The Lost Mine of Phandelver
Part One: Goblin Arrows
The two dead horses lay sprawled across the dirt track. Cruel black arrows stuck from their flanks as flies swarmed around the bodies. The sun was high and Gisna of the Cragmaw Tribe licked her sharpened teeth at the taste of horseflesh on the air.
She plucked at the string of her curved bow with a filthy finger and peered through the brambles at the road.
"I'm hungry." Fair Ron snarled in the guttural Ghukliak tongue beside her.
Gisna smacked him in the face with her bow. "Shut it. Klarg told us to sit 'ere until we get something good."
"We got that dwarf and the human." Ron argued. He tapped a long nail against his rusted blade. "That's not nothin'."
Gisna grinned suddenly and sniffed the air as a breeze rustled the branches of the brush. Something sweeter than dead horse. "Smell that sweetness?"
An elf appeared at the bend. His head was shaved, odd for an elf and a longbow was slung over one shoulder. He was heavier-set than an elf had any right to be and his ears were not so high or pointed. Half-elf. He wore supple leather armour and his feet were quick. His eyes fixed upon the dead horses and he raised a gloved hand. Gisna heard it now. The grinding of wheels on the road. A wagon.
"Here's a bit of somethin'." She hissed at Ron.
"Elf-flesh." Ron flashed his pointed teeth.
The half-elf ducked behind a tree, letting his bow roll of his shoulder and into his hand as he did so. Gisna and Ron each knocked an arrow to their bows and she knew Farrer and Sarek, hidden on the other side of the path would be mirroring the movement.
Not too early.
A dark-skinned human woman pulled her chain mail coif over her head as she strode boldly along the centre of the track. There was not a speck of dust on even the hem of her thick cloak. She balanced a wicked looking great axe across her shoulders and cast the half-elf a condescending smile as he ran from tree to tree.
Gisna pulled the arrow back so the feathers brushed her cheek. The human. Take the human and the half-elf would-
Leaves rustled on Gisna's right. Not the wind. Troll shit.
She spun about, caught a glimpse of a round-faced halfling, grinning from thick sideburn to thick sideburn as he sprinted towards her, the dappled sunlight flashed against his blade.
Gisna loosed her arrow and the halfling's mischievous face dropped to horror as the arrow cut through the air by his pointed ear. He dove behind a tree. Gisna heard the halfling fall with a curse. Ron dropped his bow and charged with his sword, whooping victoriously.
Another human stepped smoothly into his path and cut through Fair Ron with a long sword. Gisna shrieked in rage as the human, splattered in goblin blood burst into laughter. She parried Gisna's first wild blow and kicked the goblin in the face with her boot. Gisna barely ducked under a broad stroke and stumbled backwards.
Shit.
She crashed through the whipping branches and onto the road. She caught a glimpse of the half-elf, loosing arrows into the trees at Farrer and Sarek. The human woman, charging up the slight hill.
Too many. Far too many. A flash of light. A figure standing atop a wagon. Three fiery bolts of magical energy crackled through the air, and blazing towards Gisna.
SHIT.
Thia Moonwhisperer watched the goblin slam into the ground with the force of the spell. She smiled, satisfied as the two oxen continued to plod along the track, oblivious to the battle finishing ahead.
"Stop." Thia ordered them. The oxen ignored her and pulled the wagon unthinkingly towards the two horse carcasses in the middle of the road. "You two . . . stop." She said somewhat more forcefully.
"Now, please!" Thia snapped, irritated that the animals dared to disregard her so completely. The half-elf, Carrick Starflower slung his bow back over his shoulder and leaped easily onto the wagon. He halted the oxen with a click and a quick tug on the harness. He smiled wryly at Thia but thankfully otherwise contained his amusement.
"Goblins." Lady Maddi of Corlinn Hill emerged from the trees. She pulled her coif off her head and wrinkled her nose at the blood that coated her axe blade.
"You fell." Opah Winfred said to the halfling, Boomer Slowfoot as they both joined Thia at the wagon.
"I dove. It was a dive." The unusually serious halfling told her, enunciating every word as though the tall mercenary did not speak Common.
"It looked exaclty like a fall." Opah said, brushing a strand of her raven-dark hair out of her eyes.
"Goblins." Madislack said again and her eyes narrowed with irritation. She was someone not accustomed to having to repeat herself. And apparently she didn't enjoy the new sensation.
"Goblins all over these parts." Boomer the halfling said. "It was a dive, too, by the way."
Carrick was already examining the horses.
"These are Gundren Rockseeker's mounts." He told them.
Boomer cast the entire party a bemused look that told them plainly he had been very drunk indeed when he had agreed to escort the dwarf's goods to Phandalin.
"Our employer." Carrick added.
"Oh." Boomer clucked his tongue. "Ex-employer then." He shrugged and sheathed his short sword. "Perils of the road, my friends. Shall we crack on?"
"Wait." Maddi raised an imperious hand and joined Carrick at the horses. "Are you certain, Half-Elf?"
Carrick, if he was insulted by the question did not react. He traced a hand above the dirt. "Here, an ambush. The goblins targeted the horses."
"They wanted prisoners." Opah surmised.
"Yes. A dwarf." He indicated a scrap of inscrutable earth. "He was dragged into the trees. And a man. Tall and well-built. Sildar Hallwinter. Gundren's guard."
"More than a guard." Maddi said. "He is a knight of the Lord's Alliance." She struggled to hide her resentment.
"Hang on." Boomer said, as understanding dawned. "Who's paying us to take all this to Phandalin then?" He waved a small hand at the wagon, laden with provisions.
"By the Flaming Sword." Maddi cursed. "A fine start. Damn these savage backwaters."
"They're still alive." Carrick said, almost crawling along the ground as he pursued the tracks. "You see the gait here? Sildar was still fighting." There was a note of admiration in his voice.
"They won't be alive for long." Boomer said matter-of-factly. "These are Cragmaw Goblins. Savage as they come."
"Then we must be quick." Opah said.
"Agreed." Maddi said. "Hide the wagon and continue on foot." She glanced at the high elf, Thia Moonwhisperer, who had returned to her seat on the wagon and reburied herself in a book; a Detailed Examination of the Many and Contradictory Legal Systems of the City of Baldur's Gate."
"Lady Elf?" Maddi asked. "What say you?"
"Hm?" Thia barely glanced up from her book. "Just let me finish this chapter."
Carrick crept through the trees as birds flitted about the branches above. A faint wind stirred the leaves and carried with it the scent of goblin. The half-elf touched a long finger to the dried blood that stained a leaf.
Human.
He was silent as a wolf stalking deer. And had wordlessly hurried ahead of the main party, who were crashing through the thick trees like orc bandits. Carrick had already pulled Opah away from a snare, she had thanked him cheerfully and then he had stopped Maddi blundering into a pit. They were warriors but not of the wilds.
Carrick leaped lightly over a shallow stream, skipping across submerged rocks. The trees climbed a broad hill; the source of the water. Carrrick kneeled behind a tree and scanned the entrance to a cave. He could see goblin feet had worn a path that ran into the cave beside the water. Dense thickets were a natural wall, flanking the cave mouth.
Boomer did not need to squat to be eye-level with Carrick. The halfling rubbed his thick sideburns.
"What are you thinking, Half-Elf?"
"Carrick is fine."
"Sorry, mate." Boomer raised his bushy brows. "Got a plan though, Carrick?"
Maddi and Opah joined them. The noble Maddi threw her cloak over her shoulder as she knelt in the mud by the stream.
"Lookouts." Opah said, nodding to the thickets. "If they're anywhere, they'll be there."
"We come to it." Maddi kissed the haft of her axe. "I imagine we will face more than a few goblins in that cave."
"And there are four of us." Boomer whispered. "Plus the elf who seems better suited to the quiet life of a librarian in Candlekeep than storming caves."
Icicles suddenly crackled along his magnificent sideburns. "Ouch!"
Thia Moonwhisperer smiled slightly as frost chilled the air. "A librarian can be quite fierce when you come between her and her book."
"Indeed." Boomer rubbed his pink cheeks.
Opah nudged Maddi. "How about a charge?"
Maddi gripped her axe. "A fine plan."
"No subtlety at all." Boomer muttered.
The goblin let loose a vicious stream of curses in his own tongue as Carrick planted a boot on his chest. The companions gathered around as Maddi pulled a javelin from the second goblin's ruined chest. The trees enclosed the group in a hidden clearing that guarded the cave's mouth.
"Does anyone speak Goblin?" Maddi asked.
"Passably. And the language is called Ghukliak." Thia gazed at the struggling creature with distaste.
"Ask him if there are bats in there." Boomer said quickly. "I can't do bats. The flapping. It's too much."
"Never mind the bats." Maddi snapped irritably. "Where are Sildar Hallwinter and Gundren Rockseeker?"
Thia barked a question at the goblin and the change in her face shocked her companions. Ghukliak, a harsh, violent tongue required a knowledge of violence to speak it well. And Thia, it seemed spoke well.
The goblin ceased his struggling and stared at the beautiful elf in shock.
Carrick slowly removed his boot from the goblin's chest.
"He says the human, Sildar is in this cave. In the . . . eating cave. The dwarf was taken to a ruin called Cragmaw Castle."
"Eating Cave?" Carrick asked.
"Cragmaw?" Boomer echoed. "Deep in the Neverwinter Woods. Goblin territory. Nobody knows where it is. He's gone then."
"I want to know the location of that castle." Maddi said, with a sharp glare at Boomer. As Thia began the question, the goblin leaped up, slamming his forehead into Carrick's face. He pushed away and sprinted towards the cave entrance and straight into Opah's sword. The goblin's head rolled along the ground as his body continued its run, headless into brambles.
Carrick rubbed his nose, his eyes running. Maddi sighed.
"Nice swing, hey?" Opah grinned.
The air cooled as soon as they had passed under the rocky entrance to the cave. The dank, damp walls were smooth with the passage of water. The widest passage followed the trickling path of the stream. Carrick and Thia lead the others along the narrow path, as the darkness deepened and human and halfling eyes failed. Carrick wiped blood from his broken nose as growls and snarls sounded from a passage on their right.
Three wolves were chained to an iron post that had been nailed into the rock in the centre of the chamber. The animals were starved and mad with fear, pacing their prison as thick black flies crawled across the tattered bones strewn across the uneven floor.
"We should release them." Carrick whispered. "They're starving."
Thia shot him an exasperated glance. "Later." She said. "They will live until we have finished here."
"And if we die?" Carrick asked. "They die too."
"I suppose now is a good time to learn where my death falls in your list of tragedies. Just behind a vicious wolf." Thia shook her head.
A pall of darkness descended as they moved deeper into the cave and Thia and Carrick found they were grasped and prodded by the struggling halfling and humans behind them, who were not blessed with Elvish sight. Water rushed along the shallow depression beside the track. A single goblin sat forlornly on a gently swaying bridge that spanned the stream. Faint light flickered against the misshapen walls of the cave, so it seemed the shadows played games in the deepest crevices. The light emanated from a narrow passage, steep with rocks that branched away from the main tunnel. The new companions gazed at each other in the darkness.
"I'll go." Boomer whispered, his face half-caught by the stuttering firelight.
The halfling scampered easily over the rocks and then scrambled up the slope, feet and hands somehow discovering secure handholds on the shifting pebbles. His muscles burned with effort as he slowed his pace, approaching the end of the tunnel. The light was dusky with smoke. Boomer could hear goblins cackling. He held his breath and counted, trying to differentiate the voices. Four at least. He crept closer, agonisingly slow and loose pebbles cascaded down the tunnel floor. Boomer winced. Renewed laughter. The halfling peaked his head over the rim of the tunnel. Four goblins were gathered about the fire. Boomer gagged at the stench of rotten meat draped across a spit. Another goblin kicked a sack on the ground as he returned to the his fellows. No, he had kicked a man. A hazy memory of this man in a crowded tavern in Neverwinter. Sildar Hallwinter. He did not even groan as the kick landed. Another goblin, larger than his fellows lay on the floor and sharpened his teeth with a rusted file.
Boomer crept back down the tunnel, sliding the last feet.
"What did your little halfling eyes see?" Opah asked.
"A loudmouth." Boomer said. "With a great bloody sword."
"In the tunnel." Maddi snapped.
"Six goblins. I saw Sildar on the ground but I don't know if he's . . . alive."
Maddi nodded. "Good. I'll lead. You, peasant girl . . . Opah, you're with me. Half-Elf-"
"Carrick."
"Yes, yes. Carrick. You and the little fellow guard the rear. And Lady Elf." Maddi's clipped tone was suddenly softened with deference. "Will you join us?"
"You will need me." Thia said.
"Then you stay at the rear. Support us with your magic-"
"Hang on." Boomer inserted himself into the briefing. "I think I have something better than a mad charge up a slippery slope."
The goblins, having looked properly at the rotting horse meat on the fire were busy arguing whether Klarg would really mind if they cooked the human. He would mind, certainly. But would he kill them? For eating a human who would probably not even live through the night anyway? Never. So, they had decided, it was well worth the risk of a beating for a bit of good meat. But no, said the fifth goblin, his one ally having been swayed. He told them Klarg fancied himself a goblin king. And goblin kings, even if their realm was little more than a cramped cave did not appreciate their edicts being ignored. He was busy explaining the more gruesome punishments that awaited them when a flask sailed over his head and landed in the fire. The goblins stared stupidly at each other. The fire exploded in a sudden conflagration, the flames licked at the faces of the shocked goblins as a halfling leaped out of the tunnel.
Boomer loosed an arrow at the goblins as they scattered. Maddi charged past him and brought her axe whistling on the down stroke. A goblin rolled away, shrieking madly. Opah was duelling another. Carrick caught a goblin through his thick neck with an arrow and he fell, twitching. Boomer ducked under a black-feathered arrow that sparked against the rock wall behind him. Maddi brought her goblin down. The big brute scrambled up the steep steps. Boomer fired an arrow that sliced across his leg. The goblin hissed. His companions were falling, quick as drunks on market day. The goblin stood with his knife poised above Sildar Hallwinter's bloody face and wrenched his head up by his dirty blonde hair. The poor man groaned piteously.
"Oi!" The goblin shrieked as Opah smashed her opponent in the face with the hilt of her sword and cut him down.
"Not another step, or he dies!"
"Who's that, anyway?" Boomer asked conversationally.
"I'll do it!"
"Go ahead."
Carrick whipped an arrow from his quiver with nimble fingers, drew his bow and loosed. The arrow cracked against the dark wall and the goblin, cursing dropped Sildar Hallwinter and scuttled along the ledge, vanishing into an alcove. Sildar, barely conscious rolled over the rock shelf and, as the companions looked on helplessly slammed into the ground.
There was an ugly silence.
Opah knelt beside the injured man. "He's still alive." She said after a moment. She set to prodding his bruised and battered body with rough fingers. Thia silently offered a silken shirt from her rucksack and Opah tore the fabric into shreds.
Boomer exhaled a breath and glanced at Carrick. "Nice shot." He said snidely.
"He . . . moved." Carrick rolled his shoulders.
"They'll be ready for us now." Opah said.
"And we don't know how many there are." Thia added.
"We've got him." Opah pat Sildar Hallwinter, who moaned piteously. "Let's get out of here."
"I didn't risk life and limb for charity." Boomer folded his arms across his chest. "These filthy goblins have been robbing folk a while. They'll have loot."
"Charming." Thia sniffed as only a high elf could.
Maddi wiped the sweat from her brow and frowned at the soot that stained her cloak.
"The halfling is right." She said. Thia made a disbelieving cough. "In a way. This tribe is a danger to all. It is our duty to end them."
"What about this poor fellow?" Opah asked. "We can't drag him with us."
"Make him comfortable and leave him here." Maddi hefted her axe. "We'll return this way."
"Laden with treasure." Boomer added.
The waterfall cascaded over the rocks, feeding the stream that twisted through the cave. The rough-hewn chamber echoed with the wild course of the waterfall. Opah shielded the stuttering torch with her body as steam choked the air and the companions shivered and pulled their cloaks tighter. Carrick examined the footfalls on the damp floor. He nodded towards a natural doorway, shadowed in darkness. Maddi and Opah stood, shoulder to shoulder. Boomer drew his short sword and, seemingly without realising, performed a nervous little hopping dance. Carrick unsheathewd his daggers, swinging the blades in his hands. And Thia flipped through her spell book.
Maddi wrenched her axe free from the bugbear's shattered skull. Ice coated the bugbear's thick fur and the stone floor around. A reminder of Thia's cantrip. The high elf lay against the wall and clutched her head. A purple bruise was already spreading across her face. Opah knelt beside the elf, concern scrawled across her usual grin.
"I'm alright." Thia grimaced as Opah pulled her up. She cast a surly look at the dead goblin near her.
Boomer whistled. "Not bad!" He had hopped onto a crate that was stamped with the image of a blue lion. "We'll need the wagon for all this!" More supplies were piled high against the wall behind him.
"I'll go." Carrick said.
"You're going to free those wolves, you madman." Boomer grinned happily, surveying his treasure.
"How are you doin', elf?" He called to Thia.
"Better than you will be, little one." Thia said. "That blue lion is the symbol of the Lionshield Coster, a merchant company. All of those supplies belong to the company. And I won't let you steal them."
"That's an appalling accusation." Boomer popped his little head over a pile of sacks. "I plan on returning these goods to their proper owner." He began to rifle through the sacks and lowered his voice. "But there's bound to be something missing. Goblins are careless. And then there's the finder's fee to consider." He hummed to himself.
Boomer's quick hands alighted upon a chest, and, praise be to the Lord of Shadows, it was not marked with the blue lion. He grinned as he eased the lid open. A messy pile of coins, a hundred silver at least. And a lovely jade frog. The eyes flashed gold.
"That's better." Boomer whispered.
"What do you have there?" Maddi was looming over him. Boomer's slick grin became a charming smile as he turned. "Look what I found." He lifted the chest onto the crate and saw that familiar hungry greed on the noblewoman's face.
"Excellent." She said. "We'll share these coins out."
"Of course." Boomer nodded graciously as he slipped the jade statuette into his pocket.
Part Two: Phandalin
Swaying. Creaking. Dull voices growing sharper. A painful light behind his eyelids.
Sildar Hallwinter slowly, carefully opened his eyes and the pain in his head roared louder. Wisps of cloud raced across the terribly bright blue sky. Sildar shielded his face.
"You live."
Sildar touched a finger to his throbbing head. His blonde hair peaked from within a bandage, tightened across his forehead. His eyes slowly adjusted to the sudden, overwhelming sunlight.
The elf beside him peered from behind her book. The cover was stamped with elegant, Elvish script. The Houses of Menzoberranzan: A Complete and Detailed Genealogy.
"You are the elven wizard Gundren hired." Sildar groaned. He sat up on the wagon and filtered the pained groan through gritted teeth.
"Thia Moonwhisperer." She said.
"The goblins." Sildar's mind raced through the torture of the previous day. "Gundren! They took him."
"To Cragmaw Castle." The elf returned to her book. "Yes, I know."
Sildar gazed around. The half-elf walked ahead of the wagon. The muscular woman with the rough Neverwinter accent was beside the oxen.
"Oh good. You're awake." Maddi, the bearer of a useless noble title that Sildar couldn't recall at that moment sat atop the wagon, comfortable on a pile of sacks that were stamped with the blue lion of the Lionshield Coster.
"And alive. I believe it is thanks to you and your . . . band?"
Thia raised her thin brows at her inclusion in a 'band.'
"You're most welcome." Maddi said.
"We must reach Phandalin and contact Iarno Albreck." Sildar said.
"We're on the way now." Maddi nodded at the road. "Who is Iarno Albreck?"
"My comrade in the Lord's Alliance. He is a powerful wizard. He was tasked to Phandalin two months ago to civilise the town."
Boomer leaped up beside Maddi. "What's he look like, this fellow?"
"Human, of course. He wore a deep black beard when I knew him. He can help us organise a rescue."
Boomer was silent but Maddi's dark forehead wrinkled with a frown. "You mean to go after Gundren Rockseeker?"
"Of course." Sildar said. "Nothing is more important. The goblins, they taunted me whilst they beat me. They told me the name of their employer. He who had recruited them to waylay us. The Black Spider."
"The Black Spider?"
"He must be some local bandit lord with delusions of grandeur." Sildar said dismissively. "But I believe he knows the location of Wave Echo Cave."
"Wave Echo Cave? The magical cave?" Boomer laughed.
"Yes. The lost mine of the Phandelver's Pact. Home to the Forge of Spells, where the gnomes and the dwarves worked with human wizards to channel magical energy into fantastic weapons."
"It's. All. Nonsense." Boomer swung his legs against a crate in time to his words. "Hundreds of adventurers have combed every foot of the Sword Mountains looking for that place. It's a legend. Made up by the gnomes to steal fools' money on fake treasure hunts."
Sildar seemed to stare into those same forbidding peaks that stretched along the horizon. "Gundren and his brothers found the cave." He said finally. "They know where it is. I joined Gundren to safeguard this secret. To use the full authority of the Lords' Alliance, whatever exists in this savage part of the world to support his venture. And reclaim the mine. Now it seems this Black Spider knows the location too."
"It's real?" Boomer demanded. "Truly?"
"Indeed." Sildar said. "And whether used for good or ill, the cave is priceless."
"Priceless. And worth a fortune." Boomer whispered.
"Your Rockseeker friend didn't mention this cave when he hired me. I do not appreciate being lied to. I am not some illiterate dockworker. I am of noble blood." Maddi said archly.
"That's nice." Opah grumbled.
"I am telling you now." Sildar said. His clear blue eyes snapped to Thia and then Boomer. Opah too was listening closely. And Carrick's head had a curious tilt. "All of you. You saved my life and I know you did not have to. I am trusting you with this information."
"And what do you want in return for this trust?" Boomer asked snidely.
"Your help." Sildar said simply.
Phandalin was the sort of rough and tumble township that the nobles of Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter imagined crowded the frontiers of civilisation. The modern town was nestled in the ruins of the older settlement, that was looted and destroyed by orcs five hundred years ago. The simple wooden buildings were clustered around the dirt track that widened into a rutted, muddy dirt road. One could tell immediately the permanent residents who had stubbornly carved a home for themselves from the travellers and fortune seekers who made the town a temporary base whilst they looted the Sword Mountains. There was the immediate sense of barely restrained violence. Their wagon was just one more gang of desperate adventurers. Sildar, seemingly exhausted by his speech had fallen into a fitful sleep. Boomer drew his hood over his own head as the trees thinned and Phandalin appeared, sprouting, ugly, brown and misshapen from the outskirts of the forest. They passed into the town proper and Carrick, far from the relaxed, albeit curious figure he had made on the road, now drew closer to the oxen and flinched at sudden movements. And there were a lot of those. A cartographer and his servant stood beside the road and examined a map. A drunk dwarf snored loudly from a puddle of what could only be his own piss outside a smithy whilst the owner prepared a bucket of cold water for him. A trio of miners sat in a circle and played dice outside a bustling trading post. Two boys hurried around the group as they loaded a wagon with supplies.
Maddi pulled the oxen up outside as a skeletal looking man rubbed a huge hand across the thin whisps of hair that somehow managed to cling to his otherwise smooth head.
"Hail, friends." He called in a coarse accent. "Elmar Barthen. Help you?"
"Yes." Maddi leaped down from the wagon. "I believe you will want these goods, sir. I come on behalf of Gundren Rockseeker."
"Ah." Barthen's face lit with a smile. "How is he?" He offered Maddi a perfunctory bow, limited more by Barthen's ignorance of protocol than any revolutionary ideas. "I had his brothers in here just a tenday ago, Milady. They're an industrious lot, these dwarves."
His quick merchant eyes slid over the companions and then he performed a shocked little leap at Sildar, slumped on the wagon and laced in bloody cuts and bruises.
"Eldath preserve us! Your friend, Lady. What happened to him?"
"A victim of the Cragmaw Goblins. There was a tribe preying on travellers. We slaughtered them." Maddi waved a generous hand at her companions. "And rescued this poor fellow. He will need proper care. Is there a healer in town?"
Elmar Barthen scratched at his bald head and then pointed a callused hand down the road, further into town. "There's an elf. Sister Garaele, she tends a temple to Tymora opposite the Stonehill Inn. She might know a bit about healing."
Thia held a hand up to intercept Maddi's questioning look. "I will save you your awkward request and volunteer."
"I'll come with you." Opah said, ever cheerful.
"We will meet at the Inn then." Maddi called.
Elmar Barthen snapped a finger and the two clerks hurried over and began unloading the wagon. Barthen rapidly counted 50 gold pieces into a leather satchel and passed this to Maddi. "For your troubles, Milady. If you've rid us of those goblins, you did Phandalin a service. I don't doubt the Townmaster will want to reward you."
"My reward is not riches but safer roads for travellers." Maddi said grandly. Elmar bowed his head but Boomer, even with his hood drawn low across his face did not miss the noblewoman's satisfied smile. He stood beside her with his hands cupped. "I think ten of those coins belong to me."
"Little mercenary." Maddi tipped a handful of clinking coins into the halfling's small hands.
Maddi, once the last crate had been removed by the two sweating clerks, lead the oxen back into the street. "Come then. We will bring poor Sir Hallwinter to the Inn. And then we can discuss our next step to rescuing our employer."
"See you there." Boomer wriggled nimbly through the oxens' legs. The animals bellowed with annoyance. "I've got to see a man about a frog." He winked.
Maddi watched him slide under a fence and skip through a crowded vegetable garden.
"What does that mean?" Maddi asked Carrick, suddenly her only companion.
The half-elf shrugged.
"By all the gods." Maddi grumbled.
Carp Alderleaf squinted through a thick mass of mud-brown curls, possibly also a bit of mud at the two fat ravens standing proudly on his mother's newly erected fence. Eyes trained upon his prey, the halfling boy reached for a stone.
"Brandobaris, god of thieves and . . . probable enemies of crows." He whispered solemnly. "Guide my stone."
Carp slotted the stone into his sling. He wet his lips.
"RIBBET!"
Carp jumped and the crows exploded into the air in a tangle of feathers, croaking angrily.
Carp rounded on this unknown wrecker, his little fists bawled and then his face burst into a shocked grin.
"COUSIN!" The boy leaped into Boomer's arms. "You're back!"
Boomer laughed and twirled his little cousin in a circle. "I am."
"You spooked my prey!" Carp remembered suddenly.
"But I caught you . . . a frog." Boomer slipped the jade statuette from his pocket.
"Wow." Carp breathed. "Is that gold?"
"Go and give it to your ma." Boomer ruffled his cousin's hair.
"Race you!" Carp sprinted for the house, scattering a brood of chickens.
"Little bugger." Boomer laughed and gave chase.
Tymora's temple was no more than a half-finished shrine, much of it apparently pilfered from the ruins of Old Phandalin. Opah could see by Thia's wrinkled brow that she was not impressed with the construction. Sister Garaele was kneeling in the dirt before the shrine as incense permeated the air around her in tendrils of sweet-smelling smoke. Opah noticed a troupe of rough-talking dwarves lowered their voices as they passed the shrine and bowed their heads respectfully.
Thia waited until the elf had finished her ablutions. Once her sonorous chanting had faded, Sister Garaele stood and turned to face the newcomers.
"Sister Garaele?" Thia smiled. "I greet you." She spoke Elvish, a language Opah had mastered, with difficulty during her time on the Neverwinter docks, loading and unloading Elven merchant ships. She kept her knowledge to herself and conjured a politely puzzled look at the two elves.
"Your speech reminds me of my time on Gwynneth. Do you hail from the blessed realm of Sarifal?" Garaele asked.
"You have a good ear." Thia smiled, and it was far from the sneer she had graced Opah with throughout their journey. "You are a priestess of Tymora."
"I try to be." Garaele sighed. "Though you see my temple?"
"It is a little rough."
"And you are polite. This human, she is your companion?" Garaele asked.
"More a gaoler, I think. These humans believe they rule the entire world. Even the humblest of them." Thia's clear eyes flickered to Opah. "Act like kings." Their laughter was as the tinkling of tiny bells and Opah's eye twitched. "We were both recruited by a dwarf."
"It gets worse."
"To escort his goods to this township on the edge of civilisation. It aligned well with my own goal so I accepted the venture. We have already dealt with goblins." Thia indicated the bruise across her cheek with a wry smile.
"I didn't want to say but I could give you an ointment that should help with the swelling."
"Thank you but I have a request. We rescued a human, a prisoner of these goblins. He is injured. A merchant said you were talented healer."
"He praises me too high." Garaele smiled. "But I will try my best. Lead on."
"What's that all about? Will she help?" Opah asked as Garaele fetched her medicines from her humble cottage behind the temple.
"Of course. My people are ever kind." Thia's eyes did not fail to catch a gang of human mercenaries wearing scarlet cloaks apparently engaged in a high-stakes boxing match outside a ramshackle hall.
Opah, her sack of silver coins suddenly feeling unbearably heavy on her belt, resisted the urge to place a bet.
The Stonehill Inn was a newly built timber edifice, raised on a bed of stones on the desiccated corpse of one of Old Phandalin's ruins. The proprietor, a squat fellow with the sort of belly that meant a good drinker and a poor bartender, introduced himself as Toblen Stonehill, apparently having made the unforgivable sin of naming the establishment after himself. Maddi had organised a room for Sildar Hallwinter, who was conscious long enough to limp (with Carrick's assistance) to his bed, plus four more for the party. Maddi, naturally could not share a room, not as a scion of an ancient Neverwinter House. And Thia too, she imagined would refuse divided accommodation. Opah was rough as a Baldur's Gate tanner but Maddi didn't want to upset the common folk, putting a woman with men. Finally, she told Carrick he could bunk with Boomer and the half-elf had not even replied.
Maddi stood now at the foot of Sildar's bed as Sister Garaele finished her ministrations.
"He needs rest." The elf handed Maddi a tiny vial of what looked like oil. "A drop of this on his tongue at sunset. And another at midnight. It will help the pain."
Maddi placed the vial on a thick wooden chest. "Thank you. Will you accept payment?"
Sister Garaele hesitated. Maddi, Opah and Thia glanced at each other.
"Yes?"
"You slaughtered a tribe of Cragmaw Goblins." Sister Garaele said.
"Indeed." Maddi swelled impressively. "It was-"
"Barely a pack." Opah said dismissively, to Maddi's quiet horror.
"Nevertheless, you are accomplished warriors."
"No arguing with that." Opah grinned.
"There is a gang in Phandalin. The locals call them the Redbrands. They extort shop owners, merchants, farmers, anyone with coin. The past two months, they have become bolder."
"Who has authority in this town?" Maddi asked. "How are these villains allowed to run wild?"
"There is no real authority." Garaele said. "Harbin Wester is Townmaster for a year before he will be replaced by another incompetent fool. I believe the Redbrands have paid him off. They abducted a family just a few days ago. Children. If they are allowed to grow stronger, they will rule Phandalin before long."
"Children?" Opah echoed and looked to Maddi.
Maddi rubbed her forehead. She could feel a headache approaching, roaring across the expanse of her mind like a summer storm. "I will speak to the Townmaster." She said finally.
Sister Garaele sighed. "Thank you. I hope you can spur him to action."
"Iarno!" Sildar whispered suddenly, his eyes roving madly, sweat beading across his forehead. "Iarno Albrek! Find him!" He collapsed back into his bed.
"Delicious." Boomer rubbed his belly and leaned back in his chair before his empty bowl. "Aunty, you're a talent."
"And you're a charmer." Qelline Alderleaf said. "We didn't expect you back so soon, nephew."
"Got a job guarding a wagon." Boomer drained his cup and smacked his lips. Carp mirrored this and Qelline cuffed him across the head.
"Ouch!"
"You know." Qelline said, snatching a glance at the little frog statuette. "I can't accept this, if-"
"Aunty." Boomer sighed. "I told you. We wiped out a pack of goblins on the road. I'll drag my companions here and you can ask them if you like. It's not stolen."
"I believe you." Qelline sipped from her own wooden cup. "I do. I just worry. The Redbrands took the Dendrar family."
"What?" Boomer leaned forward. "Why?"
"Thel." Qelline looked at Boomer with a deep sadness that he knew was not the story she told but his suspected part in it. "He refused to pay the tribute. They took him and then, they came back and took Mirna and their two daughters."
"Don't look at me like that." Boomer said, burning with shame. "Aunty, I didn't . . . I didn't know . . . I'm not with them anymore! They tried to kill me! Because I wouldn't do that sort of thing."
"What?" Qelline slammed the table with her hand. "Boomer! That's why you left? Then why did you come back?"
"They're going to kill you?" Carp repeated shrilly.
"No one is going to kill me." Boomer said firmly. "I came back to make sure you two were alright. And I have a plan for Glasstaff and his lot. I do."
"Boomer. Your mum would never-"
"Leave mum out of it." Boomer snapped and then softened his tone. "Aunty. It'll all be fine. Believe me." He stood and yanked his cloak on. "I have a plan." He lied.
Stonehill Inn was a beacon of warm light in the dark that was Phandalin. The sun had set and the town settled comfortably into darkness as the ruins of her former glory loomed like mournful ghosts over the empty streets. Boomer crept behind the inn, his hood pulled tight against the sudden cold as laughter and song sounded from inside. A plan. There was no plan. Another lie to that sweet woman who kept believing in him. A bloody fool.
Boomer knelt against a stone cairn and watched his breath mist the air.
"I heard rumours of a halfling in a hood. Last seen creeping through the fields to the Alderleaf Farm." A voice spoke and Halia Thornton materialised from the darkness like a shadow, wearing a dark cloak and that same sly smile that said plainly that, whatever game you were playing, she was five moves ahead.
"Halia." Boomer said, pulling his hood down despite the cold. "Surprised to see me?"
"Alive?" Halia asked. "Certainly. I heard you were evicted from the Redbrands in rather a dramatic fashion."
"I like a bit of drama." Boomer said. "Something you want?"
"Something you want." Halia said. "Glasstaff's brutal murder?"
"Give me that and I'll owe you a dinner."
"I could." Halia said. "But it might be messy and this cloak is new. Your old comrades have become a problem. One I can no longer ignore. Your new friends though. They seem capable."
Boomer smiled bitterly. "They've already got a mission. The dwarven bloke who hired us has been taken by goblins-"
"Working for the Black Spider." Halia's smile widened. "I know."
"Well done." Boomer said. "But that means-"
"They won't be interested in ridding poor Phandalin of the Redbrands." Halia finished. "Unless Glasstaff is also working for the Black Spider."
"Is that true?"
"Does it need to be?"
Boomer sucked his teeth thoughtfully. "And what's your price for all this?"
"Glasstaff's notes. And his head." Halia said, smiling blandly.
Maddi opened the door to the inn and a frigid blast of cold air followed her inside. Eddies twisted over the tables and set the locals to laughing as the newcomers shivered. "That's the Sword Mountains breeze!" One toothless old farmer laughed. "You'll learn to love it!"
Maddi ignored the man and manoeuvred through the crowded tables and into a seat by the bar.
Opah, Carrick, Thia and Boomer were sitting around the table and now gazed at Maddi expectantly.
"The Townmaster is clearly a fool." Maddi said. "He believes, so he says that these Redbrands are a harmless mercenary guild. He told me that the Dendrar family must have left town. I don't think this village even has a militia. It would not stand if we were closer to Neverwinter and proper civilisation."
"Neverwinter." Opah gulped her ale and cast Maddi a dark look. "You think they care what happens outside their walls? The people on the frontier provide the Neverwintans with everything and in return, they leave us for orcs and goblins and zombies. They let us die. So long as they can bleed Phandalin like they bleed everything else, they don't much care who else does the bleeding."
The table was silent. Even Maddi, who had opened her mouth furiously with a retort, could not speak in the face of Opah's shaking fury.
"We can help." Carrick said finally. "The five of us. We are all, apparently well-acquainted with death." His voice was heavy with the weight of that death.
"Life is death." Thia said. "These people, sad as they are, their stories are the same the next village over. We must focus on finding Cragmaw Castle. If you want to uplift this town, the opening of Wave Echo Cave will help immeasurably. I have lived long enough to understand that no one can right every wrong."
"These are children." Carrick said quietly. "We can right this wrong, revanthas."
Thia allowed herself a small, understanding smile. "Your accent is atrocious."
Maddi sighed. "No one has seen this Iarno Albrek either. Not for months. He may be another victim of this gang."
"They must be stopped. Word is, they frequent a dirty inn called the Sleeping Giant." Carrick said clearly. He took his bow and stood. Opah drained her mug and slammed it against the table.
"I'm with you, Carrick Starflower."
Thia sighed. "These are petty struggles, you're too young to see. Kill these redbrands and another gang will rise from the filth to take their place."
"Lady Moonwhisperer is right." Maddi said. "We were hired to protect and serve Gundren Rockseeker. That should be our goal."
Carrick bowed. "Farewell then."
"You're paying for our pyres, My Lady." Opah added.
Boomer the Halfling gritted his teeth and screwed his face into a pained grimace. "Wait! I've . . . uh, heard that these Redbrands may be in league with the Black Spider. The villain who took Gundren."
"Where did you hear this?" Maddi asked immediately.
"Someone I trust. Not trust. I don't trust her at all. But she's not lying." Boomer said. "That's all I'll say. The Redbrands operate out of Tresendar Manor. The big ruin in the west. That's where they'll be tonight. It's our best clue to finding Gundren Rockseeker. That's what you want, yeah?"
"That is not a ruin. It's a castle. We would need an army to take it." Thia objected.
"I know a way in." Boomer admitted.
"How do you know all this?" Maddi demanded.
"Would you believe me if I said I have the gift of premonition?" Boomer asked.
"No." Four replies.
"I have the gift of premonition anyway." Boomer shrugged.
"If you're lying about Rockseeker . . ." Maddi let the threat hang between them.
"You're not the first to threaten me." Boomer jumped down from his seat. "And I'm not lying."
Carrick led the group through Phandalin, quick enough that they seemed more of the night's shadows, quiet enough that their footfalls were soft as the tread of a cat. They wondered whether the half-elf had not whispered some enchantment that made it so they passed, silent as ghosts through the night.
Opah was barely exaggerating when she called Tresendar Manor a fortified castle. It was indeed an imposing ruin, looming over Phandalin, an absentee landlord for a town long since destroyed. Where once the inhabitants must have looked to the manor for protection, they now dreaded the disgorging of its scarlet clad soldiers.
"Right." Maddi whispered. "If anyone wants to return to the inn, now is the time. I won't judge you."
"Have you noticed she's acting like this was all her idea?" Opah whispered to Carrick. The half-elf raised one eyebrow and nocked an arrow to his bow.
"There's an entrance through the cellar." Boomer said dully. "Follow me."
"I want credit for this entire enterprise." Opah said as they filed after.
Carrick slammed into the iron bars and just barely managed to duck his head as the Redbrand's sword sparked against the cage. Carrick punched his own blade through the mercenary's throat. He croaked, coughed blood into the half-elf's face as he bled out.
"Halfling traitor!" A bearded ruffian shrieked at Boomer.
Boomer slid through the Redbrand's open legs, slicing his sword through the gap as he did. He rolled onto his feet as his opponent collapsed in a twitching mess.
Maddi traded blows with the last Redbrand, until Thia leaped onto the big man's back, pressed her hands against his cheeks and delivered an arc of crackling lightning through his body. Maddi caved his head in with her axe and pulled Thia to her feet.
Opah slid down the wall beside the man she'd killed. "How many more?" She gasped. Blood dribbled down her face.
"We're making too much noise." Maddi said as she limped over to a chair. Her chain mail was rent along her left leg.
"It's only thanks to Tymora that I'm still standing." Opah growled, though she was close to lying on the floor.
Boomer wiped his blade. "The Lady Queen is right. We have to keep moving."
"I am a Countess, you half a dwarf." Maddi said but she stood up.
"He called you a traitor." Thia said to Boomer shrewdly.
"Can we focus on not dying?" The halfling replied impatiently. "Just for tonight?"
"It's a fair request." Opah pulled herself up.
Carrick peered through the bars of the cage. "Hello there." He smiled, and, as he was dripping blood and had just killed a man beside them, the two children shrank into their mother's shaking arms.
Boomer burst into relieved laughter. "Mirna! Nilsa! Nars! You're alive."
The three prisoners were shackled to each other with iron collars around their necks. They were filthy and starved. There was just a single wooden bowl in the cell with a puddle of brown water.
"These are the hostages." Maddi tugged at the padlock.
"Allow me." Boomer unfurled a set of lockpicking tools from his coat.
"Don't ask him." Maddi said quickly.
Boomer had directed the family (minus their father, who hadn't been in the cells) back outside and told them to run for the inn. The companions continued on, into the dark bowels of the manor house. The Redbrands and their mysterious leader, this Glasstaff had let the old house sink into decay. Maddi was heard to remark more than once that the manor could have been a fortress, had it been maintained. The stone walls, she said were sturdily built. Its position, practically unassailable if defended well. Maddi ran her hands over the carvings that loomed occasionally from the shadows, hacked at by a succession of petty enemies but still sadly beautiful. The Redbrands did not know what they had. The party soon discovered the extent of this truth when Carrick yanked Boomer back from the edge of a sudden crevice that opened the floor like a yawning portal into the underworld. Carrick and Thia's elven eyes spied two fragile-looking bridges that spanned the chasm between thick stone pillars. A cold wind gusted through the columns with a low keening.
Thia cursed. "This house." She said in her refined Elvish. "These humans and their dull ambitions. I can see the slaughter that happened here, long ago. The tragedy of their final stand. Their strength. I can see it as she (and Thia jerked her head at Maddi) cannot."
Carrick watched her silently, believing he alone understood her words, as Opah squinted into the darkness vainly for a hint of this apparent misery.
"There are bridges." Carrick whispered, his voice unnaturally loud in the darkness. "Lady Moonwhisperer and I will lead you."
"Is it a sort of cavern?" Boomer hissed. "The boys told me Glasstaff kept a monster down here!"
MONSTER. A sudden voice echoed in their heads. Like a foreign thought slammed into their skulls. A long, playful giggle.
MONSTER. NO. WHO ARE THESE? WHO ARE THESE INTERLOPERS?
That giggle again. Like a child gone mad.
"What is this now?" Opah raised her sword.
Carrick's sharp eyes roved the columns. A glimpse of movement. A great yellow eye blinked from a crevice and was gone.
Talons raked across Carrick's arm and he cried out as blood splattered Boomer.
SWEET. SWEET MEAT.
The companions shuffled into a circle. Carrick's arm was wet with blood. The creature's talons had cut deep gashes through his flesh.
"What is it?" Maddi demanded. A scuttling. The flash of claws scraping against Maddi's axe. She swung blindly and the creature leaped nimbly away.
PRICKLY. PRICKLY.
"I know what this is." Thia whispered. "You were a wizard once, weren't you?" She called into the darkness as she rifled through her satchel.
LIES. I WAS ALWAYS AS I AM. BUT I WILL BE WHAT I WAS AGAIN.
"You dove too deep for secrets." Thia said, craning her neck as something skittered across the ceiling. "Your greed damned you."
NEVER. NEVER ME.
"Wretched nothic." Thia hissed.
LOOK AT ME.
Thia grimaced, curled into herself as the nothic's rotting gaze pierced her. Cracked open her very mind. Thia whispered ancient charms as a wave of nauseous sickness clung to her skin like a stinking ooze.
"Thia?" Carrick's voice was urgent.
Thia, her hands balled into fists, slowly stood and the rotting, corpse smell dissipated, fled into the darkness.
NO.
"My turn." Thia's voice was clear as the words of her spell rang out, as the snake tongue in her hand was burned up by the force of the magic.
"Kill the wizard Glasstaff." Thia ordered the nothic in a ringing tone and her words burrowed into the creature's wasted mind and subsumed all other thoughts of hunger and greed until there was just one overwhelming ambition; kill the wizard Glasstaff.
The companions heard the nothic disappear into one of its own, secret paths.
"There." Thia said, satisfied.
"Give me a light, damn it." Maddi snapped and a moment later, Boomer's face was illuminated by his torch.
"What were you thinking?" Maddi demanded of Thia, pushing through the companions so her face was inches from the wizard.
The high elf swelled indignantly. "We are here to destroy these villains, aren't we?"
"I am not an executioner. I don't care where we are, what miserable batch of hovels we've come to. The Law is all we can trust."
"You mean Neverwinter's law." Opah surmised.
"As you say." Maddi growled. "And in Neverwinter, we do not allow monsters to murder humans."
"I thought it was a fine idea." Boomer grinned.
"Of course." Maddi glowered at him. "You have obviously fallen out with these thugs; else you would be here with them. You're a thief and surely worse."
"I told you to come here!" Boomer protested.
"So we would slaughter your once-friends for you." Maddi raised a fist. "You are no better than they."
"I would never hurt children. Never." Boomer said, his face shining with earnestness. "Why do you think I left?"
Maddi dropped her fist. "Mark me." Her dark eyes rested briefly on each of them as her voice darkened with the expectation bred into every member of the nobility; that they would be simply heard and obeyed. "No more murders."
Maddi stalked across the bridge and furiously ignored the way it seemed to creak and sway with her every step.
"I'm not following her." Boomer said. "I want that well understood . . . It is that way though. She's going the right way." He skipped across the bridge.
Boomer pressed his ear to the wooden door. He could hear a game of dice in progress and, even through the door could sense that nervous electricity in the air that meant impending violence. Often followed games of dice. This was the common room, where the Redbrands came to waste their thieving on gambling and barrels of mead.
Four voices. Boomer held four fingers up.
Maddi gripped her great axe with both hands as Opah readied to charge the door.
One. Maddi mouthed. Two.
"THREE!"
The companions exploded into the room. The Redbrands, drunk as they obviously were, they were still warriors, fallen as they were, they were still soldiers. They knew violence and they were ready for it in a moment. The Redbrand closest to the door dove for his sword, hanging from his belt by a disused chair. Carric's arrow glanced off his pauldron. His comrades lifted the table up, spewing mugs, glass and piles of coins over the stone floor as Boomer's arrow sunk into the wood. They ducked behind. Maddi cut across the Redbrand just as he reached his sword, her axe dented his breastplate as the Redbrand brought his sword up, slicing across Maddie's exposed cheek. Opah charged the upturned table. Thia however was ahead of her. The high elf raised her hands, hissed the words of power and flames surged eagerly from her fingers. The fire coated the table, ignited the drinks and exploded in a sudden inferno. All was confusion and horror. A Redbrand careened past Boomer, thumping desperately at his flaming sleeve. Opah and Carrick leaped through the smoke like two demons straight from the Nine Hells as Maddi smashed through her opponent's defences and he crumpled like a paper doll.
The Redbrands threw their weapons aside, a dagger and a small hammer, all they could grab and raised their arms to the ceiling.
"Mercy." The Redbrand with a red rash coughed as smoke wafted across his face. His fearful gaze flicked to Boomer. "Mercy. Pleas, Boomer."
"Where was my mercy?" Boomer demanded, brandishing his short sword. "Where was my mercy, Dace? When you chased me out of my home!"
"That was Glasstaff's orders, Boomer!" The other man called desperately. Their comrade was rolling on the ground to smother the flames, yelping fearfully. He quashed the fire and made to stand. Carrick sent a boot into his belly and he collapsed back to the floor.
"Piss on that!" Boomer swore. "I had to run for my life!" His face looked set for murder but Maddi slid smoothly between the halfling and his former comrades.
"Carrick." She called. "Will you give me rope?"
The half-elf, understanding her meaning, tossed her a coil of thick rope from his pack. Maddi told the Redbrands to clasp their hands together and then began binding them. Opah, after a moment's hesitation assisted with the still-smoking Redbrand on the floor.
"This is justice, is it?" Boomer demanded. "These men are slavers and murderers."
"Then they will be judged and punished for their crimes." Maddi said, tightening the ropes. "And maybe earn a second chance." She added with a quick glance at Boomer.
The halfling sighed. "This way."
"Glasstaff's workshop." Boomer whispered. The room was cluttered and chaotic. The shelves groaned under the weight of thick volumes and crumbling scrolls. Glasstaff had apparently tried his hand at alchemy; half a dozen concoctions bubbled and hissed on a scorched desk. Thia wrinkled her nose at that sour stench that meant sweat and obsession.
"If you see a rat-" Boomer began.
A fat brown rat scuttled across the floor. The companions watched it slide under the desk.
"I saw a rat." Opah said.
"Kill it before it warns Glasstaff." Boomer winced.
There was an audible yelp from behind an ornately decorated wooden door.
Opah charged through a precariously balanced tower of books and slammed into the door. She burst into the room and her immediate impression was that if she had ever met anyone most likely to receive rodent warnings, it was this man. Glasstaff, the bandit chief, feared scourge of Phandalin, was a small man wrapped in a thick, obviously ludicrously extensive, though slightly singed cloak of ermine that, with his pointed face and weak attempt at whiskers gave him the look of a rat peeking from a sleeve. He clutched a beautifully wrought glass-headed staff and a stack of scrolls and shrieked audibly at Opah. He leaped across the wide bed and through an excessive amount of pillows.
"Oi!" Opah yelled.
A sudden gust of freezing wind buffeted Opah as eddies of snow whirled around Glasstaff. Ice moved like spiders across his body and up his face, rapid icicles forming on his wispy beard and along the folds of his cloak. Glasstaff's lips, quivering with cold murmured faintly and three bright missiles of pure energy exploded from his ice-encrusted hand. Opah threw her shoulder into Thia, knocking the elf aside as the missiles slammed into them. Both slid backwards into the wall by the force of the magic. Maddi leaped over the tangle and smashed Glasstaff in the face with the haft of her great axe. He fell backwards onto the bed as Boomer began wrapping rope around the wizard's legs.
"You little bastard!" Glasstaff spat a mouthful of blood. He raised his staff but Carrick was quicker, jumping bodily onto the man and wrenching the staff away. He pressed his dagger to Glasstaff's throat.
"Huzzah." Maddi raised her axe. "The end of the Redbrands."
KILL THE WIZARD GLASSTAFF.
"Oh shit." Later, they would all swear it had been Thia who let out the exclamation. The high elf, of course denied it.
A piece of wall slid away and the nothic peered into the room with its one, horrible green eye. Two rows of blood-splattered fangs shone from its rictus grin. A claw crawled across the wall and the Nothic's grotesquely muscular body eased into the room.
The nothic's single eye fixed on Glasstaff, straddled by Carrick with Boomer sitting on his legs and Maddi standing over them.
KILL THE WIZARD GLASSTAFF.
The nothic leaped and met Carrick in the air. They slammed together and hit the floor in a tangled snarl. The nothic's claws raked across Carrick's knives. He spun about, blades whirling, carving into the creature's forearms in a shower of blood. The nothic's scream pierced their thoughts. It stabbed Carrick through the shoulder with its claws as Maddi joined the fight.
Glasstaff kicked the distracted Boomer in the face and rolled across the bed, landing painfully on the floor. He shuffled across a thick bear pelt.
"INTRUDERS!" Glasstaff shrieked. "INTRUDERS!"
KILL THE WIZARD GLASSTAFF.
The nothic kicked a muscled leg at Maddi, striking her in the chest, at the same moment, almost horizontal tearing at the air in front of Carrick's face. It bounded over the bed as Opah rushed to meet it.
KILL THE WIZARD GLASSTAFF.
Opah and the nothic duelled; her sword against its wicked claws.
"Who are you people?" Glasstaff screamed in terrified bewilderment, rolling away as Opah and the nothic, locked in furious combat, danced across the floor.
"I think" Opah grunted "right now" she swung her sword downwards in a cutting arc "we're rescuing you?"
Her blade bit into the nothic's chest. The creature kicked out with both legs and Opah slammed into the wall behind.
KILL THE WIZARD GLASSTAFF.
The wizard screamed as the nothic hooked its talons into his shoulder and, as Boomer scrambled across the bed began dragging him towards the open doorway into the library.
"Boomer.' Maddi yelled. "Down!"
The halfling slid to the floor as Maddi's javelin whistled through the air. It caught the nothic between its shoulders, pinning the monster to the remains of the door.
Impaled against the wood, the nothic spasmed.
I wAS a MaNNNN.
The nothic's thoughts faded from their minds as the creature died.
Glasstaff clutched his shoulder, breathing heavily. He raised one shaking hand that Carrick kicked away, drawing his bow so the arrowhead became the wizard's entire world.
"Too late." Carrick said in the Drow tongue, a language that excelled in expressing irony.
"Drow?" Glasstaff whispered. "Are you . . . Did he send you? I have done everything he wanted."
Carrick cocked his head as his companions joined him.
The wizard's attention shifted to Boomer, standing over him. "Little Bombadil." He examined his wet fingers. "You work for the Black Spider now, do you? You traitorous runt."
"Me?" Boomer demanded. "Traitor? Why didn't you just let me go?"
"So you could join my enemies?" Glasstaff propped himself onto his elbow. "I trusted you, halfling. I shared my dream for Phandalin with you."
"A fine dream." Boomer's hand shook as he raised the knife. "Lord Glasstaff, ruler of Phandalin. Sat atop a pile of bones."
"Order requires SACRIFICE!" Glasstaff spat. "And you threw it all away because you were weak! This miserable village is nothing. I could have made it great. A new Daggerford."
"You told me to murder Thel Dendrar." Boomer gritted his teeth, his entire body was taut with rage. "Where is he?"
"All I needed were good, capable men. And all I got was you." Glasstaff sighed.
"WHERE IS THEL DENDRAR?" Boomer shouted.
"Dead." Glasstaff forced a smile. "A victim to Order. I killed his wife and children too. Fed them to the nothic. You will not find them."
"We rescued them already." Opah shook her head in disgust. "Have you no shame at all?"
"I will not be lectured by some peasant in stolen armour."
"Where is Cragmaw Castle?" Thia asked, she rubbed her chest where Glasstaff's missiles had pummelled her.
"A high elf mercenary. You are surely an embarrassment to your race. I know not. I did not need to know." Glasstaff's eyes slid to Maddi, standing over him with an inscrutable expression.
"Ah. A peer. Finally. You will not allow these ignorant villeins to have dominion over me. Take me to the Townmaster's Hall. I will walk with you, you have my oath."
Maddi stared at him with a hatred hardening her features. Slowly, as though it were painful, she turned away. She stared at the wall.
"N-no." Glasstaff stuttered. "This is not justice. I deserve a trial! You cannot-"
Boomer's knife slid smoothly between Glasstaff's ribs. He wheezed. And died.
Opah grunted appreciatively. "There was a man who should have been killed a long time ago."
Maddi wiped her eyes before she turned around. "We will need proof of his death."
Opah raised her sword. "Let me show you something I learned fighting orcs."
Morning's chill wet the grass as the companions emerged from Tresander Manor. Just a big house now.
The first pink of the dawn washed the horizon. The distant braying of a horse and the responding calls of cattle, waking with the sun.
Carrick walked with Thia draped over his shoulder. Blood trickled down his arm. Boomer was quiet, a bruise in the shape of Glasstaff's boot shutting one eye. Opah dabbed at the cuts on her face with the back of a hand. And Maddi set the pace at the head of the party, her walk become a limp. Whether she had marched ahead or the others had fallen in behind her, none could say. Their prisoners were lashed together and trailed behind.
Four Redbrands walked towards them, one woman weaved drunkenly along the road. Returning to the manor after a night's debauchery.
"Who's this then?" A one-eyed man sneered. "Visitors to town." He threw his scarlet cloak over one shoulder and rested a hand on the pommel of his sword. "Let's see what . . ."
His eyes widened.
Opah grinned, swinging her arm. "Something wrong?"
The Redbrands shuffled backwards.
"We're not visitors." Maddi hefted her axe, her face grim. "It's you who was just leaving."
They fled, pushing and shoving against each other in their haste. The companions watched as the last of the Redbrands ran across a sparkling field and into the trees.
"Thanks to Oghma." Thia sighed. "They could have knocked me over with a breath."
"You're not alone there." Opah grinned. "I'll need a bath and a bed. And I'm not sure of the order."
"Bath first, please." Thia wrinkled her dainty nose. "You were pungent before that cave of goblins."
"You are a little ripe yourself, My Lady." Carrick smiled.
"I swear that's the first time I've heard you speak." Boomer said.
"I speak but softly. You might not hear at your height."
Boomer nodded sagely. "A little joke there, Carrick. Low-hanging fruit though."
"The only fruit you can reach." Maddi quipped.
"Alright!" Boomer raised a hand. "I see how it is. Pile on the halfling."
"We would crush you." Opah laughed.
"You're all just freakishly tall. That's all." Boomer said. "That's the secret that only we halflings have discovered."
"There's a crowd." Carrick nodded towards the Stonehill Inn.
"There they are!" Mirna Dendrar, clasping her children pushed through the folk gathered outside the entrance to the inn. It seemed the entire town crowded the village square. Children pushed through their parents' legs, surly dwarves jostled for a better view. Boomer saw his aunt and cousin standing nervously beside the inn. Halia Thornton was smiling knowingly at the edge of the crowd. Even the Townmaster, his coiffed wig askew atop his round face stood in bewilderment with a few of his clerks at the rear of the crowd.
The five companions gazed at each other. All eyes drifted to Maddi.
"You've got a way with words." Boomer said. "Looks like they'll want a speech."
"It is all our victory." Maddi replied.
"Let me start you off." Opah grinned. She raised Glasstaff's severed head and gasps rippled through the crowd.
"Glasstaff!"
"I told you, I saw four of the bastards running through Ager's field."
"Good people." Maddi called. "I am Lady Maddi of Corlinn Hill. My companions and I have rid Phandalin of the scourge of the Redbrands. You are free of their oppression. You may live your lives in peace and comfort and let none infringe upon that right again, even here, at the edge of the civilised world."
"Bit wordy." Boomer whispered to Carrick.
Murmurs strafed the crowd as this speech was translated.
Carrick raised Opah's hand again. "Glasstaff and the Redbrands are dead!" He called. "Phandalin is free!"
The square exploded into cheers.
Sildar Hallwinter, swaddled in bandages squeezed through the wild crowd. He stared in horror at the gruesome head hanging from Opah's hand.
"Iarno Albrek?"
Part Three: The Spider's Web
It was surely the finest, most outrageous party the town of Phandalin had ever hosted. Toblen Stonehill opened his inn to any and all comers and the cheering crowds dutifully piled in, the companions carried atop their shoulders (Thia fought hard to suppress the smile that threatened her wry demeanour). Their three prisoners were dragged, with not a few kicks and punches to the start of the Triboar Trail. Frontier justice.
Boomer was soon dancing a halfling jig with his aunt across the tables whilst his little cousin, Carp ran about stealing sips from tankards of mead. Maddi set herself a stately position by the stairs and accepted the well-wishes of a legion of new admirers. There weren't a few who thought she might make a fine lord of Phandalin, for she was surely cast in the same warrior mould of the noble Tresendar Family. The Townmaster, who hovered about the crowds nervously, did not fail to notice this groundswell of sudden support. Thia, once she had been allowed to return to the ground, spent some time refusing to grant magical requests to a mob of dirty children. She then spent a lot more time crafting magical butterflies and sending them across the crowded inn for the children to chase. A retired adventurer, the half-elf Daran Edermath congratulated Carrick on the destruction of the Redbrands and they were soon exchanging harrowing tales of past adventures. Opah quickly joined a drinking contest and then another. And then a third.
The celebrations lasted the day, from sunrise to its setting. Boomer eventually waved his dancing companions away, his entire body seeming to slump with exhaustion and he retired upstairs. Once the door was closed and the frenetic music somewhat muffled, he performed a final dance of ecstasy, his little fist curled around Halia Thornton's reward. They had spoken briefly under cover of Opah's fistfight with a hard-headed dwarven miner. It was only after the exchange was complete that the usually vigilant Boomer had noticed Carrick sitting nearby. And the slight frown across the half-elf's face told Boomer he had heard the conversation. Still, nothing to be done now. Boomer collapsed onto his bed, grinning into his pillow at his sudden good fortune.
The party had only really ended when Elmar Barthen and Linene Graywind, half-way through a whirling table dance careened over the bar and fell on poor Toblen. He pinched his (slightly askew) nose and shouted that the party was finished and he would be collecting money for all the mead and stew consumed. The exit had been very sudden after that. Opah was left alone (Maddi and Thia having retired as soon as one could say it was not overly rude), to sleep wrapped in Glasstaff's pilfered bear pelt under a table.
Boomer sipped his tea and shaded his eyes against the unbearably bright light that suddenly blazed from the open doorway. Shouts and cries intruded upon the quiet inn, empty but for Boomer and Lorri, Toblen's daughter.
Opah shut the door and blessed darkness returned to the inn. She swung a shield off her back. The bright red paint displayed a wolf on a black background.
"New shield?" Boomer asked in a whisper. Any sudden noise triggered a corresponding crashing pain in his head.
"Courtesy of Linene Graywind of the Lionshield Coster. She said she's almost finished your little halfling knife too." Opah grinned. She pulled up a chair as Lorri slid a bowl of porridge onto the table. "Thank you, my lamb."
"It's a rapier." Boomer rubbed his eyebrows.
"Get yourself a fancy hat with a feather in it and you could be a duellist." Opah said through a mouthful of porridge. "But then you'd need a sense of honour. Damn."
"And you think you're a knight with your painted shield instead of a dockworker."
"I don't want to be Maddi." Opah's mouth was thin.
"I never said that. You said that." Boomer chuckled and then clutched his head.
As though on cue, Maddi descended the stairs, immaculate in a shimmering blue cloak over her polished and repaired chain mail. She walked with Sildar Hallwinter, who leaned rather heavily on the railing as he managed the steps.
"I would prefer we remove Iarno's head from that spear in the centre of town. It is an orc practice. Not for civilised lands." Sildar said.
"The children enjoy throwing rocks at it." Maddi replied.
"I was sent here to bring laws and order to Phandalin. Hardly a promising start, allowing such a grizzly totem to remain." Sildar lowered himself slowly into a seat beside Opah.
"Your mate Iarno was sent here for the same." Opah observed. "Wasn't he?"
"Indeed." Sildar said gravely. "He was a disgrace to the Lord's Alliance. And now the locals view me with . . . distrust."
"Remove that head and they'll hate you." Boomer advised.
"Where is Carrick?" Maddi asked.
"I think he's hunting with that older Carrick." Boomer said.
"Daran Edermath." Opah corrected him.
"He's like a doppelganger! I swear they're secret twins."
"And Thia?"
"Our wizardly friend is apparently quite religious." Opah said. "She was up at dawn with Sister Garaele for some elvish ritual."
"I will need your help convincing the people here that I can be trusted." Sildar said to Maddi. "I want only to bring this township into the light of the Lord's Alliance."
"I am a stranger too." Maddi watched Lorri spoon porridge into two wooden bowls.
"And a hero already." Sildar said earnestly. He winced as he reached for his breakfast.
"You think she just cleared that fortress alone?" Opah cut in.
"Not at all." Sildar said soothingly, as though he were trying to calm a skittish horse and Opah glowered deeper. "You are, all of you heroes to the people here. And that is why you must use your reputations for good."
"No one has ever accused me of being a hero." Boomer took another bracing sip of the hot tea.
Opah rolled her eyes. "Your halfling of mystery routine is a little dull now that we know you're just a thief."
"And you're just a labourer with a big sword."
"And a shield, thank you."
A well-dressed man whose elegant tunic and trousers were offset by the dampness of his face and his nervous blinking eyes approached the table.
"Lady Maddi of Corlinn Hill?" The man performed a complicated bow that he had obviously memorised and reminded Maddi (slightly) of the theatrics of Neverwinter. "I come with an invitation from his Lordship, the Townmaster. He requests your company at your earliest convenience."
They stepped through the rather sparse market that spread across the square. Few farmers braved the bandit-infested roads these days. Not without a sizeable escort. There were a handful of merchants peddling their wares. Furs from the north. A bookseller, Thia was already rifling through his musty offerings. And a boy unloading exotic animals from a wagon. Fat turtles. A tressym, a winged cat that glowered from his cage. And a scarred hyena cackling and pacing behind his bars. Carrick was watching the boy yank the hyena off the wagon.
"I'll leave the politics to you three." Boomer said, and skipped over to join the half-elf.
"What sort of man is this Townmaster?" Sildar asked Maddi.
"Seems a fool." Maddi said briefly. They stood before the open doors of the wooden hall, larger than any other building in Phandalin but would still stand in the shadow of the meanest of Baldur's Gate's guild halls. A narrow tower housed a bell but Opah wondered who would answer the call; she had seen not even one militiaman in town.
"I like your shield." Maddi said to Opah as they entered.
"Cheers."
Clerks and officials crisscrossed the busy hall. A hush descended as Maddi, Opah and Sildar entered. Eyes lingered. Hissed whispers. The Townmaster, Harbin Wester sat at a great desk at the end of the hall, raised on a sort of stage. Townmaster seemed a grand sort of title not commensurate with the actual size of Phandalin. Maddi and Opah, Sildar limping along behind strode boldly down the centre of the hall, past a line of petitioners to the Townmaster's desk.
Harbin Wester stood and offered an ingratiating smile. His rather round head sat atop an even rounder body.
"Dear friends. Please. Sit. Will you take a cup of wine?"
"No, thank you."
"Absolutely." Opah leaned back in her seat and eyed the Townnmaster with obvious dislike.
"Of course. Of course." He sat down as a clerk delivered the wine. "A fine vintage. From the plains under the shadow of the Cloud Peaks." He shuffled a stack of papers nervously. "I must congratulate you. Your destruction of the Redbrands. I was shocked to hear of their crimes, you know."
"They seemed common knowledge." Opah slurped her wine and grimaced.
"I-I thought them mercenaries. I had no inkling as to the evil they were committing." The lie hung on the air like manure. "I understand you are looking for a Gundren Rockseeker? A dwarf?"
"Our employer." Maddi said. "He is a captive of the Cragmaw Goblins. I believe they have a fortress near here."
"Yes. In the depths of the Neverwinter Woods. If Gundren Rockseeker was truly captured by the Cragmaw Goblins, then I fear he is dead." The Townmaster said. "And his venture must die with him."
"No." Sildar slammed a hand on the desk that echoed to the high timber roof and reminded them that the entire hall strained to hear this conversation. "I will not accept this."
"None know the location of Cragmaw Castle." The Townmaster tried a watery smile, as though it pained him to say.
"I will find this fortress." Sildar said. "I swear to Torm, god of justice. I will find it."
"Then you will all be staying on, in Phandalin?" The Townmaster asked and though it seemed an innocuous question, his hands fluttered nervously about the desk.
"Yes." Maddi replied. "So long as there is hope that Gundren still lives."
"A proposal then." Harbin Wester flashed his small teeth. "Sir Hallwinter, you surely require rest. Stay here in Phandalin and recuperate. You may ask around the town whether any know the location of Cragmaw Castle. My Lady." Opah grunted. "My Ladies, there is a tribe of orcs preying upon those who use the Triboar Trail. Trade with our neighbours has thinned to a trickle. I have offered a reward of 100 gold to any who can rid Phandalin of this menace. You are hardy adventurers. I am sure you are more than capable of fulfilling this task."
Opah swilled the wine about her mouth distastefully. She swallowed. "What do you think?" She asked Maddi.
Maddi nodded slowly. "150 gold." She said.
The Townmaster spread his arms. "We are a poor community."
"The miners queued behind us might disagree." Maddi gestured over her shoulder at the richly dressed representatives of the Miner's Exchange, impatiently waiting their turn. "150 and we'll rid you of these orcs."
"You are very confident." The Townmaster narrowed his sly eyes. "150 then. Done."
Maddi stood. "We will leave today."
"Bring me the head of their leader for your reward."
"I did not think you a mercenary, My Lady." Sildar said as they moved outside. "A true knight does not demand coin for good deeds."
"Then how do those knights fill their bellies?" Maddi asked. "Repair their weapons and armour?"
"A fair point." Sildar admitted. He glanced over his shoulder at the Townmaster through the open doorway. "I do not trust him or his intentions."
"He's clearly a shite." Opah said. "He's hoping we'll die in the wilderness before you can seize power, Maddi."
"There's an idea." Maddi replied. Boomer, Carrick and Thia approached. Carrick led a muzzled hyena on a thick rope.
"What is that thing?" Opah demanded.
"It's expensive." Boomer grumbled. "This mad half-elf saw a boy kicking that horrible animal and just about knocked the kid's head off. I had to pay the father before he started a riot."
"His name is Harry." Carrick said and smiled warmly at the panting hyena. "I like him."
"What is it?" Maddi asked.
"A hyena. From the deserts past the Thunder Peaks." Boomer said. "It's going to eat me, I know it."
"I've seen into his soul. He seems fierce, but he is gentle. Like you, Boomer." Carrick said.
"I hope he likes the taste of orc." Maddi said.
"That sounds ominous." Boomer sighed.
Tiny bats flitted through the smoke, snatching at the insects drawn to the fire.
"I don't like the way it's looking at me." Boomer said. Harry the hyena cackled. He lay on the ground and allowed Carrick to use him for a pillow. The half-elf had his legs crossed and was reading a book of elvish poetry lent him by Thia. She was of course also buried in a book: The Ordning and the Myriad and Multiple Ways it Structures Giant Society.
Opah grinned. She chewed a hunk of bread, sprinkled with olive oil. "You are snack-sized. I'm not sure I'll see you in the morning. Maybe what's left of you."
"Why did you buy that animal?" Maddi asked Boomer. "I've never seen anything so ugly."
"I didn't buy anything. I lent Carrick a bit of gold so he wasn't hanging from a tree with those Redbrands for killing a child. And I want that money back, too."
"I barely hit the boy. And Harry will prove his worth." Carrick rubbed the hyena's scarred head.
"I'll decide whether he's worth it when I see my money." Boomer said.
"Just keep it away from me." Maddi said. "I've never seen anything so ugly."
"Harry is beautiful." Carrick said.
"I bet you think every animal is so pretty." Opah grinned. "Even the giant slugs."
"Not so." Carrick shook his head. "My party was attacked by a manticore in the Deepwing Mountains. It was horrifying. But did have a deadly sort of beauty, actually."
Boomer whistled. "Deepwing Mountains. That's the Dragon Coast, isn't it? There's a lawless place. Best thief in Phandalin, and you're looking at him wouldn't get far on the Dragon Coast. How'd you find it?"
"A bit wild. enjoyed my time there." Carrick admitted. "I was working for a powerful sorcerer."
"A magic user, like you, Thia." Opah called.
"I doubt it." Thia replied icily, not looking up from her book. "Sorcerers are untrained. Their magic is wild and dangerous."
"They wouldn't have to study though." Opah said. "That'd be nice. I'd never have the intelligence to study magic."
"That is laziness." Thia said. "If you can speak Elvish, you can learn magic." She added with a smile. Opah grinned sheepishly.
"I've not been further south than the Trollclaws." Boomer said. "I'd like to get to Baldur's Gate though. I've heard it's a mad place."
"It is." Thia marked her page. "Baldur's Gate is built on darkness. Beloved of the Lord of Murder, the god Bhaal. There is no more evil city in Faerun than Baldur's Gate."
"Yeah, like I said, it's a mad place."
"I'd love to see the Dwarfholds in the north." Opah said. "A dwarf from Gauntlgrym sang for me once, after I beat him at dice. He said it was a lament for the lost holds of the Shield Dwarves. It was a very sad song."
"There is no more miserable history than that of the Shield Dwarves." Thia said.
"Why's that?" Boomer asked.
"They have suffered more than any other people. For they have lost their ancestral homes. Their cities lie in ruins. They fight on though. They fight and they do not stop fighting until what was theirs is theirs again. Not until they've reclaimed the halls of their sires. I admire them. Never broken by their defeats."
The companions were silent by the crackling fire.
Opah yawned very obviously and rubbed her eyes. "I'm off to sleep then. Night." She turned over and none saw the tears that wet her face.
A looted caravan, the horses slaughtered. And then four travellers, butchered and stripped naked by the road. Orc work.
Wyvern Tor rose into the air, higher than the craggy hills around. Hunched over the Triboar Trail like a hawk, awaiting a mouse. The companions moved off the road and into the beginnings of the Sword Mountains. Carrick led them through the sparse trees that struggled to survive on the rugged, windswept slopes. They crawled on their bellies up a steep hill. And peaked their heads over the top. The hill swept downwards into a steep ravine. A cave opened into the side of another mountain. A single, muscled orc stood at the entrance to the cave. He gnawed on a human skull with his great fangs.
"Carrick?" Maddi whispered.
The half-elf nocked an arrow to his bow. "Possibly."
"I need better than possibly." Maddi whispered.
"Then we have a problem." Carrick said. He raised the bow and pulled the line taut, his fingers brushing his cheek.
"Straight in the eye and I'll buy you another hyena." Boomer hissed, his fingers in his mouth.
Carrick loosed the arrow with a satisfying twang. The orc jerked back and clutched at the arrow, embedded in his chest.
"Damn." Maddi cursed.
The orc threw the skull away and pulled his shield up as Boomer's arrow thudded into the leather.
The orc shouted in his own tongue.
"Go." Maddi said. They slid down the slope, loose pebbles tumbling around them. As orcs charged out of the cave. Five more orcs. Clad in leather armour and animal skins decorated with the horns and teeth of defeated enemies. They were hulking and muscular, proudly scarred warriors.
Six. Carrick loosed another arrow as he slid down the slope and this one caught an orc in his neck. Five.
It could be done. It could-
The ogre rose to its full height once it had cleared the cave's mouth. A thickly muscled creature with a great yawning belly. Its body seemed out of all proportion; a jutting lower jaw, lined with sharp teeth, its head swept back directly from its bushy brows and surprisingly small eyes. There was very little room for brain in that head, much of it apparently having gone to coordinating food consumption. It dragged a tree trunk, inlaid with cruel spikes from its huge hand and its belt was clasped with a buckle in the shape of a taloned claw; the symbol of the ogre god; Vaprak the Destroyer.
"An ogre." Boomer said. "Of course."
An orc pushed through his fellows and growled; his fangs were pierced with gold rings. He shouted some sort of command and the orcs charged. The ground shook as the ogre lumbered lazily forward.
Maddi and Opah took the front rank. Opah raised her shield and twisted her sword in her hand. "I'll take the three on the right."
"So I'll take the ogre?" Maddi snorted and then remembered that she, as a member of the Neverwinter nobility was not supposed to snort.
"Leave me the ogre!" Boomer shouted, sprinting across the rocks and leaping over a stunted bush. He loosed an arrow at the towering ogre, striking it in a callused knee.
"Halfling flesh." The ogre spoke in Giant patois. He changed course, lumbering after Boomer, who dove behind a spindly tree and began loosing arrows.
"Does he know what he's doing?" Maddi asked.
"Do we?" Opah braced behind her shield as the first orc slammed into her. Carrick tossed his bow aside and drew his daggers. He was a blur, sliding between the orcs, slashing at their sides as he parried their blows. Harry followed, leaping on an orc and tearing into her arm. Thia whispered the words of a spell as a great axe whistled through the air. The weapon cracked against the invisible shield she had conjured and the orc stumbled backwards.
Boomer raced through the ogre's tree-trunk sized legs. Arrows peppered the creature's undercarriage and the ogre roared in frustrated pain. Boomer came out behind and loosed another arrow into the ogre's back. It swung its great club and Boomer dropped to the ground, his hair rippled at the blow. He scrambled up and reached for an arrow. His fingers closed around his last one.
Maddi lopped the orc's arm off. It stumbled backwards, spraying its comrades in black blood. Maddi hefted her axe, her injured leg screaming as the hammer caught her on her chest. The ground knocked the breath out of her. Maddi rolled into her attacker as his maul cracked the earth beside her head. He fell on her and Maddi's pained gasp was silent.
Opah bashed her orc in the face with her shield. His axe tore across her leather armour and bit into her side. Opah swung desperately, catching him with the edge of her blade. She saw Maddi fall and hacked a path through to her.
Thia's magical shield shattered and the orc, grinning bloodily yanked her towards him by her hair. Thia buried her scream behind her gritted teeth. Sparks erupted from her hand and the orc blinked rapidly but did not loosen his grip.
"Elf witch." He snarled.
He opened his mouth wide and Thia realised he was going to bite into her face. She twisted uselessly in his hand, thoughtless fear choked her.
Carrick's dagger sliced across the orc's throat and Thia fell to the ground.
The ogre lumbered at Boomer until it filled his entire world. The ogre's club, large as a tree trunk swept towards him. Boomer aimed, one eye squeezed shut, willed his fingers to stop shaking, released his breath with the arrow and a silent prayer to every god he could think of.
Boomer was tossed through the air, little limbs flailing helplessly, over and over. He crashed through a bush and landed with a seemingly magnified thud on the ground.
The ogre roared in pain, blood spurting from its eye. It fell forward onto its knees as Harry leaped up and tore into its throat.
The ogre swatted at the hyena but blood flowed like a river from its ruined neck. It slammed into the ground, jerking fitfully. The two remaining orcs fled and Opah, clutching the wound in her side collapsed onto the ground. She reached a hand for Maddi. The noblewoman gasped for a trickle of air.
"Boomer." She wheezed.
Thia was already running across the open ground. She fell at Boomer's side.
Carrick sheathed his daggers and knelt by Opah. "Let me see."
She removed her hand and groaned as Carrick bound the wound.
"The thief?" Opah called as Maddi seemed to crawl across the ground, desperate to stand.
"He's alive." Thia said shakily. "We're all alive."
Harry had begun chewing on the ogre.
This time, as the companions approached Phandalin, there was a crowd ready to meet them. Maddi couldn't hide her grin at the cheer that erupted as she lifted the (admittedly stinking) orc head. And then the screams as Carrick and Opah heaved the ogre's ugly head into the air for a moment before the weight of the thing almost toppled them both. Opah clutched her side and hissed with pain. She had sown the gash herself, a useful trick on Neverwinter's dangerous docks and hoped the ragged stitches hadn't opened. Her companions were bruised and battered as she. Carrick alone had escaped injury, though his arms still bore the nothic's savage attack. Boomer was strapped to Maddi's back and though his sarcastic complaints on the indignity of it had accompanied them from Wyvern Tor all the way to Phandalin, they all knew he could barely limp along. The ogre had almost broken the halfling. They had survived. But the battle had been closer than any of them had liked.
The crowds crashed against the weary companions and welcomed them back to Phandalin.
That night, Carrick carried Boomer to his bed, shadowed by Quelline Alderleaf, who refused to believe her nephew had defeated an ogre but was also certain he was closer to death's door than he seemed. Quelline shooed Carrick out as she shredded leaves for an old halfling remedy, determinedly ignoring Boomer's weak protests. Carick saw Thia on the stairs. Her nose was buried in a book; A History of the Dark Disaster and the Fifth Crown War. Carrick could tell she had been crying again. He had heard her in camp. She pulled the book higher as she passed him.
"The Sun has gone out. A shadow rules in her place. And I am broken." Carrick said in Elvish.
Thia stopped, one hand resting on the bannister. "The Light has gone out. Darkness is draped across the whole world. And I weep." She turned towards Carrick and he smiled. "The Lament of Aryvandaar." Thia said.
"It's always made me cry, that poem." Carrick said with a thoughtful frown. "But it's beautiful too, isn't it?"
Thia nodded once. "It is."
"Good night." Carrick bowed his head and walked down the stairs.
"Good night." Thia replied softly.
The inn had become a sort of home to the companions and cheery Toblen Stonehill was quick to expel any locals still drinking when Maddi came down the stairs and set up at her table.
Maddi had unfurled a tattered scroll and was reading by the light of a candle that was glued to the table with wax. Carrick's elf eyes scanned the page. The deed to Tresendar Manor.
Opah sat beside the fireplace, the stuttering shadows made her face seem haggard with age. They were the only two people in the common room.
Carrick settled himself into a plush chair opposite the warrior.
"Carrick." Maddi called. He heard her carefully rolling the scroll up. "I've been to see the Townmaster. There are 20 gold coins waiting for you here."
"Thank you." Carrick said. He watched the fire devour the logs that were perched into a pyramid among the flames.
"How fares Boomer?" Maddi asked.
"On the mend."
"Good. He will need his strength for Thundertree."
Opah seemed to shudder suddenly.
"Thundertree?" Carrick repeated. "The abandoned village?"
"According to Sildar, there is a druid named Reidoth who stays near there and knows the location of Cragmaw Castle." Maddi said. "We leave as soon as Boomer is well enough to travel."
"Thundertree." Opah whispered softly, as though she were speaking to the fire.
"Yes. I've not heard of it either." Maddi said. "Destroyed, so Sildar said by-"
"The eruption of Mount Hotenow." Opah finished. "The village was blanketed in ash. People died where they stood. Suffocated. Lived and worked in the shadow of that mountain all their lives. They should have run. But they didn't know."
"Yes." Maddi said, not looking up from her pile of coin. "That's right, Opah. The survivors returned but the village was infested with ash zombies. It has been abandoned ever since. But for this old druid."
Carrick reached across the space and squeezed Opah's arm. She startled, stared at him with a remembered nightmare in her wide eyes. And then relaxed.
"Old wounds." Carrick said. "can still bite."
"Best to forget them." Opah stood and yanked her cloak off her chair. "I'm going to go and fight something." She strode into the night, slamming the door shut behind.
"Peasants and their fighting." Maddi said absently as she deposited her coins into her purse.
Wherever one looked, the great Neverwinter Wood found a way to creep into sight. The forest stretched across the horizon, an impenetrable blackness of ancient trees, thick with an alien malice. The closer the companions grew to the forest, the more its shadow seemed to leach the day so they were walking in perpetual twilight. They hunched in the shade of the trees as they travelled north to Thundertree.
"Neverwinter Wood." Maddi said with a shudder. She walked with her great axe across her shoulders. "I almost hope we don't find this Reidoth so we needn't enter."
Carrick, for whom woods and forests felt more like home than any mortal constructions, smiled.
"The Copper Elves keep watch over the forest." Thia said. "They have expelled most of the evil that lurked within."
"Not our Cragmaw Goblins though." Boomer was stabbing the air with his rapier. He cut the air with swift gestures and grinned. "I love this sword."
"I thought it was a rapier." Opah said.
"That's a type of sword."
"I see Thundertree." Carrick said softly.
Boomer whistled. "Right under the mountain that killed it." The grim edifice of Mount Hotenow stood reaching into the sky like a craggy tooth; the ruined village of Thundertree seeming to cower in its shadow. There didn't seem much left beyond a half-shattered tower and the grim outlines of several sunken buildings.
Opah hissed a breath out.
Carrick glanced at her.
"Let's find this druid then." Maddi swung her axe and strode forward.
"This place . . ." Opah began and Maddi stopped. "This is where I was born. I was raised here before the eruption."
"I thought you worked on the docks in Neverwinter?" Boomer asked.
"Not when I was a child." Opah snapped. "My parents died in Thundertree. Most of us who survived, travelled to Neverwinter. We were spat on and abused."
Maddi took Opah's hand. "I'm sorry. I understand your hatred for the nobility."
Opah managed a smile. "Not all of them."
"A homecoming then." Boomer grimaced. "Your little village needs a bit of work."
Thia knocked him in the head with her book. "Ow!"
"I swore I'd come back." Opah swallowed. "But I never did. Now I'm here. Maybe it's my fate to restore Thundertree. We could clear the zombies. Bring people back."
There was a sudden rush of wind above.
"Cover!" Maddi hissed and they sheltered in a copse of trees beside the road. A green dragon soared above them, a dead sheep clutched in both foreclaws. Its bright scales, like new leaves on a summer's day flashed in the afternoon sun, its wide wings dappled green. It plummeted from the sky, wings tucked in against its huge body as it dove. Enormous but somehow still sleek and graceful. The dragon spread its wings, sailed over the village and settled on the ruined tower. The companions watched it slink inside, its long tail waving through the air behind.
Boomer sighed. "I'm going to have to talk to Gundren about my fee."
Neverwinter Wood had reclaimed Thundertree. Branches pushed through stone walls and canopies spread where roofs had once stood. Birds nested in abandoned houses and small deer that only reached knee height wandered freely through streets overgrown with wild flowers.
A one-armed zombie reached vainly for one such deer. The tiny animal leapt nimbly away. The zombie stared dumbly after its swift quarry. It had been a man in life but much of the skin had fallen away from the face so the contours of the skull were exposed. The tattered remnants of a tunic hung from the skeletal creature. A sudden noise and the zombie looked up, perhaps hopefully and never saw the arrow pass through its eye and into its head. The zombie keeled over.
Carrick lowered his bow, a slight smile on his face.
Boomer whispered a curse as Opah chuckled.
She held a hand out. "That's a copper to me, Boomer."
"It was luck." Boomer grumbled as he flicked Opah a coin.
"Skill." Carrick corrected him.
"Try that in the heat of battle. Against an ogre and see how you do."
"Ogre eyes are bigger." Carrick observed.
"And farther away!" Boomer retorted. He turned to Opah, his little face thoughtful. "A thought. That wasn't someone you knew, was it?"
Opah's face seemed to collapse. "I didn't even think of that." She whispered.
"I'm sure he was a prick." Boomer grimaced. "He looked a prick, yeah?"
"Definitely." Opah replied. "Seemed mean."
The party climbed over a low stone wall and moved cautiously through the remains of an inn. They each expected the great eye of a dragon to surprise them around every corner. The tower where the creature made its home rose into the sky and Boomer jumped. It seemed to sneak up on him.
"Is that normal?" Boomer asked Carrick, gesturing to a huge grey owl that was watching them from a perch on a rafter that ran the length of the inn.
Carrick squinted at the bird. And the owl turned its piercing yellow eyes on him. He could not decide what it wanted to say.
"No." Carrick said finally.
"It's the dragon?" Boomer hissed and raised his bow. "Dragon spy?"
Carrick pulled his arm down. "I don't think so." The owl turned around and dropped away, flying between two ruined houses.
Harry pulled a skeletal arm free from the wreckage of the inn and loped ahead of the party. Maddi cast the hyena and then Carrick a look that could have withered the wildflowers that coated the ground.
"I'm starting to like that hyena." Boomer said as they moved outside.
"It saved your life." Thia observed.
"I don't like it at all." Opah said.
"Visitors." An old man was perched, rather like the grey owl beside him on the remains of a wall. He was the very image of unkempt. His wild hair and beard were littered with leaves and sticks and . . . spiders, yes. That was a spider crawling around his moustache. He was naked to the waist and even there, he wore no more than a loincloth. He scratched absent-mindedly at the grey hair that coated his muscular chest with filthy fingernails. The lines of his face were deep crevices but his eyes were clear and sparkled with a sharp intelligence.
Maddi had raised her axe but lowered it now. "You can only be the druid, Reidoth."
"I am indeed." Reidoth replied. He seemed to examine each of them but stopped on Opah. The druid's wrinkled face cracked into a smile.
"This is a face I know." He said.
"You do?" Opah asked, surprising herself with her nervousness.
"You're the Winfred girl." Reidoth said. "I knew you when you were a pup." He jumped down from the wall. "Come, all of you. Let's eat somethin'."
Reidoth was nesting, and that is what his home most resembled, a bird's nest in a mostly intact cottage on the edge of Thundertree. Plants sprouted from pots within a crumbling bookshelf. A pregnant badger was curled up in an alcove and chittering squirrels raced through the rooms. Smoke drifted through the narrow hole in the thatched roof. A pot was suspended over the fire. Boomer's belly rumbled at the strong taste of a spicy stew on the air.
"You knew my parents?" Opah asked Reidoth as he set about spooning the broth into rough wooden bowls.
"Aye. Good people, they were too. Never met a stranger they didn't welcome into their home."
Thia was staring dubiously around the cluttered cottage. Her eyes alighted on a rough stack of books and she blew a layer of dust off the thick volume on top.
"I don't remember much of them." Opah admitted. The owl had settled on the mossy head of a stone statue of Silvanus, the god of druids and the wilds. He was presented as a gangly youth in leaf armour, wearing a spry grin.
Harry trotted in after Carrick and watched the owl hungrily.
"They'd be happy to see you'd come home." Reidoth passed the stew around. Chopped mushrooms in a thick porridge.
Thia wordlessly placed her bowl before Harry and the hyena didn't hesitate.
The druid sat on the floor and peered around at Opah. "Your parents loved this place, you know."
"They should have left. They should have come with me." Opah said quietly.
"They couldn't. This was where their love blossomed. They couldn't leave without trying to save it."
Opah blushed and swiped impatiently at a rogue tear.
Maddi waited until she was sure the druid was finished talking. "You know there is a dragon nesting in the tower?"
Reidoth slurped his stew into his mouth. "Your accent. You are Neverwintan nobility."
"Yes." Maddi replied with a quick glance at Opah.
"Have you come here for atonement? Your city failed Thundertree."
"I have come because I'm told you know the location of a goblin fortress; Cragmaw Castle." Maddi was clearly struggling to remain patient.
"What do you want with Cragmaw?" Reidoth asked.
"The goblins are holding our employer." Opah explained. "We want to find him and rescue him. If he still lives."
"Then you are not here to restore Thundertree?" The druid couldn't keep the accusation from his tone. It could be he didn't try.
"I . . ." Opah shrugged defensively. "What's left here? It's all gone."
"Your parents are here." Reidoth said, his tone faraway. "I know, because I buried them. I have buried thirteen people I found in the ruins of our village. Thirteen. People I knew. Those who didn't rise in death."
"You think my life's been easy?" Opah asked defensively. "I grew up on the streets of Neverwinter. Alone. My parents should have been there with me."
"Cragmaw Castle." Maddi repeated. "Do you know where it is?"
"They weren't there for you." Reidoth said. "And I'm sorry for that. It was a risk. They knew it. But they didn't think they'd die, girl. Nobody ever thinks they'll die for what they want. Now you've got a choice to make." He whistled and the owl swooped down to land on his bony knee. "My friend here. Her name is Neb and she will guide you to Cragmaw Castle. You can leave tomorrow."
Boomer clapped his hands. "Love it. Thanks for the stew. And the guilt. We'll find another cottage to camp in. Let's be off."
"But here's the choice." Reidoth continued over the halfling. "I know of the green dragon that has claimed Thundertree for its own. I cannot hope to drive it away. And neither can I work in its shadow."
"He's about to ask us to fight a dragon." Boomer sighed.
"Together, we could present a formidable enemy." Reidoth said.
Maddi opened her mouth furiously but her eyes flicked to Opah, standing silently by the door.
"This was your home." Maddi said finally. "I leave the choice to you."
Opah seemed surprised. She gazed at each of her companions in turn.
"Absolutely not." Boomer shook his head frantically.
"There will be treasure." Carrick said. "Dragons hoard treasure. Isn't that right, Thia?"
Thia made a noncommittal sound. "Some breeds."
"Green dragons?" Carrick persisted.
"Yes, fine." Thia snapped. "Green dragons, like all true dragons are intelligent. Could we not reason with this dragon? Offer it something to leave."
"Hold on." Boomer held a hand up. "Carrick seems to think I'm so greedy that I'll risk my life for a few coins? I'm offended."
"I'll give you my share." Carrick said.
"Done."
Opah gave Maddi a hopeful smile.
"I've always wanted to be a dragon-slayer." Maddi grinned.
Reidoth clapped his hands together and burst into a mad laugh.
Carrick spent the night with Harry, walking the wilderness that assaulted Thundertree, the stars the only blanket either one required.
Boomer sat by the door whilst Maddi slept, curled around the fire and Thia sat, straight-backed, with her eyes closed and her breathing slowed but not quite asleep. Opah had found, under a creeping vine a volume detailing the many different breeds of dragons. She lay on the floor and snuggled in her cloak and flicked through page after decorated page, searching for any potential weaknesses of green dragons until the fire had burned to embers and cold seeped back into the room.
Opah abandoned the book as a waste of time and spent her watch on the sword thrusts, cuts and jabs that Maddi had taught her over the last days. Until Thia, tired of the constant grunting, asked Opah if she would like a lesson in magic. The warrior enfolded the elf into an excited hug. It was awkward.
Carrick returned as dawn broke through the open windows of Reidoth's cottage. He carried a feast of berries in the fold of his cloak and laid these out on the floor.
"Well done." Maddi popped a berry into her mouth. "Are we prepared?"
Boomer pulled the pot of tea off the restored fire. "For a battle with a dragon? How prepared can you be without an army?"
"I scouted the tower last night." Carrick chewed an apple. "There is a group camped in the village. I heard them speaking. They worship dragons."
"Dragon cultists?" Opah groaned. "I've seen those lunatics in Neverwinter."
"Yes indeed." Reidoth padded into the room. He stretched his hands towards the sunken ceiling. "They have been camped here for a month. My squirrels tell me they are considering the best way to form an alliance with the dragon."
"With a dragon. I foresee a pile of charred bodies." Boomer passed Thia a cup of tea.
"A green dragon does not breathe fire." Thia said. "But a venomous gas."
"Let's head up to the tower then, before these cultists know we're here." Maddi said. "Opah, did you learn anything that might help us against this dragon?"
Opah winced. "The book said the best thing would be not to attack it."
"I agree with the book." Thia said. "Let us first speak with this dragon before you start hacking at it."
Boomer snorted. "A negotiation with a dragon? It'll distract us with honeyed words and then-" He snapped his hands together. "bite our heads off!"
"Alright." Maddi shrugged into her chain mail. She pulled her head through her surcoat. "We will make our way to this tower. But do not make any move against the dragon until I say."
Reidoth was performing rather graphic squats in his loincloth in the centre of the room. "I'm coming too."
"It's a wizard's tower." Thia whispered as they crept through a thicket of new trees towards the half-demolished tower.
"Good eye." Reidoth complimented her. "The poor man died defending us from the zombies that overran the village. He and the few militiamen were all the protection we had." He cast Maddi an accusing look.
"Neverwinter was half destroyed by the eruption too." She growled. "It's taken years to rebuild."
"But you have rebuilt." Reidoth observed.
"Not without sacrifice." Maddi snapped. "My family lost all our estates in the eruption. I grew up in a hovel in Waterdeep."
"A hovel? Truly?" Reidoth's eyes slunk to Maddi's great axe and then her polished chain mail armour.
"Not a hovel, exactly." Maddi said defensively. "But it was . . . small. We could only afford two servants!" She looked around for support and, finding a series of incredulous faces subsided into mutterings. "Dull city" and "barely afford jousting armour" were audible.
"Here are our Cultists." Boomer nodded towards the road. Half a dozen humans in silken black robes and wearing curiously horned black masks made a cautious, one could say hesitant assemblage. The leader strode ahead, his robes caught in the wind and flared out behind him, very like the wings of a dragon. He held a sparkling purple amethyst above his head.
"Hail, Mighty One!" He called in Draconic. "Hail, Destroyer! Hail, Scourge of Men!"
The companions looked at Thia and she rolled her eyes. "Everything sounds pompous in Draconic."
"We bring you offerings! We ask for your friendship!"
The cultists came to an awkward halt on the overgrown road. The entirety of the ruined village seemed to still, awaiting the dragon's response.
Birds suddenly burst from the top of the roofless tower. A huge claw gripped the stone, and a long snout rose over the rim. There were few creatures in Faerun who could witness a dragon and not feel awe. The gods perhaps. Even this young dragon, as it slithered from the tower, undulating like a snake, provoked involuntary gasps from its hidden audience. The tall crest that ran along its elongated skull and long neck, the mark of the green dragon quivered in the slight breeze. The dragon unfurled its wings, wide as sails and gazed down at the cultists, its arrogant contempt obvious even in a face not designed for human expression.
"That thing is huge." Boomer whispered, horrified. "This was a mistake. This was a huge mistake."
"No!" Reidoth grasped the halfling's wrist. "Be strong!"
The cultists splayed themselves on the ground.
"That is your proper place." The dragon's speech seemed in two tones; a deep voice superimposed on a rumbling growl that shook the branches of the trees above the companions. It sniffed the air and shook its huge head as green vapour emanated from between rows of curved fangs. "What is this?" It demanded. "An ambush?" It clambered swiftly down the tower. "You seek to deceive me?"
"Oh no." Thia whispered.
"What is it?" Maddi asked urgently.
"Great Lord!" The cultist raised his head slightly. "Have we offended you?"
"Interlopers." The dragon hissed and stared into the trees. "You seek my treasure? Greedy mortals!"
"Oghma preserve us." Thia said. She raised her voice. "No, Lord! We bring you these fools as an . . . offering! They seek your death. They serve a rival in your greatness!"
"Lies!" The cultists sprang to their feet.
"What's happening?" Maddi asked, gripping her axe. "What are you saying?"
"We have to go." Thia was frantic. "We have to go. Let's-"
"It is confused!" Reidoth grinned savagely. The dragon was staring from the cultists to the trees.
"Attack!" Reidoth's eyes bulged. His muscles were taut. He grimaced in a shriek that became a roar as his body swelled, as thick fur sprouted across his back, and a great black bear was charging from the trees as the cultists fled.
"Don't!" Maddi was too late. The dragon shrieked in fury as Reidoth appeared in the road.
"Get him back here!" Maddi yelled to Opah. The dragon fell onto its powerful forelegs. It sucked a breath in and expelled a noxious, hazy cloud that blasted the road, grass withered and died and Reidoth was too slow to leap out of the way. He caught the blast and was buffeted backwards, leaving a bloody smear in the dirt as his fur fell away, exposing skin reddened raw. Reidoth the bear collapsed in a sickly cloud.
"You see my greatness!" The dragon roared.
Opah drew her bow back and fired an arrow that bounced harmlessly off the dragon's shimmering scale. It strafed the trees with its breath and the trees atrophied. Maddi and Carrick sprinted towards the dragon. Boomer ducked left towards the tower, loosing arrows as he went. Thia squeezed her eyes shut, she stamped down on the panic that threatened to engulf her. She whispered the words as the magic coalesced around her. She spoke the ancient words.
"What?" The dragon raised its head. "Little wizard, you-" It was plunged into darkness. The dragon waved its head, blinked its eyes. "Blindness." It hissed. "You cannot maintain this!"
"It's blind!" Thia screamed.
Maddi swung her axe, cutting into the dragon's leg and knocking scales aside. The dragon roared. It lashed out with its talons as Carrick strafed its side with his daggers.
"Shelter. Shelter." Boomer chanted as he scrambled for a foothold on the ruined tower. The trees shook as the dragon pursued the others. Boomer grimaced guiltily.
Opah was firing arrows at the dragon's face. "Reidoth!" She screamed at the fallen bear. The dragon spun about, its thick tail crashing through trees and Maddi rolled away. Carrick was too slow, the tail whipped across him and he slammed into a fallen tree. The half-elf hit the ground. Harry the hyena, whooping madly closed his strong jaws around the dragon's tail. The dragon shrieked. Maddi smashed it in the face with her axe and three huge teeth were knocked loose. Blood sprayed the trees.
The dragon's milky eyes cleared. The world suddenly reappeared. The dragon raised its head, exultant.
"Gods." Maddi cursed. She gripped her axe. The dragon opened its mouth, wisps of gas hissed out of its fetid maw. Reidoth the bear slammed into the dragon's back leg. The dragon buckled and the bear clambered up its back, slashing and clawing. Maddi's axe cut into the dragon's neck and it roared in pain and frustration. Reidoth gripped the dragon, biting at its scales with his bear teeth as it tried to shake him off. Boomer and Carrick's arrows peppered its face as Opah's sword sparked against its scales.
"ENOUGH!" The dragon beat the air with its great wings. Maddi tumbled over. It turned and cantered from the trees, Reidoth fell heavily to the ground. Harry held on to the dragon's tail like a persistent sturge.
"RELEASE ME, DEMON!" The dragon roared. It flicked its tail and the hyena rolled away. The dragon rose into the air, blood splattering the ground as it climbed higher, only just clearing the tower. The companions watched it ascend into the air and recede into the distance.
"Victory?" Boomer asked.
"YES!" Opah thumped her chest. "YES! DRAGON SLAYERS!" She took Maddi into a punishing hug.
"Dragon Slayers!" Maddi grinned. "Just about."
Carrick collected his daggers as Reidoth, changed back into a man, stood shakily. His beard was burned away and his eyes streamed from the dragon's poisonous breath.
"You're lucky, old man." Boomer pointed an accusatory finger. "You're lucky we won that."
"I am the reason we won." A clump of hair fell from the druid's burned head. "But yes. It was a risk. And I am very glad for the choice you made."
The day seemed suddenly brighter, as though the sun had been hiding behind dark clouds and the sky was wiped clean with the dragon's parting.
Thia rested a hand on Carrick's shoulder. "You're hurt."
The half-elf shrugged. "Barely a bruise."
"That was terrifying." Boomer held his hands up. "Look at my hands! I'm shaking. Never again. No more dragons."
The druid clapped his gnarled hands together and sat down on an uprooted tree. "We must celebrate, my new friends! Thundertree, my home is free. We can now clear out the last of the zombies and build a new settlement! One that is in balance with our natural world." He raised his arms. "You are all heroes! Neverwinter's debt to Thundertree is scratched out. Thanks to you, Lady-"
"Cragmaw Castle." Maddi interrupted, her fists balled. "Now."
Reidoth lowered his arms and then examined the angry welts forming on his skin. "Gladly. My owl will lead you there whenever you wish." He smiled at Opah. "Thank you, my girl. You must return. You must assist me in restoring Thundertree."
"Mad old bastard." Boomer grumbled. The owl waited on another dead branch ahead as the companions picked their way through petrified trees and glutinous rivers of rock; reminders of the Eruption. Like a forest of stone.
"I liked him." Opah said. "And I liked that trick with the bear."
"Druids." Boomer ignored her. "Mad, all of them. And now this owl is dragging us days through a dead forest. It's chipping away at my good humour."
"The forest has suffered." Carrick said.
"I thought your lot were keeping it under control?" Boomer demanded. "Isn't that what your lady love said? We were set upon by ghouls last night. Ghouls!"
"The Copper Elves can only do so much. The forest is vast." Thia called from behind.
"I believe it." Boomer muttered.
"The owl." Carrick pointed. Reidoth's owl had climbed the air currents and now circled an area of forest that showed signs of new growth. Green among the ash. Birds called to each other through the saplings that reached upwards for sunlight.
Cragmaw Castle. And not its original name. The companions could see the ruin was ancient, surely a relic of Phalorm, the Fallen Kingdom. The castle was mostly collapsed, stone windows looked out from fallen halls, a tower seemed to wail silently, a yawning chasm opened at its base.
The party moved silently between the trees towards the ruin. Five shadows flitting through the dead trees in the twilight.
They knew each other now. Like a pack of wolves starting the hunt. Maddi and Opah at the front. Boomer and Carrick on the wings of the party. Thia in the centre, guarded now by Harry, who loped joyfully beside her.
Carrick paused before the ruined entrance, flanked by two shattered towers, only the lower levels were intact. Tracks led away from the door and around the castle. Fresh tracks. Goblin. Hobgoblin.
Carrick gestured silently. The group rounded the castle. Carrick ran his hand along the ancient stone. His fingers sunk into the wall and Carrick smiled. A canvas, made to look like a piece of wall that had collapsed. Carrick pulled the material open to reveal a narrow entrance to the fortress.
"Not exactly impregnable, is it?" Boomer whispered. Maddi squeezed through first, her surcoat scraping against the wall over her chain mail.
They climbed over a cascading pile of rubble that could have been centuries old; the tower had collapsed completely and fallen into the hall. The companions picked carefully over the ruined stone. The entire place seemed one bad breeze from total collapse.
Maddi, with no clear idea where they should start moved left into a dark, narrow hall, surmounted with a high ceiling. Thia pushed past her as Boomer, not a possessor of elven vision, lit a torch. Statues lined the walls, gazing with gentle stillness at the interlopers passing through the once-temple.
"Oghma, the Lord of all Knowledge." Thia whispered, staring up at the statues. "Mystra the magician. Lathander of the Dawn. Lucky Tymora." She turned to her companions. "We must remove the filth of the goblins from this place."
"That's the plan." Boomer lit a torch with a piece of flint and light flared across the statues. "She's proper religious, isn't she?" He whispered to Boomer.
"Beautiful." Maddi breathed. "This was a great fortress once."
Carrick drew his daggers as something slimy suddenly slid through a crevice in the ceiling. The creature seemed to unravel. Carrick yanked Thia back as the monster slammed into the middle of the companions, coiled like a snake. It rose into the air and hooked tentacles unfurled to reveal a monstrous beak at the end of a thick wormlike body.
"WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS THAT?" Boomer demanded. The grick lashed at the companions with its thick tail, Opah and Maddi both leapt over the thrashing creature. Maddi slammed her axe into the grick's fleshy side and its pained shriek was inhuman. Carrick sliced into the grick with his daggers. The creature lashed at him with its tentacles, the hooks sparked against Carrick's daggers as he parried the blows. Opah lopped off a tentacle with a swing of her sword. The grick whipped its tail around and slammed Opah into the stone wall.
"I'm so tired of these monsters!" Boomer yelled. He squirted his flask at the monster, dousing it with oil as Carrick cut at its thick hide with his daggers.
Boomer threw the torch and the grick was a sudden, flailing fireball. The companions sheltered behind a huge, stone altar as the creature died. It left a flaming carcass strewn across the hall.
"Well done." Maddi said.
"Oil and fire." Boomer winked.
Opah stepped tentatively around the monster. "What is this thing?" She looked to Thia.
"A grick." The high elf answered promptly. "An abomination that feeds on the lost and the weak in the dark."
"Gricks, nothics." Boomer returned his flask to his pack. "Goblins. Zombies. A great bloody dragon. Honestly, whatever Gundren Rockseeker offers us, it's not been worth it."
Maddi spun her great axe. "And the castle's not cleared yet."
"Yeah." Boomer sighed.
The companions crept through the castle, hopeful (although it was a mistaken hope) that the defenders were as yet unaware of them. To the front gate, though the ruined castle was in such disarray that they were not sure in what direction they headed. If the castle were home to just goblins, the companions might have suffered no further resistance. As it was, these goblins were overseen by hobgoblins and that race values honour, discipline and strategy above all.
They organised an ambush.
The hobgoblins knew these interlopers had just killed the grick, not a simple thing. They arranged themselves and their goblin rabble around the rear entrance to what had once been a welcome hall. The ceiling, already in imminent danger of collapse was attached to a wire, running along the floor just behind the door. The invaders would trip the wire, the ceiling would bury them and the goblinoids would rush into the hall and pick off the remainder.
They had reckoned without Boomer. Armed with a preternaturally devious mind, he had seen the wire, (possibly because it was something he himself would try) and alerted his companions. They stepped over the wire and, quiet as thieves, ambushed the ambushers. The companions assaulted the southern tower, drawing the defenders into a hasty attack from the northern tower. Boomer had lobbed one of Carrick's (treasured) pots at the wire, and much of the ceiling had cascaded onto the shocked goblinoids, entombing two unfortunates beneath.
The remaining goblins crashed against the party like a gnashing storm. Opah and Maddi weathered the assault, standing firm like two immovable statues as Boomer and Carrick tore into the goblins' flanks and Thia rapidly worked her magic with deft hands. There could be only one result; the last goblin surrendered before he was killed. And Carrick, ever the voice of compassion urged his companions to let the goblin lead them to Gundren Rockseeker. The goblin assured Thia that Gundren was alive (though hurt, the goblin added nastily) and held by King Grol, the bugbear who ruled the Cragmaw Tribe.
They passed through a half-demolished barracks, where the goblins had abandoned a game of dice (Boomer shared out the coins scattered across the floor). And to a huge wooden door. This area was not so ruined as the rest of the castle. The ceiling was intact, the walls were upright and the door itself, while rotted was thick. The goblin cringed fearfully until Carrick forced Opah (who rather wanted his head) to release the snivelling creature. He scuttled out through the same hidden crack in the wall the companions had used to enter.
Opah rolled her shoulders and raised her shield.
"Wait!" Boomer hissed. "Let's trick them!"
The companions shuffled around him. "How?"
"Thia speaks their tongue." Boomer said. "She can pretend to be a goblin, have them open the door." He mimed a heavy swing with a sword.
"Do you know how difficult Ghukliak is to speak?" Thia demanded. "I can't do the . . . accent. It's very . . . 'Oi, mate, how ya doin'? Whatcha got there?' I can't do it."
"Give it a go!" Boomer grinned.
Opah shrugged. "It's worth a try."
"No." Thia snapped. "I have an elven voice. My tone is pitch perfect. Like a song. I cannot pretend a . . . Goblin patois."
Her companions exchanged rolled eyes.
"Back to me then." Opah charged the door. She smashed through in a customary spray of rotted wood. Carrick's arrow caught one hobgoblin in the face as he stood. The other dodged Boomer's arrow and leaped up a narrow set of stone steps.
"Quick!" Maddi pursued him. She thundered up the stairs as the hobgoblin slammed a door shut behind him. Maddi heard him growling in Ghukliak. Opah joined Maddi at the top of the stairs.
"Your turn." She panted, pointing to her shoulder.
Maddi grunted. She sprinted at the door and crashed into the room. She caught a glimpse of the hobgoblin and a bugbear in a coat of speckled grey fur, strapping on a breastplate before something slammed into her. Maddi hit the hard stone floor as a huge wolf snapped furiously at her face with huge teeth.
Opah aimed a kick for the wolf but was immediately on the defensive as the old bugbear, roaring with rage brought his sword down in a sweeping arc. Opah parried the blow but the force of it took her to her knees. She launched herself up and caught the bugbear around the waist, tackling him to the ground as Carrick leaped over her, slashing at the hobgoblin with his daggers.
Maddi heaved with her legs, flipping the wolf off her and cracked it across the face with the haft of her axe.
Boomer sidled into the room, his bow drawn, frantically searching for a target. He felt more than saw movement behind him and twisted as a black dagger tore into his cloak. A drow, skin so dark as to be onyx, wearing robes in a dusky grey, yanked her knife free and lunged at Boomer again. He knocked the blow aside with his bow, arrow flitting away uselessly. Boomer danced backwards on his quick feet as the drow pursued.
The wolf leaped up, snarling furiously. Maddi hefted her axe as Harry charged past, knocking her over and then the hyena and the wolf were locked in vicious battle.
Opah and Thia were battling the crafty bugbear, who evaded their repeated attempts to sandwich him between. He dodged a blast of frigid air, hurled by Thia.
Carrick feinted with his left dagger and, as the hobgoblin drew his blade to his right in defence, Carrick cut across with his right, slicing across the hobgoblin's thick throat. He and Maddi watched Boomer backflip over a dwarf, lying prone in the middle of the room as the drow, dagger in hand, hunted him.
"Gundren!" Maddi exclaimed. Carrick walked cautiously towards the drow, spinning his daggers in his hands.
"Surrender." He said in Drow.
In response, the drow leaped at Boomer, they rolled across the floor in a messy tangle and, as they both scrambled to their feet, there were suddenly two Boomers. Identical. From the dark curls that brushed their shoulders to the matching looks of horrified surprise now dawning across both faces. Unfortunately, the doppelganger was not able to change her clothes, so the Boomer on the left was swaddled in oversized robes. Boomer glanced at the cloak, torn from his neck.
The doppelganger shrugged. "I was in a rush." She said in Boomer's voice. Her dagger flashed as she spun about. The blade whistled through the air, aimed at the unconscious Gundren Rockseeker's heart. The electrical hum of magic permeated the air as the dagger seemed to slide against a sudden, spectral hand that materialised before it. The blade clattered harmlessly to the stone floor. The frustrated Boomer copy glared at Opah. She grinned in reply.
"Nice!" Thia said.
"KILL THEM!" The bugbear snarled, renewing his attack on Opah.
The Bad Boomer slid between Maddi's legs, leaped onto the victorious Harry's back and dove out the open door. Harry followed, snapping eagerly at Bad Boomer's retreating head.
"Does he know that's not me?" Boomer demanded.
"DAMN YOU AND YOUR BLACK SPIDER!" Old King Grol shrieked after the doppelganger as Opah kicked him in the chest.
Maddi joined the battle. "Go!" She cried, face tight with concentration. Carrick and Opah sprinted from the room.
Carrick leaped down the stairs. He heard Harry's whooping laugh and tore into the ruined hallway, skidding across loose pebbles. The doppelganger had changed form again. Carrick was staring at himself. Harry stood beside the doppelganger, apparently completely won over by the ruse. Carrick felt a sudden whine in his head as he winked at himself and then ducked under the canvas. Poor dim Harry followed.
"That's so weird." Opah panted.
Carrick sprinted after. He slashed through the canvas impatiently and into the trees. He stared about. He didn't see the doppelganger until she had already kicked him twice in the chest. Carrick hit the ground with his back and barely rolled away before the doppelganger's, or Carrick's knee had slammed into the ground right where his face had been.
"Oi." Opah swung her sword with expert precision. The doppelganger seemed to flow around and beyond the cuts. Far more graceful than Carrick himself could ever hope to be. Her fists slammed against Opah's face in quick succession. The warrior stumbled backwards. She shook her head as though dazed.
"Come on. You chased me, didn't you?" The doppelganger asked snidely. "You are the bane of the Redbrands?" She, that is to say Carrick snorted.
Carrick jumped up, daggers twirling, flashing against the dappled light of the trees.
"Better." The doppelganger easily danced around his attack. "Still not great." She swept her leg along the ground, Carrick was only just able to leap over and then pushed him forcefully in the chest with both palms. Carrick hit the ground again, realising as he did that the doppelganger had already identified his injuries, his vulnerabilities. Harry was circling them, confused and increasingly furious. Opah charged again, bashing at the doppelgänger with her shield. The other Carrick somersaulted over Opah, lashing her with a boot so she stumbled into a tree.
"Do you even know who you've made an enemy of?" The doppelgänger asked, easily avoiding Carrick's frustrated attack. "Do you know whose plans you're frustrating?" Opah re-joined the fray and the doppelgänger punched her in the face as she kicked Carrick in the chest. They both stumbled away.
The doppelgänger hopped from foot to foot and raised her hands in a somewhat relaxed stance. "You interrupted my business. Give me the dwarf. You cannot understand the stakes here."
"Retreat?" Carrick gasped, wiping blood from his nose with the back of his hand.
"Retreat." Opah nodded. Carrick whistled for Harry and the confused hyena loped towards him as the companions shuffled carefully back towards the ruins.
The doppelgänger raised her arms and smiled cruelly. A disturbing smile to see on Carrick's normally gentle face. "We were just getting started!"
Carrick and Opah trudged up the stairs, silent and not a little ashamed at their defeat. Thia and Maddi leaned over the dwarf. Boomer was searching the room for hidden treasures.
"Catch her?" Maddi asked as Carrick and Opah entered.
"Yes. And no." Carrick replied, sheathing his daggers.
"Is he alive?" Opah asked.
"He is." Maddi nodded. "Barely. We've given him a healing concoction."
Upon closer examination, the dwarf had clearly suffered repeated beatings. He was a ragged pile of cuts and bruises. His time with the goblins must have been a horror. He groaned as they gathered about him and his eyes fluttered open.
"Who's this now?" He asked through a swollen lip.
"Gundren Rockseeker." Maddi said. "Do you remember us?"
He squinted with the eye that wasn't a weeping bruise. "You're the noble girl? With the useless title?"
Maddi pursed her lips.
"And the elf!" He groaned and pulled himself up to a sitting position. "Well, this is a pleasant surprise. Didn't think I'd see you lot again. And certainly not at my rescue."
"We affected your rescue, dwarf." Maddi said. "At no small risk."
"Did me brothers hire you?" Gundren asked. He gestured to Boomer. "You're here too, you little thief. Give me a gulp o' some whiskey. I know you got a taste."
"I forgot what a charming dwarf you are." Boomer pulled his flask out and tossed it to Gundren.
He smacked his lips. "That'll set me right."
"Your brothers have not been seen in Phandalin since you left for Neverwinter." Maddi said. "You have an enemy."
"The Black Spider, damn his hide." Gundren cursed. "If he's hurt me brothers too . . ." He let Carrick pull him to his feet and stood there, swaying. "Back to Phandalin then, lads. There's much to do. And we canna linger here. There was a patrol, left a day ago. They'll be back before long."
"Hold on." Maddi said. "What about our payment?"
Gundren stared at her with his good eye. "Are you daft? Can you see that I've been beaten, robbed and tortured? Do you think I've got a spare sack of gold hidden up the crack o' me arse?"
"We have done considerably more than deliver your bloody caravan to Phandalin." Maddi said. "Including rescuing your guard, Sildar Hallwinter. And now you."
"Ah good man. I was sure they'd 'ave killed 'im." Gundren steadied himself with the aid of the ever patient Carrick. "Listen, my lass. You're here expectin' a bit o' somethin' more. I respect that. Get me back to Phandalin and help me with me mine and I'll see you all rich as deep gnomes. I swear it."
"There is a mine then?" Boomer asked. "Wave Echo Cave is real?"
"Real as me mother's beard." Gundren grinned. There were a few new holes in his smile.
"I will see you safely back." Carrick said with a frown at Maddi's greed. She glared at him, unrepentant.
"Good man." Gundren waved them towards the door. "I wasna jokin' about the goblins, lads. I counted the voices I could hear. That's me skill, numbers. And I haven't heard those rough voices for a day. They'll be on their way back soon." He eyed Harry as he limped past. "Good puppy."
"Nock!" A faint shout on the air.
"Draw!"
"LOOSE!"
The companions reached the summit of the hill and Phandalin rose out of the woods.
A great tent was raised in the village square, encircled by wagons. Folk weaved between the stalls squeezed between the shrine to Tymora and the Townmaster's Hall. Dozens of folk. Surely more than a hundred. Crowds gathered around a circle marked with stones as two brawlers; a dwarf and a tattooed woman who looked straight out of the northern reaches traded blows inside. A musician, armed with a lyre was leading a merry dance around Tymora's shrine; the dancers all wore flowers in their hair. And on the road into town, construction had begun on a wooden tower. A line of peasants and farmers were lined up beside the trail. As the companions watched, Sildar Hallwinter limped up and down the ragged line. "Nock!" Came the shout again.
"Moradin's Forge." Gundren breathed. "I've never seen so many people in Phandalin. Is this your doin'?"
The companions shared a smile that surprised them, each in their own way.
"I suppose the road is safer ." Maddi said. "Without the orcs."
"And the Cragmaw Goblins." Carrick added.
"Don't forget about my old mates, the Redbrands." Boomer said with a rueful smile.
"We have saved Phandalin." Thia smiled. "Almost accidentally."
"Aye, don't go gettin' swollen with your own brilliance, now." Gundren said. "There's still my cave to secure. And me brothers to find. This Black Spider, all I know about him, is he wants that cave. And he's willin' to kill anyone to get it. I'm just lucky that bugbear was a greedy bastard or I'd be his prisoner now. Bein' disemboweled, I imagine."
Standing atop the hill, flanked by the clear sky, the companions began making their way down towards Phandalin.
Gundren limped along between Carrick and Boomer. "The thing about mines." He said. "Is gettin' it all out. That's the trick. But this mine, my lads. This mine. The greatest miners of my race have already excavated everything we need. All we had to do was find it. And I found it!" He nudged Boomer. "Got any more o' that whiskey, Boomer? Bit o' firbolg courage?"
"We finished it last night." Boomer said. "Mostly you, actually."
"Oh aye, that's a truth."
"I hope you realise our debt to you is well and truly paid." Maddi said. "You hired my companions and I to deliver your goods safely to Phandalin. We have done so. We took it upon ourselves to rescue you. And I-we expect to be fairly compensated for the trouble."
"You got a way with big words, lass." Gundren growled. "I'm getting the feelin' you want more money?"
"You are insightful."
"Now, I don't have any money to give you. Everything I had, I spent, me and me brothers finding Wave Echo Cave. But, help me secure my mine-"
"Another battle?" Thia demanded. "I am a scholar. And I am tired of risking my life for your short-lived schemes. Give me my money now."
"You said the only surety for Phandalin's prosperity is this mine." Carrick said quietly.
"Listen to your friend." Gundren said. "Listen to the half-elf. If you want Phandalin to be more than a piece of dirt, you'll help me."
"Why would I want that?" Thia asked, her thin eyebrows raised.
"She's a hard one." Gundren whispered to Carrick. "Listen to me, you lot. There's nothin' you've ever done that's as important as this mine. This mine . . . My mine. It'll change the Sword Coast."
"Are you going to share ownership of this mine with Phandalin?" Opah demanded.
Gundren actually burst into a bout of uncontrolled laughter. "Are you daft, lass?"
"So I'll be fighting this psychopath to make you richer?" Opah said.
"I found the mine!" Gundren thumped his chest with a fist. "Me! Share it? You're mad."
"Until I am fairly recompensed." Maddi said coldly. "My service to you is finished."
"And me too." Opah added.
Thia nodded sourly.
Carrick was silent and Boomer seemed to be rapidly churning ideas through his mind.
"That's how it is then." Gundren snorted. "You pack o' mercenaries. I'll get your money. After I've got my mine back." He pushed past Boomer and limped down the slight slope towards the Triboar Trail.
"GUNDREN!" Sildar Hallwinter noticed the group and ran towards them. "I don't believe it! You're alive!"
"And you too, lad." Gundren smiled so his thick red moustaches twitched. "And trainin' an army?"
Sildar smiled, slightly abashed. "Hardly an army, but they're keen, at least." Sildar's gaze took in the companions. "My friends." He pressed a palm to his chest. "You have done the Lord's Alliance a great service this day."
"Don't tell 'em that." Gundren grumbled. "They're not heroes. They're mercenaries."
"Not true. I know these folk." Sildar placed his hands on Gundren's shoulders. "You have suffered, my friend."
"Just a few bumps and bruises." Gundren shook Sildar off. "Get your armour on. We'll head out right away."
"You need to rest." Sildar guided Gundren gently back to town. "You have suffered a great ordeal."
"I need my mine." Gundren growled. "I need to find my brothers. Understand? We canna lose this mine."
"We won't. But you are in no state to secure the mine now." Sildar soothed the impatient dwarf. "You need to see a doctor. You are clearly injured." They walked through the curious bowmen. One freckled boy drew his arm back to loose another arrow and Carrick grabbed his hand.
"You'll cut your cheek open like that." He said kindly. "Let me show you." The other volunteers eagerly formed a circle around the half-elf.
Carrick allowed himself a small smile. "Alright."
Thia rolled her eyes at Opah. "You see him? He indulges these locals so. He is too soft." She turned and regarded the half-elf fondly and Opah hid her smile behind her hand.
The market had, at some hazily defined and (probably intoxicated) point, become a village-wide party. The people of Phandalin had precious little to celebrate these past years. There were times, as the Redbrands tightened their criminal grip, as orcs and goblins raided closer, intent to sack the settlement itself, that it seemed that Phandalin must fail. Now, as the hardy folk of the frontier watched Sildar Hallwinter direct the measurements for an actual wall around Phandalin; as stocked and unmolested merchant caravans trundled into town; as Gundren Rockseeker himself, the dwarf who had found Wave Echo Cave enjoyed a pint of ale in the inn, it was as though Phandalin was suddenly blessed.
And most folk had already decided what the blessing had been.
Boomer grinned as yet another cup of wine was pressed on him. Thia was surrounded by her usual brood of village children, she entertained the children with magical illusions as Sister Garaele showed the planned expansion to the Shrine of Tymora. Maddi and Sildar spoke to the Townmaster, who seemed furious that the companions had survived their latest adventure. Boomer slunk closer, weaving through the crowds as Maddi exaggerated (and that was difficult) the size of the green dragon they had vanquished. Opah was cheering the fighters, pounding away at each other in the makeshift ring. Boomer had never seen Phandalin so brimming with optimism. With happiness. His past crimes seemed forgotten as people turned their smiles on him. Folk debated openly on the best way to make Maddi the Lady of Phandalin. A table of cheerful halfling, who watched a juggler with their legs swinging from the human sized chairs, raised their mugs to Boomer as he passed. He reached for a matron's purse, she was chatting animatedly with her daughters on the superiority of Ten Towns fish but, almost against his will, his greedy fingers stopped, mid-grab. Boomer snatched his hand back. He ran a hand through his curls and smiled ruefully.
"What's wrong with me?"
"Did you grow a conscience?" Boomer spun about and Gundren Rockseeker's moustaches twitched.
"At ease, little fellow." Gundren slapped a broad hand across Boomer's back. "I thought I'd wait with you for the mighty to finish their scheming." He jerked his head irritably at Sildar and Maddi. "Your noble mate, she's one for fine speech."
"She is at that." Boomer agreed.
"She'll be the first queen o' Phandalin, I reckon." The dwarf prodded his still swollen eye. "You're a smart one though, aren't you, Boomer? You know a sure thing when you see it."
"Your mine?" Boomer asked. "Why not hire proper mercenaries?" He watched Carrick, wiping his sweaty brow with his sleeve, join Thia and her gaggle of children by the shrine.
"Because I trust you and your odd bunch." Gundren rubbed his calloused palms together. "Because they're honest. And they seem to be makin' you honest too. Because they're not the type to steal my mine and leave me stabbed and bleeding in a ditch. Help me get my mine back and we'll all be rich as the gold dwarves of the Deep Kingdom."
"I'm not the one needs convincing."
"Then tell me what to say." Gundren almost begged.
Boomer clasped his hands behind his back. "That depends who you're talking to. And what you can offer me."
"A five per cent stake in the mine." Gundren whispered.
"That's a good start." Boomer clamped down on his excitement. "Carrick, he'll go because it's the right thing to do. Thia, she cares, even if she pretends she doesn't. Promise her you'll hire locals, lift them up out of poverty and all that. Opah, she's a follower and she's taken to following Maddi, she won't be a problem. And Maddi herself? She likes to think she's our leader. And you're right, she's destined for greatness. In her own mind, at least. Offer her Phandalin."
"That's not in my power to give." Gundren said.
"But your and Sildar's help could go a long way to making it happen." Boomer shrugged.
"Right." Gundren nodded slowly. "You devious little prick. What say you to another pint? Drinkin' helps wit' thinkin'."
"I'll take a pint. If you're buying." Boomer said.
"Halflings." Gundren shook his head. "Come on then, you greedy bugger."
Opah rolled under Sildar's sweeping cut and the crowd made appreciative noises at the evasion. Sildar smiled but his brow was knitted and Opah could see the sweat beading on his forehead. He was skilled though. He had clearly held a sword from a young age. Opah could see, as they circled each other that he had trained these forms to perfection. Until he could execute them flawlessly.
"Knock her on her arse, Sildar!" Gundren roared.
"Hey!" Opah called, parrying Sildar's precise cuts. She knew she was still in the fight only because Sildar still bore the injuries of his time with the goblins. "I saved your life, dwarf!"
"And I got money on Hallwinter!" Gundren raised his cup, prompting a cheer.
Sildar shuffled forward, favouring his left leg, he sliced at Opah's defence. She parried the blows and knocked the nobleman backwards with her shoulder, forcing him to use his injured right leg. Sildar hissed with pain but gave Opah an impressed little nod.
Carrick and Boomer watched together as Boomer's cousin, Carp raced around the crowd, collecting odds on the winner.
"He is your little twin." Carrick observed.
"Yeah." Boomer frowned. "Not sure if that's a good thing."
"It is definitely a bad thing."
Boomer laughed. A child was suddenly at his side. A sly little urchin with a runny nose.
"Letter for you." He said. Boomer flicked him a coin and took the folded note.
"What's that?" Carrick asked as Boomer's eyes scanned the page.
"Nothing." He said, slipping the letter into his pocket.
"Boomer." Carrick laid a hand on the halfling's shoulder. "You have become a good person. And a friend. There's nothing you can do about your past. That was another Boomer. Your future though, that is yours."
The halfling bit his lip and stared at the half-elf. "Tell me who wins. I'll be back shortly."
Carrick watched the halfling move quickly through the crowd.
"Where's he off to?" Maddi had detached herself from the Townmaster. She was wearing an unusually smug smile.
"He doesn't know. Good news for you?"
"Perhaps." Maddi watched the duel with an appraising eye. Opah had fought well but Sildar hammered at her now, having worn her down with his experience. "Opah is much improved. She is no longer just a brawler."
Opah proved this suddenly, firing a salvo of magical missiles from her hand as Sildar hammered at her. He was knocked off his feet. The crowd gasped at this sudden display of magic.
"CHEATIN'!" Gundren roared as Sildar lay in the dirt and laughed. Opah pulled him up and raised his hand as her acknowledged victor.
"Yes!" Gundren roared. "YES!"
Carrick and Maddi shared a smile as they applauded. "Thia is a fine teacher." Carrick said.
"Fine in a few ways?" Maddi asked.
Carrick ran a hand over his shaved head and blushed.
A flock of birds alighted suddenly from a tree across the open fields, spiralling into the air and Carrick narrowed his eyes.
"What is it?" Maddi asked.
"You need to find Boomer." Carrick said, already pushing through the crowd. "I'll get Thia."
Maddi stared after him as Opah joined her, sweat trickling down her face. "That was fun!"
"Come with me." Maddi said quickly.
"Is this about the Townmaster? I'm tired of that little man." Opah complained, hurrying after Maddi.
Halia Thornton sat behind her narrow desk, half-hidden by weights and measurements, a set of gnomish scales and a pile of contracts. The miner's exchange itself was a cramped sort of place that had the feel, even empty of frenetic activity constrained by insufficient time. Boomer was reminded suddenly that true power did not need the vain trappings of imagined authority. He compared the imposing Townmaster's Hall with this quaint little building and knew who really ruled Phandalin.
"What say you?" Halia asked softly.
"What are you going to do with him?"
"The Black Spider?" Halia steepled her thin fingers. "There are many uses for such a personage. Information, firstly. It's not really your concern though, is it? It's out of your control what we do with him. You decide whether you can help us claim him."
"And if I can?" Boomer asked.
"Then you will enjoy the many benefits of membership in the Zhentarim." Halia smiled. "Our reach is long. Our interests are vast. You will know power, Bombadil. True power. Power that doesn't need to be spoken."
"It's all very tempting." Boomer said. "But I can't see getting the Black Spider past my friends with his head still attached."
"You're a persuasive little fellow." Halia said. "Just remind yourself what there is to gain. And what to lose."
"Straight to the veiled threats." Boomer forced a nonchalant smile. "Lots to think about then."
"Not really." Halia said. "Be smart, Boomer. Try it, you might like it."
A great, deep bell sounded suddenly, echoing over Phandalin.
"Nothing so sinister as the unexpected tolling of a bell." Halia said, standing up. "I imagine that will be something I don't want to deal with. Remember my offer." She ushered Boomer out the door, slamming it shut behind as screams shattered the laughter of the market. The panicked crowds were already fleeing the square. Stalls were upturned, folk sheltered behind the wagons or fled to the Townmaster's Hall to barricade the building.
Boomer spotted Maddi and Opah and sprinted at them.
"What is it?" Boomer ducked under a dwarf as he charged past.
"Hobgoblins!"
"Where have you been?" Maddi demanded as Boomer reached them.
"Nefarious deeds. What's happening now?"
"There." Maddi pointed.
Five hobgoblins advanced across the open field. The leader, a great muscular brute in chain mail was flanked by two huge wolves. He walked with the doppelganger Carrick, clad in the dark leather armour.
"I hate that Carrick." Opah grunted.
Part Four: Wave Echo Cave
The doppelganger raised her arms. "Where is Gundren Rockseeker?" She called. "Gundren Rockseeker!"
Sildar drew his sword and stepped in front of the dwarf. Maddi and Opah moved through the square, weapons poised.
The Carrick Copy smiled. "Surrender Gundren Rockseeker to us and Phandalin will continue to be safe. Oppose us and this miserable stain on the Triboar Trail will burn."
The Townmaster swiped at Maddi's arm, his hands fluttering like panicked butterflies. "Give them the dwarf!" He whispered, eyes bulging.
Maddi cast him a rather disgusted glance. "Try not to panic."
A sharp twang and an arrow whistled through the air. The huge hobgoblin jerked his shield up as the arrow thudded into the leather. He sniffed the arrow. "Elf." His fanged grin was hungry.
Boomer was already racing across the square to join Thia and Carrick.
Carrick lowered his bow. "Damn."
Sister Garaele was herding children into her home. "Thia!" She called. "Get inside!"
Thia came to stand beside Carrick. "I suppose this is Cragmaw's missing patrol?"
"I think so." Carrick replied. Three hobgoblins were already moving cautiously towards the square. Their fellows nocked arrows to their own bows as the wolves loped through the grass. Harry, Carrick's hyena was whooping joyfully at impending battle.
The Carrick-shaped doppelgänger hitched a grin.
"KILL ROCKSEEKER!"
"I am going to kill you." Thia said to Carrick. She pulled him behind the temple as an arrow skittered off the stone. "And by you, I mean her."
"I got that. Yeah." Carrick replied.
Opah loosed an arrow and the hobgoblins broke into a heavy charge. Boomer, caught halfway across the square, stared in horror at the three monsters thunderously bearing down on him.
"Boomer!" Opah drew her sword.
"No!" The Townmaster clutched at Maddi as she moved to join her friend. "Don't leave me!"
Boomer rolled under the hobgoblin's first blow, drawing his rapier (that seemed such a spindly, delicate thing now) as Carrick's arrow caught a hobgoblin in the chest. A flash and the hobgoblin archer on the right was engulfed in a sudden, raging fireball. Boomer leaped around the hobgoblin captain. The creature snarled furiously, throwing huge swings at the halfling. Just one would sever Boomer in half. One slip and it was over. Opah rose up behind the hobgoblin. He must have seen the relief in Boomer's eyes for, surprisingly agile, he spun about and met the warrior's blade with his own.
Carrick pulled the arrow back as the wolf tore at him. He grimaced, the bowstring taut and ready. The wolf filled his vision. Its sharp yellow eyes fixed on his throat.
"Kill it!" Thia shouted.
Carrick, cursing lowered his bow as the wolf leaped at him. It slammed into his chest and Carrick hit the dirt in a darkening cloud as the wolf savaged his neck.
Maddi's hurled javelin brought another hobgoblin down.
"Well done!" The Townmaster clapped frantically, as though his applause were helpful.
Maddi scanned the battle for the doppelganger. The other Carrick had vanished. An old woman, wrapped in a shawl fled through the abandoned stalls. Moving more quickly than her stooped frame should allow. Maddi examined her path. She was practically running towards Sildar and Gundren. Maddi, ignoring the Townmaster's yelp of terror tore after the old woman. She saw Opah bring the hobgoblin captain down. Boomer was racing across the field towards the solitary archer. The battle seemed practically won. But all for nothing if Gundren died.
Maddi raised her axe as she approached the old woman. She aimed a blow between the shoulder blades with the haft of her axe but suddenly stumbled through empty air as the doppelganger twisted mid-stride and elbowed Maddi in the face.
Maddi stumbled. The doppelganger renewed her path as Carrick, stained with the blood of the wolf leaped at her, daggers flashing. The old woman struck him in the chest and he flew backwards.
Opah thundered past Carrick. The doppelganger slid under her swing and jabbed her twice just below the ribs. She was up again, racing towards Sildar Hallwinter. A thin knife now clutched in her wrinkled hand.
Sildar stood, blade ready, staring grimly at what he must have supposed was his death come to meet him. An arrow whistled across the square. The doppelganger turned, too late as the arrow juddered into her side. She stumbled, crashed to the ground and slid to a gasping halt.
Boomer cheered himself. The doppelganger pulled herself up. Her force was lost. Her hobgoblins dead or dying on the field. One wolf sprinting towards the safety of the trees, a bloody hyena in pursuit.
She tore the arrow from her side and, hissing with pain fled. Into the village. Two local boys, burly and now with the creeping shame of the bystander, tried to grapple her. She slammed their heads together and vanished down an alley.
The companions had once again taken possession of the Stonehill Inn's common room. They sat about a table in silence as Gundren Rockseeker limped over and eased himself into a seat. Sildar Hallwinter, standing by the bar, took his drink in hand and made his way over.
"So." Gundren clasped his huge hands on the table. "You see there'll be no peace so long as the Black Spider can threaten Phandalin."
"So long as you're here, you mean." Opah said.
"I'm not leavin' without me brothers. And the mine." Gundren said. "So you'll just have to get used to me."
Boomer leaned back in his seat.
Carrick lay a hand on his hyena's head and scratched Harry's ears. "This Black Spider has Gundren's brothers. And he has stolen a mine with incredible power. He must be stopped."
Thia sighed. "It is not our responsibility to right every wrong, Carrick." She said in Elvish.
"If we can help, we should help." Carrick retorted gently in Common.
"This mine." Sildar said, standing behind and to the side of Gundren. "The power it contains. It must be wielded by the good. By the honourable. Not this Black Spider and his gang of murderers."
"I do not see Gundren Rockseeker as a paragon of charitable virtue." Maddi said. "He is a greedy merchant who got lucky."
"Lucky?" Gundren growled. "I've spent half a century lookin' for this mine! There was no luck in any of it!"
"You would name yourself honourable, would you not, Lady?" Sildar asked.
"Of course." Maddi said.
Sildar glanced at Gundren before he plunged on. "Would you consider a more official position in Phandalin? The Townmaster elections are next year. If you ran, I am certain you would win."
Maddi's pride was pricked. "I would not be your puppet, Sildar Hallwinter."
"Never." He raised a hand. "But, working together. The Lord's Alliance, the Rockseekers, and the Townmaster of Phandalin. We could lift this entire region into the light of civilisation."
"And it'll be my kin from Citadel Adbar doin' the technical roles but . . ." Gundren paused as though he'd had a sudden flash of inspiration. "I'll be hirin' locals for the rest of the work needed. Clearin' the mine, transportation, and so on."
Opah glanced at Maddi. The noblewoman was biting her lip, seemingly paralysed by indecision.
"I will go." Carrick said into the silence. His hands were encrusted with dried dirt; he had buried the wolf he'd killed. Buried in the forest and Carrick had hoped her spirit ran with her pack.
Thia placed her book on the table. The Order of the Radiant Heart and the Iron Crisis: an Examination. She shook her head, clearly irritated by the half-elf.
"Thank you, Carrick." Gundren nodded seriously. "You'll be well-paid, my lad. Never fear."
"More vague promises?" Maddi demanded.
"I canna give money I don't have." Gundren snapped. "Carrick knows there's plenty o' money to be made when the mine is up and running."
"Let's make it official. What about a five per cent stake in Wave Echo Cave?" Boomer asked Gundren. "For each of us?"
"Each of you?" Gundren bit the words. "Each of you?"
"That's fair." Boomer shrugged. He cast Gundren a very small wink.
"Five per cent?" Opah repeated. "That's nothing."
"It's a lot. Actually." Gundren managed to croak. "Considerin' the expected profits of the mine."
"Indeed." Sildar smiled. "I can think of no better group of heroes to safeguard Wave Echo Cave with dear Gundren."
"Aye." Gundren looked like he might vomit. "That's very fair, thank you, Boomer."
"Just a thought I had." Boomer smiled.
Maddi couldn't contain the flare in her eye. She had seemingly secured rulership of Phandalin, however temporary and was now co-owner of the most sought out mine in the Sword Coast. "We accept." She said and clapped a hand on Carrick's arm, as though she had decided for him and he had not, just a moment before already volunteered.
Boomer raised his cup. "Wave Echo Cave!"
Boomer winced as Opah looped the bandage over his shoulder and under his arm. Maddi kicked at the dead ghouls that littered the dark chamber. Their battle against the horrible creatures now lay over the ancient bones of the dwarves and orcs that fought and died here centuries ago.
Gundren Rockseeker was strangely quiet. Although it was not so strange. They had found his brother, Tharden at the entrance to the cave. Dead for weeks. Gundren had shared a silent swig of whiskey with Boomer and Carrick and led the way into the mine. He now stared morosely at a dwarven skeleton slumped against the wall.
"How's your shoulder?" Opah called from beside the door.
"It's been chewed." Boomer replied.
"Stop running into strange chambers then." Opah ruffled his curls. "You're a halfling. Not a half-orc."
"Excuse me for being heroic." Boomer grumbled.
"We should carry on." Maddi said. "There are surely worse creatures than ghouls down here." Her words were punctuated by a distant crashing sound, like waves against rock that seemed to reverberate through the dark, endless caverns.
Opah raised her crackling torch and the darkness fled along the tunnel to gather beyond the fire's light.
"I hate this place already." Opah's whisper was preternaturally loud against the trickle of unseen water.
"I actually miss Harry." Thia smiled at Carrick. "His horrible whooping laugh would drown out the many terrifying sounds that always seem right behind me."
"I miss him too." Carrick said. And then squinted into the shadowed greys of his Darkvision. "But I am glad that I couldn't carry him down."
"I know there are going to be bats in here." Boomer sighed, peering up at the stalagmite crowned ceiling.
The cave was a seemingly never-ending ordeal through a monster-strewn darkness. Ghouls had gathered to chew on the ancient bones of the dwarven and human defenders and their orcish killers. Zombies, resurrected by the powerful magics of the mine patrolled the corridors. And remnants of the human wizards' magical defences still haunted the cave. And navigation soon became confused in the smothering confines of the many cramped walkways. It had taken Carrick, using his Darkvision to realise the companions were retracing their own steps. Zombies would lurch suddenly out of the shadows. And the great crashing waves, that seemed louder, then softer and louder again, never seen, always echoing through winding tunnels and empty caverns, threatened to send the companions mad.
They soon returned to a huge cavern, the destination for many of the tunnels. Carrick ran his hand across the wall; carvings of dwarvish and gnomish figures ranged across the stone. Silent witnesses to the carnage that had visited the cave those centuries ago.
"This place is a maze." Boomer kicked at a dwarvish helmet and it clattered loudly across the floor.
"Quiet!" Maddi hissed.
"I'm tired of being bloody quiet!" Boomer threw his hands up. "There's no end to this place! I'd rather fight another dragon than spend another moment in this dank darkness!"
Skittering noises above them. A hissing, chittering that grew louder, more insistent.
The companions raised their weapons.
Carrick and Thia peered up into the darkness.
"What are those things?" Thia asked, mouth hanging open in horror.
"Bats?" Boomer was almost crawling across the floor. "Are they bats?"
"Stirges!" Carrick loosed an arrow as a sudden cacophonous beating of wings descended on them like a storm. Stirges, winged, rat-faced little horrors flapped about their heads. Maddi yelled as one of the creatures hooked itself onto her neck and pierced her skin with a needle-like appendage. She could feel it sucking at her blood and her stomach heaved.
Carrick was slicing at the air with his daggers as the stirges dove at him, chittering madly at this feast. Opah sheltered behind her shield but a stirge crawled across her back and opened her up just behind her ear.
"IT'S ON ME!" Opah shrieked. Gundren Rockseeker was shrieking curses and waving a torch at the flapping creatures as Boomer leaped behind a huge orc skeleton. His little head popped up as his companions formed a rough circle and the stirges careened about above their heads. Maddi's axe swings were too slow so she used a javelin to spear at the creatures. Thia's hands burned with sudden flames and a blast of fire immolated half a dozen of the flapping pests. Carrick decapitated the stirge clinging to Opah and Maddi tore hers off with her spear. The swarm, shrieking with fury dissipated into the darkness, unsatisfied and still starving.
The companions stood there, gasping, as blood trickled from a dozen punctures.
"By all the holy gods." Opah breathed. "I hate this cave."
Maddi shuddered compulsively. "Horrid. Horrid."
"Let's uh . . . Let's crack on, hey lads." Gundren ran his hands obsessively over himself.
Thia uttered a strangled cry as she spotted a stirge wrapped around her leg. The hateful creature stabbed its tongue into her flesh. Boomer's arrow sliced through it and it fell, squirming to the floor.
"Out of hiding?" Opah asked him snidely.
"I told you, I don't like bats. Or . . . whatever those things were." Boomer said. He was still hunched over, as though guarding against another attack.
"We're lost." Maddi rounded on Gundren. "Don't you have any maps of this place?"
"Nundro is the map expert." Gundren said. "I'm good at numbers."
"The only number you need to remember is my five per cent." Maddi said.
"It'll be five per cent o' nothin' if we can't get to the Forge of Spells!" Gundren retorted. "Have the wizard conjure a spirit to guide us or somethin'."
"There are too many vengeful wraiths here already." Thia snapped. "Any more magic and we could be fighting an army of skeletons."
"I am not wandering this cave for another moment!" Boomer exclaimed. "I want to hear a plan! Any plan!"
"A goblin was dragged through here." Carrick was kneeling at the outskirts of a growth of fungi that blanketed the floor of the entrance of yet another tunnel. This was no smooth, dwarvish construction, but a reminder of the natural cave. Bizarre outgrowths of fungi covered the stalagmites rising out of the floor like rusted daggers.
"Great. More goblins." Boomer muttered.
"He entered this cavern." Carrick said. "Alone. And crawled back here." Carrick fell to all fours and sniffed at the fungi. He spat. "This is poison. He was the test. And then he was dragged by his fellows." The half-elf scootered across the floor. "Into this tunnel." He glanced at his companions. "So they could tell their employer what had happened?"
"The Black Spider." Gundren gritted his teeth. "Yes."
"This is the way." Carrick said.
Carrick set a cautious pace. Picked his way over the ancient battles, tracking the fallen goblin along a tunnel, walls engraved with scenes of dull dwarven mining (that Gundren seemed never to tire of). Through the remains of a great door that had been hacked open. Piles of dead dwarves, humans and orcs were tangled together around the doorway. Beyond, the battle had raged through a dining hall. Huge statues of dwarven gods supported the ceiling, gazing imperiously down at the diners that must once have shared food and laughter at the long stone tables. The companions dispatched a pack of ghouls lurking among the dead.
Carrick and Thia were the first to notice a light flickering along the tunnel walls. A ghastly green light. Carrick crept along the tunnel and, flat against the stone, snatched a glimpse at the chamber beyond.
The space was huge. The Townmaster's Hall would not have grazed the ceiling. Carrick clutched his bow. Long dead dwarven warriors had risen again as shambling zombies. This was once surely the hub of the mining operation. A massive blast furnace and bellows, so outsized as to seem ludicrous dominated the chamber. But Carrick's eyes were drawn upwards. A humanoid skull, wreathed in green flames hung in the air. Carrick pulled his head back. The goblin had passed this way. Carrick followed the trail with his eyes. The goblins had found a way through the ruined corpses and detritus. A path that avoided the attentions of the magical skull. And Carrick, if nothing else trusted their cowardice. He rubbed his fingers across strange tracks he didn't recognise. A fast moving creature. Huge, judging by the space between the steps. Wide. But the steps themselves were small. A mystery for later.
"There is a floating skull that is on fire." Carrick whispered to his companions.
"A Flameskull." Thia said, as they all had known she would. "Crafted by a wizard. Surely one of the defenders of Old Phandalin. A dangerous foe."
Opah drew her sword.
"Wait." Carrick held a hand up. "There is a way through, without drawing its gaze."
Thia took Boomer's torch from him. "You will have to do without your light."
"We will guide you." Carrick told Maddi and Opah.
None of them seemed particularly happy with this.
It was slow moving. Crouched behind carts and pieces of fallen masonry. The companions flitted like the shadows that surrounded them from cover to cover. Carrick led Maddi by hand. Opah gripped Gundren's tunic. And Thia grudgingly allowed Boomer to take her wrist. The flameskull darted to and fro above the chamber, they could not say what it searched for. If it knew itself. Ancient orders rattling around its failing mind.
They only breathed again once out of sight of the dreadful creature.
Where the last chamber had invoked horror, the next conjured wonder. It was as though the cave had suddenly opened and the clear night sky flooded the caverns. The ceiling was sprinkled with glittering stars. Not stars. Minerals. Rocks sparkling with untold riches. Gundren revolved on the spot, staring upwards, struck mute by the wealth of the chamber.
"Five per cent." Maddi whispered.
"Five per cent." Boomer grinned.
Carrick held a finger to his lips. He cocked his head. The companions waited in silence. There. A voice riding the fetid air. A low voice, smooth as the surface of a dark pool.
The Black Spider. Maddi mouthed. The companions took up their positions, moving as one towards the voice. None noticed the silent, eight-legged monsters creeping across the walls. Closing in.
The chamber was cut in half by a set of stairs. The second half of the chamber lay below. A free-standing structure rose up from the floor. Engraved with dwarvish runes. Thia clutched her head as the magic of the place seeped into her very skull.
"This is it." Gundren breathed.
The voice stopped abruptly.
"Damn it." Maddi, crouched low to the floor, peered over the stairs. A table, strewn with scrolls and parchment. A camp that burned with the embers of a fire. And a body. A dwarf, curled on the ground.
"NUNDRO!" Gundren roared. He leaped down the stairs.
"Wait!" Opah grabbed at him but he was already kneeling by his brother.
"He's alive!"
"Course I am." Nundro whipped a knife from behind his back and pressed the blade against Gundren's throat.
"Nundro." Gundren gasped.
"Not quite." A figure materialised from beside the table. His stark white hair was swept back from a pointed, distinguished face. A drow. He balanced a staff against the floor, the head carved into the body of a great black spider.
Nundro transformed smoothly into Carrick. The doppelganger smiled. "You know, this is my new favourite skin."
"So, this is the group." The Black Spider placed one hand behind his back and his sharp eyes flitted from face to face. "This is the group. That took my compliant Glasstaff from me. And slaughtered my useful goblins. Not what I expected."
"Let him go." Maddi gripped her axe.
The Black Spider flicked his cloak over his shoulder, revealing the prone body of the real Nundro, hidden behind him.
"Brother!" Gundren yelled.
"You fools, who have thwarted me at every turn. Murdered my servants. Untied my schemes. And for what? So you could die in a cave?"
"You will die here." Maddi said. "Surrender."
"Drow do not surrender."
"You are heavily outnumbered." Opah said.
"No. No." The Black Spider smiled. "You are outnumbered. The arrogance of it. Five of you. Thought to defeat me? I have twisted half the Sword Coast to my will! Phandalin, the Cragmaw Goblins, even the Zhentarim will soon dance to my tune! You little fools. I will enjoy watching you die."
Carrick drew an arrow with swift fingers. The arrow sparked against an invisible barrier set around the Black Spider. He smirked.
"Kill them." He said in Drow.
The spiders descended in a great rustle of hairy limbs. Maddi and Opah fought back to back, striking at the huge spiders as they reared onto their hindmost legs and bared fangs dripping with venom. Carrick drew his daggers as a spider rushed at him. He leaped over the spider's huge, pulsing back, and slashed at its bulbous abdomen. Boomer rolled under the belly of another spider. He sprinted down the stairs. A great hairy leg swiped at him. Boomer somersaulted over the spider, slid along its back and rolled across the floor, blood seeped through the bandage across his shoulder. He came up with his bow drawn and an arrow aimed at the Black Spider's head. The drow had watched the battle with interest and now turned slowly to face the halfling.
Boomer heard Thia scream and Carrick's vengeful roar.
"Call your monsters off." Boomer said.
"Why would I do that?" The Black Spider smiled blandly. Above, something slammed into the floor and Opah yelled "Maddi!"
"Because you don't want an arrow in your eye." Boomer said.
Boomer heard a thump, Gundren's muffled groan behind. "I'll kill you before your doppelganger is close enough to strike."
"Kill me?" The Black Spider narrowed his dark eyes. "My little friend. I see the greed in you. You think you're evil? I was born in evil. You won't kill me. You can't. I am a worthless corpse. Very valuable though, alive."
Boomer grimaced. "Stop this."
The Black Spider produced the hand that was hidden behind his back. He held a shrunken snake's tongue between his thumb and forefinger. Magic crackled on the air. "Give me the bow." The Black Spider ordered. Boomer watched himself lower the bow. Offer it like a crown to the Black Spider. The drow took the weapon disdainfully. Boomer felt the doppelganger at his back. A knife pressed against his neck.
"That was briefly exciting. Like being attacked by an angry child." The Black Spider said. He gripped his staff. "His friends though are stronger than I thought. Kill the halfling. I fear I must involve myself."
The cool blade left Boomer's neck. He felt the doppelganger's arm reaching around him, readying to cut across his throat. Boomer fell, hit the floor, dove forward and caught the Black Spider around his knees.
"Little bastard!"
The drow slammed into the table as Boomer snatched an arrow from his quiver, hooked an arm into the Black Spider's cloak, pulled himself up and stabbed the arrow through the drow's violet eye. He shrieked as Boomer buried the arrowhead. The scream became a desperate gurgle and then the Black Spider slid to the floor, Boomer still grasping his cloak.
The doppelganger stared from Boomer to the dead drow.
"That turned so suddenly. Wow." She said. "I'm going to head off." She turned and found Carrick, caked in viscous spider blood was beside her, his dagger at her throat.
"I've decided I'm not that comfortable with you wearing my skin." Carrick said.
"That's fair." The doppelganger smiled ingratiatingly.
Boomer watched shrieking spiders scuttle back into the darkness. Opah carried Thia down the stairs, Maddi limping along behind as Gundren crawled to his brother.
"He's alive." Gundren wiped impatiently at the blood dribbling into his eyes. He cradled his brother. "He's alive."
"Is that a universal condition?" Boomer asked, staring around. His eyes lingered on Thia.
"I am not so chewed as you, halfling." Thia winced. She held one elegant hand to her throat.
Boomer grinned, relieved. "Did you see that, Carrick? Right in the eye."
"Did you fire the bow? Or stab him in the eye?" Carrick asked, as he looped rope over the doppelganger's wrists.
"It don't matter! The arrow is in his eye! That's two for me! Ogre, drow. Winner."
"Did you fire the bow?" Carrick repeated. "Anyone can stab someone in the eye. That's easy."
"It's an arrow!" Boomer exclaimed. "In his eye. That's all you need to know."
Maddi stepped over the Black Spider's body and stood before a stone door, one side engraved with runes, the other in the human language of Old Phandalin.
"Here it is then. The Forge of Spells." Maddi said. She turned to her companions with a wry smile. "I imagine there is something rather unpleasant guarding the forge."
"Probably a few things." Boomer said.
"Ghouls?" Carrick asked.
"At least." Opah nodded sagely. "A beholder, maybe. We haven't fought a beholder."
"The thing with all the eyes?" Boomer asked. "That's more disgusting than dangerous."
"A beholder is one of the most dangerous creatures in all of Faerun." Thia coughed.
"I would . . . shoot an arrow into its largest eye." Carrick said, with a sly look at Boomer.
"Could be a banshee?" Maddi suggested.
"We'd have heard her already." Boomer said.
"JUST OPEN THE BLOODY DOOR!" The Rockseeker brothers roared.
Epilogue
Boomer sat with his feet up on the wall. His boots were off and a cool wind played along his toes. The busy township of Phandalin was enclosed behind the high walls. The Jewel of the Triboar Trail, they called it. Latest member of the Lord's Alliance. Boomer glanced behind at the once Tersendar Manor, now, with the renovations Maddi had overseen, called Phandalin Keep. The thick tower rose into the air like a fist.
"You right there, captain?" Carp called from the tower. "Want anything?" Carp still looked strange in the halfling-sized armour Boomer had secured him. He was only the second halfling in Phandalin's militia. After the captain himself, of course.
Boomer inserted a finger into the book, foisted on him by Thia, Phandalin's resident bookseller; The Strange and Gallant History of Luiren, Kingdom of the Halflings. He tipped his feathered hat back and smiled at his cousin. "Get me a bite to eat, would you Carp?"
"Not a worry, Captain!" Carp saluted and Boomer hid his smirk behind the book.
He was a good kid. But he still worried his poor mother.
"Oi! Captain!" Carp shouted suddenly. "Her Grace is back!"
Boomer dropped his book and pulled his boots on. He peered over the wall.
Lady Maddi, formerly of Corlinn Hill, now ruler of Phandalin did indeed sit atop her black charger at the head of a body of horsemen. She raised a hand at Boomer as the gate lurched open.
He trot down the stairs and met Maddi as she dismounted. A guardsman led her horse to the stables. Maddi's dwarvish crafted plate armour dazzled the eye in the bright afternoon sun.
"Captain." She said.
"Your Grace." He offered a bow. "How goes Thundertree and Lady Opah?"
"Thundertree prospers, with our assistance. Lady Opah is still insisting I do not call her Lady." Maddi smiled. They crossed the square to the old townmaster's hall, now sat beside a barracks for Phandalin's guard. Maddi, whenever she returned to Phandalin, whether a diplomatic mission to Neverwinter or hunting orcish bandits, insisted on first hearing petitioners at the hall. There was a thin line of such irritants who now bowed at Maddi's approach. Boomer had, as he always did already cleared most of them out so his friend could get a moment's rest.
Sister Garaele's newest acolyte, a bubbly halfling named Yesree was sweeping the grounds of the much-enlarged Temple of Tymora. She saw Boomer and waved enthusiastically.
"Carrick was sorry he missed you." Boomer said quickly as Maddi raised her brows. "He passed through on his way south."
"And?" Maddi demanded.
"He and Thia were seen canoodling at sunset by the Edermath Orchard." Boomer grinned.
"Yes!" Maddi clapped her hands together. "Excellent. All is well in Phandalin then."
Boomer nodded. "All is well."
