Aster's Ledger

Summary

The party resumed their fight with the one-eyed creature in the crevasse beneath Tresendar Manor. After it nearly rotted Glomblax from the inside, the creature tried to bargain for its life with information about Glasstaff, strange goblins, and secret routes through the hideout. Beatrix accepted the deal, took the information, and then ordered it killed anyway. The decision opened a sharp divide in the party: Beatrix called it necessary self-preservation, John called the killing harsh, and Glomblax questioned whether she was protecting the group or only herself.

The crevasse held a battered chest full of coin, gems, potions, and a magical longsword named Talon, as well as two magically warped goblin corpses and the remains of an apparent prisoner wearing a unicorn pendant. Following the creature's directions, the party found what they believed to be Glasstaff's workshop and recently abandoned bedchamber. They pursued the unseen fugitive through secret passages, briefly interrupted the chase to kill two Redbrands and recruit a third, then followed the trail out of the ruined manor—only for it to vanish near the edge of town.

Back inside, Beatrix fell through a hidden floor and ate seven Goodberries to recover. The party crossed the pit into an old crypt, where John's attempt to throw a skeleton into the hole awakened all six guardians. The fight drew three more Redbrands from an adjoining room. The session ended mid-battle, with two skeletons still tangled in Beatrix's vines, three ruffians advancing, and Glomblax holding the line.

Key Events

The One-Eyed Creature's Bargain

• The session resumed in the middle of the crevasse fight. Beatrix's first shot went wide, as did Shoomit's carefully hidden musket shot.
• John refused to attack the creature. When it privately offered him a deal in exchange for healing, John answered: "Well, I won't heal you, but I ain't gonna hurt you." He warned that his companions did not much listen to him and held his magic until someone else was injured.
• The creature fixed its eye on Glomblax, making his insides feel as though they were falling apart. Even after spending John's Bardic Inspiration on the save, Glomblax took 16 necrotic damage. He later summarized the experience: "He almost made me shit my pants."
• It scrambled out of the crevasse toward Beatrix. Glomblax caught it with an axe as it fled, and the creature tried to force its way into Beatrix's mind again. This time she shut it out: "This head's like a steel trap, and it's closed shut."
• The creature offered useful information in exchange for being left alone in its crevasse. It claimed it kept secrets, spoke to no one, and protected the cave for Glasstaff in exchange for treasure, meat, and other necessities.
• Beatrix agreed and called off the party: "Hold on now. He's got information for us." The creature then revealed:
  • Glasstaff could be found to the north, beyond a workshop and storage room.
  • Secret entrances could provide a surprise route into his study.
  • The two unusual goblins in the crevasse had been passing through on business with the Redbrands.
  • Glasstaff was "a bit of a coward" in the creature's estimation.
  • It also claimed to know where bugbears could be found, though the party did not pursue that answer.
• Once the creature had talked, Beatrix turned on it: "It's just a shame that you're so loose-lipped… Boys, kill this thing." Glomblax answered, "Say no more."
• Glomblax struck it and tried to spit in its eye. Beatrix's familiar distracted it, and Beatrix finished it with a pistol shot: "Sorry, fellas. Tough life out on the frontier, and I just can't let this thing live knowing what it knows."

A Hard Question for Marsh and Company

• John called the killing harsh. Beatrix argued that no one else was looking out for them and that whatever secrets the creature had taken were now safe.
• Beatrix admitted, "It was more for me and Shoomit than it was for you," but insisted she was willing to make difficult decisions for the group.
• Glomblax pressed her: "Do we know you're not just out for yourself?"
• Beatrix's answer did not entirely reassure him: "If you're on my side, then we all get to reap the rewards, don't we?"
• The discussion ended with Glomblax's damaged dignity taking center stage. Beatrix used magic to soil and then clean his clothes, leaving him successfully "dirtied and unshitted."
• While the others argued, John sat in a corner and drank an entire bottle from his knapsack. When the party moved on, he threw the empty bottle into the crevasse and listened to it shatter: "I think I'm a bit more ready to fight now."

Treasure and Warped Goblins

• At the bottom of the crevasse, the party found two dead goblins with strangely elongated skulls and flesh torn from their bodies. Beatrix examined them and detected unfamiliar magic that seemed to have warped them.
• Beatrix connected them to Carp's report of goblins using strange magic: "Something otherworldly is going on here."
• A battered chest hidden in a cubby contained:
  • 160 sp and 120 gp
  • 5 malachite gems, valued at 12 gp each
  • A Potion of Healing, Potion of Climbing, and Potion of Growth
  • Talon, a magical longsword in a dusty, silver-chased scabbard, with a bird-of-prey hilt and its name inscribed on the blade
• The party could feel that Talon was magical but had not identified its exact properties. Glomblax considered carrying it despite being, in his words, "more of an axe man myself."
• They also found a recently picked-over human skeleton with rope burns around its wrists and ankles. It appeared to have been a prisoner rather than a Redbrand. Glomblax took the ordinary-looking unicorn pendant from its neck, and the party planned to use it to help identify the dead person.

Glasstaff's Workshop

• In a finished storage area north of the cavern, Beatrix found two concealed stone doors. Beyond one route, she heard people arguing over a dice game.
• Beatrix considered throwing dynamite into the gambling room, but the party decided that an explosion inside the hideout would attract too much attention. Shoomit instead used his thieves' tools to lock the gamblers in, rolling a 26.
• The next room was an active wizard's workshop, packed with alchemical equipment, notes, and bubbling mixtures. Beatrix determined that a potion of invisibility was being attempted and that the writer's many crossed-out notes showed a wizard still struggling with potion-making: "Damn. This guy's an idiot. He's fucking up all over the place."
• John searched for psychoactive substances and uncovered a discarded failed potion that would get someone "very high." He quietly pocketed it. The party also saw three reagent bottles in the workshop.
• Glomblax read a Dwarvish journal describing the Phandelver Pact. More than five centuries ago, dwarves, gnomes, and human spellcasters shared Wave Echo Cave and channeled its magic through the Forge of Spells to create enchanted items. A battle against bandits and mercenary wizards devastated the cavern, and its location was lost.
• Glomblax wondered aloud whether anyone who found such a mine would ever admit it. The party knew the Rockseeker brothers were among those searching for it.

The Chase Through the Manor

• After a second attempt, Shoomit picked the lock into a scarlet-draped bedchamber. The empty chest, scattered papers, burning candle, and slightly open secret door made it clear that someone had fled only moments earlier.
• Beatrix grabbed the documents from the desk without reading them, and the party rushed through the secret passage.
• Faint tracks led south through the storage room. Beatrix sent her newly named familiar—Bone, a flying dimorphodon using owl abilities—ahead to scout.
• Bone found a cistern with a rope hanging into it. Something had recently been removed from the water, leaving a wet trail up the stairs and out of the cellar.
• The chase was interrupted when a nearby door opened and three Redbrands demanded to know what the party was doing there.

Beech Joins the Company

• Shoomit hid behind the barrels and fired first, blowing the lead ruffian's head off with a 16-damage musket shot.
• Beatrix killed a second with one pistol shot and shouted: "This is our place now. This is our dungeon now, bitch."
• While Beatrix was still threatening to kill the last Redbrand and dig up his bones, he asked whether the party accepted prisoners. The party accepted his surrender, prompting the baffled ruffian to say he was getting "mixed messages."
• Beatrix offered him a job for 1 gp per week and abruptly changed strategy: "We shouldn't be killing the Redbrands. I should just take them over. That is my new goal." He surrendered because the offer was better than his Redbrand pay.
• When Beatrix mentioned Harold, the new recruit immediately said he hated him. She replied that the two of them were going to be "real friendly-like from here on out."
• Beatrix introduced herself as his new boss: "You can call me Miss Marsh, or you can call me Mama." He asked for Mama Marsh, and she answered, "Whatever you want, sweetheart." The table joked that only underlings got to call her Mama—or Mommy.
• The recruit was named Beech, with two E's. Beatrix tied him up and promised Marsh and Company would return for him. When he asked for the ropes tighter, she obliged; Beech winced but clearly enjoyed it.
• Beech asked her to prop up his copy of Gold Investments for Dummies. Beatrix praised the book-learning as the sort of thing that would take him far in Marsh and Company and placed it close enough for him to turn the pages with his tongue. He thanked Mama Marsh.
• Before leaving, Beatrix warned Beech not to call out: anyone who found him would either die or receive the same employment offer. She declared, "I'm taking over this here crew," working from the bottom to the top. Beech promised to wait for her.
• Beech claimed not to have seen the boss pass through and said the three ruffians had been resting until the party woke them.

The Trail Goes Cold

• The party resumed the chase, following the wet trail upstairs through the ruined manor and into the nearby woods.
• Near the edge of Phandalin, the tracks abruptly disappeared amid the town's traffic. The party could not determine where the fugitive had gone.
• After examining the place where the trail ended, Beatrix concluded that magic—probably teleportation—had been used to escape. With no trail left to follow, the party returned to clear the hideout.
• The documents Beatrix grabbed from the bedchamber remained unread at the end of the session.

The Pit and the Crypt

• A dusty corridor ended at copper-plated double doors carved with a mournful angel. Partway down the hall, the floor collapsed beneath Beatrix.
• She fell 20 feet, took 7 bludgeoning damage, and immediately ate seven Goodberries. Since each berry could sustain someone for a full day, Beatrix emerged feeling enormously full: "I feel like I'm fucking pregnant. You gotta pull me up."
• John lowered a rope, Glomblax helped haul her out, and the party spent entirely too long debating the geometry and rules of crossing a five-foot-wide pit. John finally skirted it with a natural 20, faked a fall, and flipped onto the far side; everyone else crossed safely.
• Beyond the doors lay an old crypt with three stone sarcophagi and six skeletons in rusty mail posed along the walls.
• Beatrix warned them: "I've read enough dungeon-delving stories to know that these things are all gonna attack us." John called that ridiculous and opened a sarcophagus.
• Inside, Beatrix found a jeweled gold bracelet worth about 140 gp. She announced that the tomb was empty, but John suspected she was lying. Beatrix then abruptly "noticed" the bracelet and picked it up.
• John then decided to throw one of the posed skeletons into the pit. He lifted it successfully—then it grabbed him back. All six skeletons came alive.

The Crypt Fight

• Skeleton arrows battered John until the one he was holding stabbed him at close range and dropped him to 0 HP.
• Glomblax crushed one skeleton with a maximum-damage greataxe strike, reducing it to a pile of bones.
• Beatrix cast Entangle, filling much of the crypt with grasping vines. Three skeletons failed their saves and were restrained.
• Bone delivered a Goodberry to John, bringing him back to consciousness. John retreated across the pit and continued supporting the party with Vicious Mockery and Healing Word.
• Shoomit used Bone's distractions and the restraining vines to land repeated musket shots. When challenged to choose between a normal shot and an elaborate trick shot, he described a bullet ricocheting around the room and returning to the gun, "King K. Rool style."
• Glomblax remained the only party member holding the crypt itself, taking repeated arrows while the others fought from the doorway and hall.
• The fighting made enough noise to draw three Redbrand ruffians through another door. Shoomit bloodied the first as the other two advanced behind him.

Session End

The session ended mid-combat with two restrained skeletons and three Redbrand ruffians still standing. Glomblax was wounded but on his feet and next in the initiative order, holding the line while the rest of the party fought from beyond the crypt doors.

Inspiration

Party Ledger

Treasure recovered

• 160 sp and 120 gp
• 5 malachite gems worth 12 gp each
• Potion of Climbing and Potion of Growth
• Talon, an unidentified magical longsword
• Jeweled gold bracelet worth about 140 gp
• Unicorn pendant from the apparent prisoner's remains
• Failed psychoactive potion, quietly pocketed by an unspecified party member
• Unread documents taken from the recently abandoned bedchamber

Other changes

• The Potion of Healing found in the crevasse was consumed by Glomblax before the crypt fight.
• Beech joined Marsh and Company for 1 gp per week.
• Beatrix used eight Goodberries: seven after the fall and one to revive John.