Chapter 17: Divide And Be Conquered

The Loud Boys in The Lost Mine of Phandelver, A D&D Report

Photo by Marius Karotkis on Unsplash

The remainder of the three adventurers’ journey back into the town of Phandalin was relatively uneventful, apart from the number of itching mosquito bites Uayak managed to pick up in what one would have assumed to be inaccessible locations. “I’m being punished for something,” he moaned, nails scritching.

“I can’t think why,” said Jake. “Maybe the gods don’t like people questioning how the world is run. The way you’ve been doing for the last six hours.”

The trio unloaded their loot at the shop where Uayak maintained his tyranny over the shopkeeper, and proceeded after some discussion to the town hall, where it seemed most likely that they would find information about the Redbrand Ruffians who had taken over the town recently. They were greeted in the lobby by a middle aged human dressed in robes embroidered with griffons, who gave them a dignified welcome and led them to a smaller, more private room, furnished with soft armchairs and platters of bread and cheese. The three adventurers fell to, enthusiastically. “I must thank you all most heartily for your role in my rescue,” he began.

Kila’s brow scrunched. “Who are-”

Uayak smoothly spoke over Kila. “You are most welcome, Sildar Hallwinter. It was our pleasure and privilege to assist you from the goblin cave.”

“Goblin cave,” muttered Kila, tapping his chin with the piece of bread he had just picked up. “Goblin cave… Oh, I remember now! We found you half-dead when we were looking for the dwarf that hired us, what’s his name again…”

Sildar gave Kila an odd look. “Gundren Rockseeker, yes. Our mutual employer. In fact, he is still missing. I was sent to assist him in his plans to reopen the old mine near Phandalin in order to restore this little town to a centre of civilisation, but his disappearance has disrupted our hopes of rejuvenating this outpost in the wilds. We were captured together on our way to Phandalin by the goblins you so kindly defeated during my rescue, and I overheard them discussing transportation of Master Rockseeker and his secret map of the mine’s location to a Cragmaw Castle. I have not yet, alas, been able to uncover the location of this castle, else I would have already set out to find Master Rockseeker.”

“A castle? Do you think that was the castle the druid was telling us about?” said Kila.

“You know the location of Cragmaw Castle?”

“Sure,” said Uayak casually. The halfling flicked his fingers and spun a dagger out of thin air to slice the chunk of cheese before him. Delicately, he speared the morsel and ate it off the tip of the blade. Sildar waited patiently.

“We know where the castle is,” said Uayak, when he was done with the cheese. “But I want your help with something first.”

“Name it,” said Sildar, calmly.

“These Redbrands,” said Uayak. His voice changed, became harder. “How come no one’s tried to get rid of them?”

Sildar’s face stiffened, and his hands, resting on the arms of the chair, clenched into fists. “That will be next on my list,” he said. “What is your interest in the Redbrands?”

Uayak looked steadily at Sildar. The two young men seated on either side of him had stopped eating- in Kila’s case, mid-chew and mouth open- as Uayak ground out the word. “Revenge.”

“If you don’t mind me saying,” said Sildar slowly, “you don’t seem like the sort the Redbrands usually target. In fact, you seem- forgive me- more like a member of the gang.”

“I was,” said Uayak shortly, and leaned back in his velvety armchair, the dagger flashing playful patterns in his slender fingers. “But they took everything from me, and it’s time for them to pay.”

Sildar regarded the halfling intently, and then nodded. “I suppose anyone can have a change of heart. Or at least of direction… I can tell you that they seem to be holed up in the old Tresendar manor up on the hill. But the place is ruined and no one’s been able to find the entry to the hideout, or at least to trust me enough to tell me where it is. It’s odd; I wish I had Iarno to help me. You wouldn’t expect there to be so many problems in a town this small.”

“Who’s Iarno?” piped up Jake. He had eaten to satisfaction, wiped his fingers fastidiously on his adventure-stained and combat-torn robes, and was now playing with his cube of many colours again.

“Oh, my colleague,” answered the knight. “Iarno Albrek. He’s a wizard who was sent here two months ago to start the work of civilising Phandalin, but he disappeared shortly after arriving. I was supposed to provide support for him, but I don’t know where he’s gone, and neither does anyone else. Actually, if you see him in your travels, let me know. I’ll reward you for any information.”

“Of course,” said Uayak. “So we can count on your support?”

“You want me to come with you?”

“If you want us to tell you where Cragmaw is.”

Sildar looked steadily at Uayak, and the halfling met his gaze, the dagger still flicking and flashing almost unconsciously through his fingers. The knight nodded, and put his hand out for Uayak to shake. Uayak reached out with the undaggered hand.

“All right, my Loud Boys,” said Uayak, sheathing the little shining blade. “You’ve been pretty quiet. Let’s get ready. It’s time to make some noise.”

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They crept through the ruins of the grand building. Holes had formed in tattered rugs where herbs and saplings were forcing their way between stone tiles. Moss grew on sheltered walls. Past the atrium the rooms still had roofs and dust piled thickly on old desks and suits of armour, making the muddy tracks that led to the stone staircase at the corner of the kitchen particularly obvious.

“So no one could find this?” said Uayak dubiously, eyeing the prints.

“You have a point,” said Sildar. “I wonder how the Redbrands are threatening the townspeople. None of them would admit to knowing anything to me.”

“When I was in the gang, we used to move locations pretty often,” said Uayak. “But this looks like they’ve settled in. They must have a pretty firm hold on the town.”

Kila was peering down the staircase. “I can see a door, but there’s light coming from around the edges,” he said.

“Weapons ready,” said Uayak, short swords sliding free from scabbards. Kila took his new axe out. Jake snapped his fingers several times, sparks flying. Sildar unsheathed his sword.

They advanced down the steps, and Uayak tried the knob. It was unlocked.

As the door swung open, they saw that they were on a landing above a large cellar, with short flights of stone stairs descending on either side of them. In front of them was a large stone cistern continuously filled by pipes in the ceiling with cold, fresh water. A door was visible in the wall to the right of the cistern. Barrels clustered the walls on both sides.

“I’m going this way,” said Kila, his armour clanking as he moved to the stairs on the right.

“Then I’m going this way,” said Jake, his robes rustling as he moved to the stairs on the left.

“Wait, wait,” said Uayak. “We can’t just split up like this. We don’t know what’s ahead. We’ve got to stay together.”

“We’re still in the same room,” said Jake, as he continued down the stairs. “It’s not like we can’t see each other.”

“Fine,” said Kila, annoyed, and turned around to clank towards the stairs on the left.

Sildar waited in the doorway. He had donned a spare set of leather armour, his own having been transported by the goblins along with the dwarf entrepreneur to Cragmaw Castle, and while it creaked when he shifted his weight, it did not create quite the same amount of noise as Kila’s did. “Do you think we should try to be a bit quieter?” he murmured. “Keep the element of surprise on our side?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Kila, and started to tip toe, still clanking, down the stairs.

At the doorway next to the cistern, the adventurers stood bunched, considering their next move. “You go first,” whispered Uayak, pushing Kila forward. “Just slam open the door and be prepared to fight.”

“I’ll get my burning hands ready!” said Jake, lining up behind Kila.

“You’d better go first then,” murmured Sildar, courteously. The knight sidled to stand behind the young wizard. “We wouldn’t want to get caught in the flames.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” said Jake, hands already waving in arcane patterns. “I won’t hit you.”

Kila was already opening the door. Three scruffy ruffians were lounging on dirty beds, evidently on break. They looked up, surprised, at the big human fighter who suddenly came barrelling into their resting room, axe raised and shouting. Jake’s magical fire flowed smoothly around Kila and finished the ruffians off before they had a chance to respond.

Uayak stepped delicately around the sizzling corpses and started rifling through their belt pouches.

“Where did you come from?” said Sildar, puzzled, as he entered the room. “I didn’t see you pass me.”

“What do you mean?” said Uayak absently, as he pocketed the meagre coins. “I was in front of you the whole time. Look, let’s put on these cloaks. They look like a sort of uniform. We might be able to fool anyone we see into thinking we’re one of them. At least, long enough to get close.”

Jake refused, but the rest of the group shrugged on the scarlet cloaks that had been hanging behind the door. Freshly attired, they left the store room and re-entered the cellar they had started in. Looking around, they saw another door beneath the stairs they had originally entered from.

“Let’s go that way!” said Kila enthusiastically.

“Hang on, I just want to check something,” said Uayak. He reached into the cistern and felt beneath the stone lip, walking around the cistern wall until he felt a protrusion under the surface of the cold water, to which a rope had been tied. Quickly, he pulled it up. On the other end was a little waterproofed bag containing two potion bottles, a handful of golden coins and a set of nondescript clothes. Jake snatched the bottles for inspection. One held a red, glimmering liquid. The other looked empty, although a faint sloshing could be heard when he shook it. “Healing and invisibility,” he announced. “Can I have them?”

Uayak shrugged, then turned at the sound of barrel lids falling to the floor. Kila jumped away from the tubs of salted pork stacked along the walls, looking a little sheepish. “I just wanted to see what was inside,” he said. “I wasn’t going to take anything.”

“We’re in a gangsters’ hideout,” said Uayak, using the waterproofed bag he had just found to tuck some of the meat into. “It’s all right to steal from gangsters. In fact, it’s probably a good deed.”

Sildar raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything.

Meanwhile, Jake was staring intently at the wall to the left of the cistern. He reached out and poked at a stone of slightly darker shade than the others in the wall. It slid easily back and an entire section of wall opened up.

“Cool!” he exclaimed. “It’s a secret door! Let’s go through it!”

Kila was standing next to the door set beneath the stairs. “No, I think we should explore this way first.”

Jake stepped through the hole in the wall, resolutely ignoring Kila.

“I think it would be a bad idea to split up,” said Sildar.

Somehow, even though they were underground, they could hear the rumble of agreeing thunder.

“I want to go this way,” said Jake, standing in the hole in the wall.

“I want to go this way,” said Kila, standing at the door under the stairs.

Uayak rolled his eyes. “I think we should check out the door first. We can come back and look at the secret door afterwards, ok?”

Jake shook his head stubbornly. Kila’s lower lip started to tremble.

Uayak looked between the elven wizard and the tall human.

“Fine,” he said. The fire in his voice singed both their consciences, but it was too late. “I’ll go with Kila. Sildar, do you mind going with Jake?”

The knight nodded. Jake caught a glimpse of Kila opening the door as he turned down the hallway revealed by the opening in the wall. Sildar followed close behind him.

“Master Jake, I am not sure that this is such a good-” he began, but Jake was not listening. He was noticing interesting details in the hallway, such as the oil lamps ensconced at eye level every two metres. Someone would have to come past at least every few hours to refill those. Would there be one person whose job was to keep the oil lamps filled? Where would the Redbrands keep the oil? It seemed too easy a job for one person. Maybe that person had some other jobs.

They turned a corner, and then another corner, and the hallway opened up into a large natural cavern, where a cold breeze carried the faint scent of decaying flesh to them. Jake made a face and covered his nose with both hands. The cavern was divided by a crevasse. Two arched wooden bridges were the only obvious means of easily reaching the opposite side.

A creepiness settled on Jake’s skin. He looked warily around.

From behind him, Sildar murmured, “Master Jake, perhaps we should go back-”

An eerie cackle vibrated, but the air still felt dead and cold. The young wizard turned this way and that, trying to find the source of the sound, then realised that he would not be able to localise its origin because he was not hearing physical sound waves, but psychic waves. Something crazy was laughing in his head.

“Can you hear that?” whispered Jake.

“Yes,” said Sildar in a hushed voice. “But not with my ears. I really think we should-”

Jake made a quietening motion with his hand. “It’s ok, I’m sure we can take it. Look. We can see this whole cavern. There’s nowhere for whatever it is to hide except the chasm and that stone pillar on this side of that bridge. If I drop a flaming sphere behind the pillar, I can burn whatever it is. It should be easy to defeat after that.”

Sildar looked at him dubiously, but before he could say anything, the wizard had already rolled pinches of brimstone and iron into a little tallow ball, muttering beneath his breath. A little ball of flame materialised between his fingers. He spread his fingers wide, swung his arms over his head and pushed. The ball swelled to the size of a pony and flew behind the pillar. A mental screech made them both wince, and a monster- an aberration of nature, a creature that should not exist- emerged.

Humanoid in shape and similar in size, the monster had irregular bony blades that marked its spine and made its silhouette fearsome. The blades had been scorched by the ball of flame still burning behind the pillar. A single great eye glared at Jake and Sildar. Whispering nonsense bubbled in their minds, unheard by their ears. Jake’s eyes widened. “A nothic!”

Sildar grimaced. “A what?”

“A nothic! Creatures who were once wizards, they dared to unlock magical secrets they couldn’t fathom. They are no longer the wizards they once were and have no memories of their previous lives.” Jake’s voice made the subtle shift from textbook recitation to his usual conversational tone. “It’s a wizard gone mad with forbidden knowledge!”

“So we can’t reason with it?” said Sildar grimly. “Then we must destroy this evil.”

Before he could take a step forward, the nothic scuttled forward and fixed its great eye on the knight. Its eyelids drew back and the swamp-green iris took on a violet haze. A thin beam of corpse-purple buzzed out of the nothic’s dilated pupil. It struck Sildar in the chest.

“It’s all right,” said Jake reassuringly. “I’ve read about this. That’s its rotting gaze, it might make your finger fall off but it shouldn’t do much too much damage…”

His voice trailed off in horror as black tendrils moved smoke-like under the skin of Sildar’s face. As he watched, chunks of flesh started to melt off the knight’s body. With a gurgle, Sildar collapsed on the floor of the cavern. Within seconds, the knight had been transformed from fellow adventurer to rotting corpse.

Jake looked back at the advancing nothic.

“Uayak?” he said tremulously. His fingers quivered over his spell pouches uncertainly. “Kila? Where are you?”

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Confused? Try chapter 16.

Read on in chapter 18.

Or, start from chapter 1.