2 Nightal
The next morning, we set about exploring some of the abandoned buildings of Thundertree. After a time, a patrol of Mintarn Mercenaries entered town looking for their escaped prisoners. Suddenly, a druid named Rogoth appeared and offered us a safe hiding place. He opened a very well hidden door and ushered everyone inside before the mercenaries were any the wiser. Inside the druid's home were two other men: the first, a military-looking human named Arlon Bladesinger, and the second, a red-robed human wizard named Mival Stirag.
Arlon introduced himself as the acting leader of the Sons of Alagondar and informed us that the Sons were at risk of a schism. The more militaristic faction within the group, the Nashers, were tired of the slow progress in undermining Neverember and were trying to wrest full control of the group from the Greycloaks. He suggested that we make their way to Neverwinter and make contact with an agent of the Sons there named Mordai Vell. He also asked that we allow Mival to join our party on the trip northward towards Helm's Hold. Jarvy, not very fond of us after the day's events and seeing her chance to part ways, offered to accompany Arlon to Neverwinter.
That afternoon, the newly-formed party of Gef, Jacob, Mival and I attempted to work out the timing of the mercenary patrols to sneak out of Thundertree via the northern road, but we ended up in an escalating fight with mercenaries, reanimated humans, and a zombie manticore. Taking advantage of the confusion, we slayed a few reanimated beings, spooked the horse out from under one of the mercenaries, and quickly set off to the north towards Helm's Hold.
3 Nightal
The third morning of Nightal, we arrived in Helm's Hold, a city to the southeast of Neverwinter. Residents of the city directed us to the Helmite Cathedral on the northeast side of town to find the group professing to cure the spellscarred. Gef was admitted without issue, but the guards refused to let non-spellscarred inside and Jacob, Mival, and I had to scale the wall surrounding the cathedral and sneak in a back door.
Once inside, Jacob and I set about exploring the main level while Mival scoped out the basement stairs. I ran across a guard in the grand hall and was escorted out, but I was able to signal Gef's location to Jacob on the way to the front door. As soon as the front door closed behind me, I snuck right back in the front and joined Gef and Jacob on the basement stairs to watch Mival open the puzzle-locked door guarding the basement.
Mival opened the door (with a well-timed whisper from Jacob) to reveal a large room with four pillars depicting the god Helm and a strange-looking elf named Chartilifax on a platform in the middle. As we entered the room, the elf spoke in unusual rhymes and warned us to leave, then changed into a green dragon and began attacking. With some difficulty, we managed to gain the upper hand and defeat the dragon and Jacob was clever enough to pop out the dragon's teeth to form the bits on a key to unlock the lower basement rooms.
The next room was filled with enraptured spellscarred, quietly chanting, in a large group on the lower level. We entered on a pair of catwalks, where we encountered a slightly dim-witted guard. In the process of attacking the guard, a wayward arrow fell onto one of the spellscarred below, breaking him of his trance but drawing him into the combat. We switched from ranged to melee weapons to avoid hurting more of the prisoners and quickly dispatched the guard.
Quietly and carefully, we moved down to the lower level to try and discover what was happening. One room contained the crypts of the former members of the Helmite Order, where spellscarred were now resting. Another looked like a mad alchemist's lab, where someone was clearly performing experiments on unwilling subjects. The last room contained a dais with a glowing blue flow of light that retreated back into the wall of the cavern. We watched silently from the back of the hall as one by one, the spellscarred jumped into the light and disappeared in a flash down the stream.
Having seen enough action for one day and hurting for a rest, we decided to retreat back up through the basement... only to find a bewitching woman and her guards descending the cathedral's basement stairs. Seeing a distinct disadvantage in standing our ground bleeding and battered against the well-armed guards accompanying the prophet Rohini, we quickly beat a path back to the next room in the basement, taking the only key with us and locking the door behind us.
The only known way out sealed behind us, we pushed back into the room with the glowing blue light and noticed an opening into the caverns that descend further beneath the cathedral. We set about exploring these caverns and, after beating back a pair of gricks in the darkest of the rooms, hid out in a small alcove to rest up. At some point this night in the alcove, when we were all exhausted, we decided to call ourselves The Western Shield. It made sense, since we were trying to bring a little bit of justice to Helm's Hold and protect the people who struggled to protect themselves. Plus all the best groups have cool names so the bards have an easier time singing about them.
4 Nightal
After patching up and resting in the cave, we pushed deeper and reached a room with a boulder blocking what appeared to be an exit. Physics notwithstanding, Jacob suggested that the party try and move the boulder clear to sneak out. It didn't work.
We doubled back through the previous rooms and picked a different route deeper into the caverns, but we were disturbed by a pungent odor down one of the passageways. As we emerged from an opening, we saw two troglodytes near a cage containing a brown bear. The troglodytes unlocked the door to the bear cage and backed away, expecting the beast to do their fighting for them. Jacob foiled that plan by calming the bear with some rations and a charm as Gef, Mival, and I brought down the troglodytes before they could escape.
We continued deeper into the caverns, descending further below the cathedral and following the flow of blue aura we had first encountered in the basement. Brushing past a few incidents where Jacob shoved Mival down a slope and Mival retaliated by jumping onto Jacob's back, slipping, and falling twenty feet off a ledge, we found ourselves in a room where the walls resembled a brain. At the center of the room on an island was a chest on a pedestal where the flow of blue light ended. As we moved closer, a sound from the back of the chamber revealed that Rohini had caught up with the group.
Jacob and I surged forward to get over to the island before the prophet while Mival and Gef readied their attacks from the cavern walls. Rohini shot up to hover over the island and attempted to charm Jacob and Gef. She failed, but the two realized her intent and played along with the charm in order to surprise her. Unfortunately, her next step was to incapacitate me and kill Mival. I'm told that at this point, seeing her foes very much worse for the wear, Rohini decided to grab the chest from the island and hustle out the way she had entered.
Exhausted and bloodied, Gef and Jacob revived me and the three of us dragged Mival's lifeless body back through the caverns to the basement. Upon returning to the dais room, we noticed that the crowd of enraptured spellscarred were gone. We continued back into the first basement chamber and Gef got the idea to ask for Helm's intercession to help our new friend. She placed Mival's body in front of one of the statues and, judging Mival as a good soul, Helm's statue restored him to life. I think that means he's definitely not a Red Wizard, right?
The group restored, we continued up through the cathedral to find that the formerly enraptured spellscarred had been freed from their trance and were now milling about in the cathedral's courtyard. Too exhausted to be of any assistance, we begged off to find a place in the cathedral to sleep and recover from our wounds.
5 Nightal
We awoke the next morning to find the spellscarred rallying behind a charismatic and self-appointed leader named Halas. Halas introduced himself to us as an exiled nobleman who was seeking treatment for his affliction. He told us that he'd spent years at the cathedral and pointed out that many of the others shared a similar story. His goal was to demand reparations for their plight, as the majority of the recently-freed had no clothing, no food, no money, and nowhere to go. We promised to do whatever possible to help and cautioned Halas not to stir up too much attention with Helm's Hold's Mintarn guards for the time being.
While talking to a few others in the cathedral courtyard, we were informed that dragons often keep lairs and that would not be not uncommon for them to hold hostages within their lairs. We enlisted the help of another spellscarred, Altel Cotte, and journeyed back down into the caverns below the cathedral to find Chartilifax's lair.
After a bit of exploring, we came across a room with an ornate elven throne and four pillars carved with depictions of symbols that I immediately recognized as four elven gods: Aerdrie Faenya, Erevan Ilesere, Rillifane Rallathil, and Labelas Enoreth. These same depictions appeared on four doors lining the right side of the room and in front of each pillar sat a bowl for an offering.
Gef was able to open the door to the room depicting the symbols of Aerdrie Faenya, elven goddess of the wind, by placing an owl statue in the offering bowl and was rewarded with a scroll for a spell called Gust of Wind, a Javelin of the Wind, some boots with drawings of wings on the side, and a quick dip into a pit of acid. I unlocked the door depicting the symbols of Erevan Ilesere, the elven god of mischief and trickery (and my namesake!), by placing a deck of playing cards in the offering bowl and received a Ferocious Shortsword, Kemten's Coin, and Studded Armor of Useful Items after hopping over another pit of acid. Jacob got into the room depicting the symbols of Rillifane Rallathil, the elven god of the woods and nature, by sprinkling some seeds into the offering bowl and received the Ring of the Goat, but accidentally knocked over a staff that began expanding rapidly and pushed the other items in the room into another pit of acid. Mival opened the door depicting the symbols of Labelas Enoreth, the elven god of time and knowledge, by brushing some of Jacob's hair into the offering bowl and tried to get Altel to go into the room for him. Altel was unmoved, so Mival dashed in and grabbed the War Wand of the War Wizard before a fine, hourglass-like sand filled the room.
Returning back to the courtyard, Halas suggested that someone discuss the state of the spellscarred in Helm's Hold with an acquaintance of his on the city council named Alasara Khallum. Jacob and I waited until nightfall, scaled the wall of the cathedral grounds, and crashed the city council meeting to talk with Alasara. She explained that the city couldn't hunt the woods, wasn't bringing in enough from the fisherman, and was running out of food. They could not afford to feed all the additional people now lodging at the cathedral. We suggested that the spellscarred could be helpful to the town if they were allowed to ply their trades. We promised to look into the issues with hunting and fishing, gave her gold to send for another caravan of food from Neverwinter, and asked her to talk to the Captain of the Guard