Wave Echo Caves (Part 2)

• Daran thinks the puzzle may be some kind of key, but we have not yet seen anything it might unlock, of course.
• He offered to help identify the magic items we found - though he said he was out of practice and it would take a while.
• The town was so distracted with the festival he assured it would be safe to leave the items with him while he worked.

Phandalin’s townmaster had never paid our group much attention, if you recall - and it seems Mr. Harbin Wester is originally a banker from Waterdeep who saw opportunity in Phandelin as a mining town that he thought he could grow it into the next city.  With this ambition, Mr. Wester has been employing this other adventuring party - these Dragonslayers - who have been busy in many of the areas where we have also been doing things around Phandelin, the Neverwinter Wood and Sword Mountains.

This group happened to return just one day before we got to town, with a cart carrying the head of a Unknown they just killed up on Icespire Peak - which sounded like it’s not too too far from the Echo Wave Cave entrance. This head is their second big trophy in town now - after the scorpion tail they got off a Manticore at Umbrage Hill as decorations in Barthen’s Provisions store.

So this other group will be celebrated in this grand festival and feast put on by Mr. Wester and the town of Phandelin. Their party showed generosity giving out coins to everyone, dragon scales to the kids, they are the celebrity heroes in the town now, especially with our sponsor Sildar Hallwinter having been away.

Read their stories here: (Early Deeds of the Dragonslayers) - click each section name to see more.

Yeet's Story: Harpers Help

Once Nezznar Baenre the Black Spider was locked up with Ujio and Mon-Kei promising to watch him until the escort Sildar Hallwinter called for arrives to take him to Neverwinter, I headed out of town on a fast horse, promising to return to Phandalin in 3 days and making good time traveling light and reached the town of Leilon that night, where I could consult with a contact from The Harpers.

I had two objectives:

1. If I am facing things like "flying death" or "skull of fire" I would like to be prepared!
2. Something bothered me about what Vyerith and Iarno Albrek  were reporting from Thundertree.

So yes, I had questions, and I did not think the answers would be in a tiny village like Phandalin.

By the way: there are some odd things going on in Leilon that we might look into later, they are rebuilding from some serious recent attacks.

Dungeons

The skull of fire Nezznar mentions in the room he marked "flying death" could be what my source called a "Flameskull." These are a kind of undead creation that evil wizards can make to guard something. It’s a skull that flies and appears wrapped in flames.

• They have lots of fire spells they can use to attack,
• they cannot be hurt with fire or cold and magic is not so great against them.
• If defeated, you have to use holy water or a spell to remove the magic or curse that made them or they come back.

Dragons

Even though we never saw the Cult of the Dragon while we were in Thundertree, Reidoth mentioned them to us and then Iarno also brought them up when speaking to Nezznar. He seemed to think they were connected with the Red Wizards - who I have always heard to be rather evil necromancers, even if Hamun Kost at the Old Owl Well ended up being helpful and guiding us to successfully find the entrance to the Lost Mine.

Now add this thing in Phandalin with the Unknown those other guys killed - and the Unknown we saw in Thundertree - what is going on with dragons and this cult? I don’t have answers yet, but I now have an idea of who to ask if we go to Neverwinter or Waterdeep. This Cult of the Dragon has been around for a long, long time trying to do some crazy things to bring powerful evil forces into the world.

Daran as told by Tallon

Daran Edermath asked many questions about the adventure. I think even though he is retired he misses some of that excitement. When I got to the part about the room full of deadly mushrooms, he became very thoughtful and when I returned to see what he had learned about the magic items, he asked if we had any way to shift into the Ethereal plane to walk past them without disturbing, or to see if the other side could be reached by a teleportation spell like Misty Step.

He also said that while the Lords Alliance  tries to be like the law and order for the lands, only the Order of the Gauntlet is really there to stop evil and protect people. The first priority of the alliance is keeping those lords in power and their cities from danger. He has heard that already another group - the power-seeking Zhentarim are to find and control the Forge of Spells, and if word gets out further, it could bring all kinds of forces into confrontation to control the place -- the Red Wizards, Harpers, everyone who thinks they are the ones who deserve it.

Maybe we should think about what we will do when we find The Forge of Spells?

Daran used magic (Identify) to found out about the magic items we found:

1. The belt is called the Belt of the Dwarven Guildmaster - it’s quite heavy, but worth it! It can store a large number of tools and poof them away or poof into your hand as you think of what you need while you are working. I’ve filled it with my hammers, tongs, chisels, hammers, squares, nails, and hammers. It also lets the wearer make simple repairs to broken things with a magical trick called a Mending cantrip.
2. The little crown thing is called the Circlet of Mystra - it helps with spellcasting simple spells, boosting their power a bit, and on the night of the full moon can hold a ritual for an emergency quick-cast. Or something. He said it won’t work so well if you are wearing more than light armor.
3. The staff is quite strange - it is kind of aware, like an elemental, but had been forced into the form of a Spider Staff and trained to be injected by venom that it could then add to an attack. It can also help a wizard use spider-like abilities, but only if you know how to cast those spells. One spell lets you climb walls like a spider and the other lets you make a web like a spider. Daran thinks it might be in the process of altering itself now that it has been freed of the Drow.

Mon-Kei's Story: Evil Escapes

Like Ujio and Tallon said, Townmaster Harbin Wester was not very interested in us or the prisoner, since he was so busy getting this festival and feast together for the Dragonslayers. But someone who was interested in us and the prisoner was Halia Thornton.

Halia owns the Phandalin Miner’s Exchange, a trading post and records office for the claims of the miners working in the hills and mountains. She also is the guildmaster for the miners and seemed very smart and confident.  She thinks she would be a much better Townmaster than Harbin Wester, sharing many stories describing in detail what a fool he is.

Halia visited several times, bringing a very nice tea and sometimes something freshly baked. While I am usually quite happy meditating alone, all the noise in the town preparing for the celebration was distracting and she kept things from being so boring. We talked a bit about the Lords Alliance and Sildar. She seemed angry with Iarno Albrek  for coming to Phandalin pretending to be from the Lords Alliance, only to turn traitor and taking over the Redbrands as "Glasstaff."  Halia was part of the group that Sildar led to drive them out of the manor. Like myself, she seems to pack more punch than her size.

She also said there was a spy in town planted by the  Harpers, but she did not know who it was. She said the Harpers are always trying to find and take powerful things for themselves, without explaining anything to anyone. They say they are doing it to "protect the world", but if they have nothing to hide, why are they always so secretive?

One day she and I were having our tea, when I suddenly felt very dizzy and fell asleep. The next thing I remember is Ujio waking me up - he found me and Halia lying unconscious on the floor and the jail cell unlocked and the Black Spider gone.  Halia got very angry and ran back to the Miner’s Exchange to see if someone had messed with her records or stolen anything while she was knocked out.

Yeet had just returned from Leilon, so we got Tallon and headed back here immediately, since we no longer had to wait for the prisoner escort!  In addition to food and fresh water, we grabbed some of the items we wanted to prepare for our next challenges - like holy water from Phandalin's shrine to Tymora. 

Willow's Story: Tracking Trouble

Shadow and I had some wonderful times exploring the hills, tracking and hunting, even venturing up into the snowy regions. We took care of some stray groups of orcs and goblins and met a few miners looking for gold, iron or even our very own Lost Mine of Phandelver.

When Belcoria told me about someone leaving the mine, Shadow and I got right on the case!

The tracks were not so hard to follow at first, but then things got a little weird. My guess was these were footprints of the other Drow we heard about - Vhalek. They certainly were not bugbear, dwarf or human.

Then we found discarded boots - just normal leather boots - that fit the prints we had been tracking, but the tracks that followed from there were much larger than would fit in the boots. In fact, they were not even those of an elf or a dark elf, they were more like those of a large human. Then just before the bed of a small stream, they changed again to be much smaller - like a gnome’s.

Shadow was also confused - the scent was the same for all of these and he thought it was different from anything else he had ever smelled. When he first noted the strange smell, I thought it was because he had never met the Drow dark elves, but if Vhalek, maybe he is something else?

We lost the tracks in the stream, then each of us did a wide circle to try to see if the tracks doubled back - we found nothing and returned here.

(Next: Wave Echo Caves (Finale) )