6-10 Nightal

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The adventures of The Western Shield as recorded by Revi.

6 Nightal

We began the day attempting to do some problem-solving with Captain Dunfield and Alasara in Helm's Hold. We managed to get both to agree to allow the spellscarred stay in the cathedral courtyard if they had nowhere else to go, provided that we could solve the problem of feeding everyone.

While Gef and I talked with Halas and other spellscarred at the cathedral about this proposed solution, Jacob and Mival accompanied a few groups of the spellscarred leaving the city to the front gates and the refugee camp. Jacob said that while wandering the refugee camp, the two met Curran Corvalin, a sharply-dressed tailor who invited them to join him for a drink at The Old Dirty Dwarf, and Nardur, a refugee attempting to drum up support for the King of Neverwinter.

After reuniting at the cathedral, we headed over to the docks to talk to Edic Tilveran about the fishing situation in Helm's Hold. He told us about the areas further up river and to the east, where the fisherman refuse to go. Seeing this as a challenge, Mival rented us a boat and we set off up river to the east. Our upriver sailing trip went decently well until we ran into a cross-river chain blocking the way at Wolford and docked at the guardhouse.

Immediately, we spotted motion on the opposite shore and a number of boats filled with kenku started heading out onto the river towards us. Mival dropped a well-placed grease slick at their landing point and Jacob and I helped him beat the kenku back into the river. In the meantime, Gef transmogrified into a squirrel and dashed across the chain into town. There, she saw cultists in robes directing the kenku to fight us off. Due to superior cover at the guard tower and Mival's quick thinking in greasing the landing area, the kenku were pushed back to town without much incident and we reunited on the opposite shore of the river. We retreated back to the south to the more relative safety of a grove, concerned that the kenku were regrouping to attack a second time.

While in the grove, Gef talked to an animal in a language the rest of us didn't understand. It told her something about magical protection over this area. We took a brief rest to wait for the evening, then set off towards the Phylund Lodge, a hunting lodge northeast of Wolford. While walking the path towards the lodge, I shot down a dark beast carrying a message from the town to the hunting lodge. The note, which was addressed to Thegger and signed by Adbane Dall, mentioned dwarven captives in town and asked about one named Jekk being interrogated in the lodge. Knowing we had the element of surprise on our side, we decided to sneak in to the hunting lodge through the caves and the basement.

When we got to the main lodge area, we beat back a gnoll captain and a handful of gnolls in order to prevent the escape of a wizard in red robes. Mival and I tied the wizard up and gagged him in the main room to prevent him from trying a spell once he regained consciousness, then we all went into the side room to find a dwarf tied to a chair.

He introduced himself as Jekk Ironfist and that was about the last thing he said that made any sense. He told us that he was the son of Kellick Ironfist, a champion of the arena fighting pits in Waterdeep. He also told us that he and his party of dwarves were looking for the lost dwarven city of Delzoun and the forge of Gauntlgrym deep within Mount Hotenow. None of them explicitly knew where to find it beyond "deep in the mountain" but Jekk was travelling with his cousin Thodd, whom he believed to be the true heir to Gauntlgrym. By virtue of his bloodline, Jekk explained, Thodd should be able to lead the dwarves back to the city to reclaim it for his ancestors. He did concede that Thodd also doesn't explicitly know where it is, but pointed out that he has a tendency to step up and guide the group after a few strong ales.

Pressed more on what they were seeking to find in Delzoun, Jekk mentioned that the fires of the forge of Gauntlgrym were hotter than any other forge fire and could make stronger and more pure metals than anywhere else. He also offhandedly mentioned that there were rumors that the fires of Gauntlgrym were not of the material plane and that the location of the forge was exactly what the Red Wizards were interrogating him about, but failed to connect the dots there.

Searching the office space where the wizard was questioning Jekk, Mival found a health potion, a Potion of Diminution, and a lodestone resting in an empty bowl and Gef picked up a +1 Dagger. We also noticed that the wizard seemed to have the unfortunate habit of burning messages after reading them, so there was nothing we could gain from any correspondence he was having with the town of Wolford or anyone else.

At that, Mival and I turned our attention to the now-awake wizard, who told us his name was Thegger. I held a blade to his throat as Mival questioned, to prevent him from attempting any magic. After some coercing (in the form of a few missing fingers), Thegger informed us that the Thayans, under the command of Szass Tam, were looking to cleanse the world and that his task was to seek the fires of the forge of Gauntlgrym to further that goal. He also let us know that the lodestone Mival found would point the way to the lich Valindra, his boss. Jacob ended the interrogation with a few quick swings of the sword and we burned the body in the lodge's hearth before leaving.

On the way back to the protected grove, we happened across a couple Mintarn Mercenaries on patrol on the trail. Gef surveilled the pair in the form of a fox, but rather than expose ourselves and risk a fight with them, we decided to leave them alone to deal with a few gnolls that were hiding in the brush alongside the trail.

7 Nightal

The next morning, we returned to the guardhouse on the southern riverbank near Wolford. I summoned an owl familiar and did a little reconnaissance over the city to find a way in, but there was nothing so easy so as to allow us all a way to sneak in. We decided to move up river and return to Wolford from the eastern path, with Gef assuming the form for a cat to break into the town and create a diversion that would allow us to rush the eastern gate.

Gef found a way over the wall and into the town in cat form, then made her way to the old mill on the riverfront, where she knocked over a torch to start a fire and draw the kenku away from the guard posts. Once we saw the smoke, Jacob, Mival, Jekk, and I made a dash for the eastern gate. Jacob tried to silence the guard in the tower with a well-placed arrow, but missed. Before that guard was able to warn the others, Mival shot a bolt of energy that brought him down. I scaled the wall and unlocked the doors, and the four of us ducked into town and headed for the northeast quarter to rejoin Gef. Once in the sectioned-off northeast, we shut and barred the gate that led to the rest of town and set about looking for the captive dwarves.

Below the warehouse, Jacob and Jekk came across 12 tied-up, beaten, and tortured dwarves, but no Thodd. As they were freeing the captives, two cultists and The Butcher, a large demonic man wearing too many blades, emerged from another building. Mival, Gef, and I sprung into action, surprising the cultists. Back in the warehouse basement, Jekk took off running deeper into the tunnels to find Thodd and Jacob gave the dwarves a sword to cut themselves loose, then ran up to assist us.

When the cultists and The Butcher drew close, Jacob used the Javelin of the Wind to blow them back into a patch of grease that Mival had centered on the road. Meanwhile, a harpy emerged on the other side of the road and began trying to charm everyone. After a few tense moments, an airbender arrow shot by yours truly, some magnificent whiffs by The Butcher, and a series of killing blows by Gef, we were victorious. One immediate downside though: the harpy's shrill screams brought the kenku running and they began beating on the locked gate, trying desperately to get through to us.

The Shield returned to the lower level of the warehouse and through the basement hallway to the storage area under the inn. There we discovered that one of the captured dwarves was tied onto a spit over a large cooking fire. Jekk angrily exclaimed that this captive was not Thodd and took off down a different hallway, suggesting over his shoulder that we deal with the cooking dwarf ourselves. Jacob cut the poor dwarf down and he introduced himself as Pangretor Battlebeard. He was nude and covered in grease, so we found him a robe and gave him a +1 Greatsword to use as he followed us down the hallway after Jekk.

We moved north through the dark hallways and noticed that some of the rats scurrying around the basement seemed to be watching us and acting strangely. We came to a bridge over the town's moat and, on the bridge, the group found a corpse strung up and hanging out the window over the moat. Mival and I pulled up the body and noticed that he was wearing the holy symbol of Chauntea around his neck. At that moment, a huge portcullis dropped on either side of the bridge, separating the group. Mival and I were stuck between the heavy doors on the bridge, Pan and Gef were outside the outer door, and Jacob was in the inn's basement.

Pan and Gef pressed on and explored the building on the outside to try and find way to lift the doors, as two rats scurried into the closed off bridge area, turned into demons and attacked Mival and me. Pan found the winch to raise the door, but was attacked by cultists and masked priests who screamed a warning to Adbane Dall. Mival killed off one demon and Jekk killed the other and the priests fled while a smoke monster appeared. Pan and Gef took care of the cultists, but not before they had a chance to warn Adbane of our approach. The priests returned from the storeroom where they were hiding and beat down the lower doors with a pair of floating mauls. I used Kemten's Coin to illuminate the lower levels and spotlight the smoke monster, who fled and hid, and the group all rallied against the priests and took them down.

As we cleared out the last of the priests, Adbane appeared at the top of the stairs with Jekk at knife-point and asked for us to guarantee him a safe route out of town. When we hesitated, Pan threatened him. In response, Adbane slit Jekk's throat, threw him at Pan, and fled back towards town. Pan went savage on Jekk, closing his eyes and tossing him down the remaining stairs (in retribution for the earlier incident with the spit) but Jacob took mercy on Jekk and stabilized him. As Adbane made his break for the bridge, Gef released the winch suspending the portcullis, dropping a spike through Adbane's leg and pinning him in place.

We interrogated Adbane and learned that the Cult of Asmodeus is working in league with the Red Wizards of Thay. They were tasked by Valindra with distracting Lord Neverember and the Mintarn Mercenaries with the flesh golems in Phandalin during the Feast of the Moon. They've been responsible for capturing any dwarves passing through on the way to Mount Hotenow, but their interrogation of Thodd found that he was not the true heir to Gauntlgrym. Adbane also let slip that Valindra cannot leave the Neverwinter Wood. As we explored the area, we also grabbed Adbane Dall's Journals, which were a record of his correspondence over the last three months. Jacob also picked up a creepy mask with the symbol of Asmodeus and started acting all weird with it.

We pushed deeper into the basement and found a makeshift shrine to Asmodeus with a statue of the Lord of the Nine Hells surrounded by paintings of the archdevils Baalzebul, the Slug Lord of the Seventh Layer of Hell, and Mammon, the Lord of the Third Layer of Hell. While we were poking around, we noticed that the statue to Asmodeus was made up of clay, molded on top of an existing statue to Chauntea. At this point we could smell that the fire we started as a distraction in town was continuing to grow, so we tried to work out a plan to get everyone out. The dwarves were very uncooperative and wanted to air their grievances with Thodd and Jekk for not sticking up for them when the cultists started beating them. We left them all to argue in the basement.

We opened the door to the lower half of town to find one kenku left. He wildly gestured to a building on the western side of town, trying to get everyone's attention. Gef and I headed over to that side of town to the former shrine to Chauntea with the kenku and found a silver cane that can detect the presence of precious metals. Meanwhile, Mival and Pan went down to the docks to prep a couple boats and Jacob ran back to the inn to yell at the dwarves to get the hell out of town.

As we tried to decide how to deal with the chain spanning the river, a trio of Mintarn Mercenaries showed up through the northwest gate. They told us they expected the town to be empty and they questioned us on the cause of the fire. We gave them a quick rundown of the cultists and their past deeds in Phandalin on Feast of the Moon. Mival took one of the boats with a tied-up Adbane and rowed across to the other side of the river. The Mintarns helped us control the fire and then took some evidence of the cultists living in town to bring back to Sabine. After they left, Mival came back from the other side of the river with some burned parchment and a blood-splattered boat. The dwarves decided to leave town as well, heading out to the northeast before nightfall. Pan, Gef, Mival, and I took up quarters in the town's guard towers to get some rest for the night and Jacob spent all night in the shrine looking for loot.

8 Nightal

The next morning, Pan headed over to the guardhouse and dropped the chain blocking travel upriver. We all packed up our stuff and loaded in the three empty boats at the docks - Gef and Pan in one, Mival and I in another, and Jacob in a third.

Two hours downriver, we ran into a convoy of cultists sailing to Wolford to reinforce Adbane and his men. Jacob started by throwing on his Ashmadai Mask and pretending to be a cultist. As it turns out, Jacob is really not good at playing it cool. Caught out, he decided to pivot and just rained thorns down on one of the lead boats. Seeing Jacob's very carefully laid plans go sideways, I started using a spectral hand to shove the cultists' oars off their boats and into the water, Mival set the sails on two of the convoy's trailing boats on fire with flaming bolts of energy, and Gef assumed the form of a reef shark and started circling the cultists.

The cultist leader donned his Ashmadai Mask and charmed me into shoving Mival, but Mival's steady sea legs kept him on the boat. The cultist turned and instead charmed Pan into jumping overboard. Jacob yanked Pan back out of the water and together they took down a few cultists on the closest boat. Pan tackled a cultist into the water for the Gef-shark to attack. Pan also called on the favor of his god to tread water and swing his sword with the current of the river, slicing a cultist in half. After we took care of the last of the journeying cultists, Gef climbed into the lead boat to find a carved stone with the likeness of a dwarf and the inscription "Friendship is more than a word; weigh it carefully" on the base. Also, Jacob grabbed the cultist leader's mask so now he's being weird with two Ashmadai Masks.

We consolidated our equipment down into the two largest boats to head back downriver. On the trip, we watched as Pan touched the quartzite stone with the image of the dwarf and noticed that the eyes briefly shone with light, but Pan was unable to make it happen more than once. Pan did recognize the image as Gorm Gulthyn, who's some sort of hero to the dwarven people. As we looked over the stone, we came to the conclusions that it would probably fit into a shrine or statue somewhere (it's about 2' tall, 1' wide, and 10" deep).

When we make it back to Helm's Hold and there's a small welcoming party on the docks, excited to see us return and even more excited that the river was reopened for fishing. As we continue into town, we run into Curran, who says he's off to Neverwinter to mind his shops. After that, we split up to get stuff done in town. Pan went to the town's mason to ask about the dwarven stone, then to a shopkeeper who specializes in trinkets to see if he knew any more than the mason. Gef checked in on the spellscarred and how they were adjusting to the city. I headed over to The Old, Dirty Dwarf and played a few table games with the patrons, win some coin, and found out that our buddy Nardur likes to hang out around Scar Alley.

Later in the evening, we all met back up at the old tannery The Fox and the Hellhound, a building the town council offered us as a place to stay while in town. As we get ready to call it a night, ink devils start showing up out of thin air to talk to Jacob like he's someone important, because of course weird stuff is happening to Jacob. We manage to we fight off the creatures and then rest up for the night.

9 Nightal

Alasara visited us at The Fox and the Hellhound in the morning to complain about Nardur's actions on the town council and to ask us for our help at the next open council meeting. Mival and I went out to the tavern in Scar Alley, the older and more run-down section of the city, to see if we could run across Nardur.

Meanwhile, Pan told us he was heading over to a shrine to Oghma to see if he could learn anything useful about the dwarven stone. He also mentioned that Jacob showed up there trying to be sneaky to talk to the followers of Oghma.

Nardur returned to the inn in Scar Alley late in the afternoon and briefly talked with Mival and me about deposing Lord Neverember and returning the rule of the North to the Northerners. During the conversation, we noticed he smelled a bit like sulfur, so we followed him when he left the inn. In a quieter area, we pulled him aside and tried to pretend to be a cultist and a Red Wizard, but Nardur played dumb. I continued to follow him for the rest of the afternoon. He went to a number of different houses, where he was canvassing for votes among the town council members. In one home, I eavesdropped and overheard him promising one council member a magical bow in exchange for her vote.

At one point in the afternoon, Mival ran across three Helmites calling themselves the "Watchers over the Fallen" and decided to join them at the Helmite Cathedral... I think, for some sort of initiation ritual? He was pretty cagey when I asked him about it, but I guess Helm is always going to be better than Thay when it comes to allegiances.

In the evening, we all met back up at The Dragon's Gauntlet to observe the council meeting. I noticed that there were now six council members, as they'd added two to represent the spellscarred. Nardur and his aide interrupted the meeting early to say that there'd been some trouble at the cathedral and they sent Dunfeld and some members of the Mintarn Mercenaries to deal with it. A bit later, Nardur interrupted again to say there'd been more trouble in the refugee camps and Pan and I say we'll deal with it, but we see what Nardur's doing and we hang out just outside the chamber doors, ready to help.

Gef worked with the the council solve an issue with property taxes and she was asked to stick around for the rest of the session. Mival got sent out of the chamber after the first vote and he joined us in waiting just outside. I sent Gef a message that Pan, Mival, and I were all waiting nearby and ready to help if things in the meeting turned south.

The second issue for the council was to identify a representative from Helm's Hold to the Council of the North meeting, hosted by the Sons of Alagondar and set to take place in a few days. Alasara nominated herself and Nardur nominated himself, deadlocking the group. When Gef cast a vote in favor of Alasara to break the tie, a succubus named Panchesca appeared, complaining that Gef had foiled her plans and summoning some blob monsters to attack the council.

We all rushed back into the room to help Gef and the council. During the fight, Mival blew Nardur into tiny pieces with a shot of blue lightning. Panchesca charmed and kissed Pan, stealing some lifeforce from him. Pan managed to break the charm, sliced off Panchesca's wings, and returned her to hell. We took out the remaining blobs that Panchesca summoned and secured The Dragon's Gauntlet to ensure everyone was safe.

Curran and Alasara were waiting to talk to us outside The Fox and the Hellhound and they asked The Shield to speak at the meeting of the Council of the North. When we agreed, they gave us a teleportation spell linked to the meeting site that we're told will glow to summon us in three days' time.

10 Nightal

The next morning, Alasara came by to catch up with the group and, in the process, agreed to give us the old tannery The Fox and the Hellhound to use as our home base in Helm's Hold. After she left, The Shield held a team planning meeting and we decided to convert it for ourselves, making the second floor into a more comfortable adventuring HQ. After contracting with some workers to make the changes, we decided to head out towards Conyberry to follow some leads related to the Dwarven stone.

After a short discussion on the best way to make the trip, we purchased some horses and gear for the ride to Conyberry. Mival found himself a black horse with white around the hooves and called him Striker, Jacob found a spotted mount and called him Chlorde, I found a white horse and named him Spirit, Gef found a brown mount and named him Clomper, and Pan found a chestnut mount and named him Flint.

On the ride, we came across a trader named Erert, travelling to Conyberry with his family. His cart was stuck in a large puddle on the road outside Conyberry. The puddle was only a few inches deep, so Gef turned into a bear to push the cart, but managed to spook the cart horses in the process. One took off running away from Conyberry and Jacob chased it, but managed to break the other horse's reins and miss with his lasso. In the meantime, Mival rigged Striker up to the cart and got the family through the puddle and on to Conyberry.

At Conyberry, we were met by a man named Harburk Tuthmarilla and his welcoming crew. They greeted us and offered to show us around the town (as long as we only wanted to see the bakery for some Conyberry Crumble and stop for a drink at The Legendary Conyberry Arms inn). Gef wasn't a fan of the guided tour, so she transformed into a squirrel and ran off.

The rest of us continued on towards Lorren's Bakery for some crumble when Pan decided he was not up for the ushered sightseeing either and also that he was very thirsty, so he dashed into the second inn, The Swinging Sword, for a drink and found it totally empty. Harburk sort of glossed over this, saying he wasn't sure why it's empty and suggesting that Pan try The Legendary Conyberry Arms inn for a drink instead.

A few others in the welcoming party inspected Erert's carts and decided they needed some repairs. Mival and Erert accompanied the men, who began driving the carts towards the quarry. Finding that everyone's distracted by the party scattering in three different directions, I slipped off behind some of the buildings to follow Erert's family and the carts unseen. Mival noticed that there was a very large, covered hole in the quarry that the men are driving the carts towards and he cast featherfall on the horses and family as they went over the edge. At this, we were attacked by the men accompanying the carts, who transformed into wolves during the fight. One of them bit me twice, which stung a ton, and another pulled a sword with a glowing blue blade that looked suspiciously like the shard that Rohini was carrying in Helm's Hold. Pan, Gef, and Jacob jumped into the fight and we managed to kill two or three of the wolf men before chasing the rest of them off into the woods.

Mival and I went over the edge down into the hole with the help of another featherfall and Jacob joined us with an interesting plan involving a rope tied to his horse. Pan tried the same move, but Chlorde got spooked and dragged Pan down the road a bit. He decided to maybe not join us in the hole and headed back towards the center of town.

Down in the hole, Mival intimidated a half-orc named Grund, who led us deeper into the cavern. We reached a hallway where bars dropped from the ceiling and trapped us, but Grund lifted the bars up and let us pass under them into the next room. Inside, we found a broken dwarven statue with a plaque that read "found in broken condition in the Sighing Valley," which we know as the home of both the Ancient Order of the Feathergale Knights and the Wyvern Tor. Deeper in this room, we found all of the residents of Conyberry locked up in cages and we released them and pointed them the way back to the surface.

Moving over into the other side of the caves, we came across Baragustas, an Uthgardt Grey Wolf, kneeling over a glowing blue stone. He told us that his tribe was sent here to loot for supplies by the leaders of the Grey Wolves. Jacob tried to talk to him wolf-man to wolf-man, but Baragustas grabbed the shard (wincing in pain as he does) and bolted for the exit. Jacob gave chase, but tripped on the edge of a fallen pillar, falling on his face and spilling his gear everywhere. Baragustas ran into a tunnel and triggered a rock slide behind him, sealing his exit and preventing us from following.

Meanwhile, back up in town, Gef and Pan explored the bakery, the inn, and the Conyberry marketplace. As the townspeople started to wander back into town from the cave, Gef and Pan talked to them about the town's history and heard of an elven banshee named Agathula, who lives in the nearby woods and whom the townspeople believe protects the town and its residents (but not from wolf people?).

Weary from our day, we all met back up at The Legendary Conyberry Arms and settled in for the night.