MC1S6

## Unlikely Allies

This is what the defenders of Cragmaw Castle see before they shit themselves...

“
*"This shouldn't take long. My friend wishes to take a pest off your premise. With your great excess of rats, you shouldn't miss just one."*
”
—  Godric to Grista, of the Sleeping Giant tap house.
**Unlikely Allies** was the 6th session of the Lost Mines of Colmanth mini-campaign.

## Summary

The party finishes exploring the Tresendar estate and returns to the town. The following morning, most of the Redbrands are executed in the town green. The adventurers still find themselves hard-pressed to find any answers on the location of Cragmaw Castle, electing to continue hunting for clues to its whereabouts after dealing with two important problems threatening Phandalin: A band of savage orcs and an accursed presence of undead. The party borrows horses from the village and rides to deal with the Orc threat. Herbie, with unexplicable luck, is able to sneak past the sentries and sow discord amidst the raiding party. However, when he is about to be discovered, he pulls an ace from his sleeve and charms the Orc chieftain to his side. The Orcs, blindly listening to their leader, are persuaded by the Miners to lay siege to Cragmaw Castle: though they do not know its location, they will search for it tonight.

## NPCs

* **Redbrand Captives:** All but the two that cooperated with the party were put to the sword and publicly executed in the Phandalin town green.
* **Droop:** Droop did not know the location of Cragmaw Castle. In fact, he knew nothing at all, and was perhaps as useless as the Bugbears thought.
* **The Dendrar Family:** Mirna tells the Miners that if they are in Thundertree, they could help her find her family's old emerald necklace that she could sell to Halia to support her family.
* **Brughor BiteAxe:** Brughor and his Boyz were charmed by Herbie and Genevieve into raiding Cragmaw Castle, as the two convinced them that the Cragmaws have taken all the "shiny yellow rock" from Phandalin.

## Inventory

### Lost

* The Redbrand loot: 75 cp 55 sp and 26 gp (returned to the townsfolk)
* Glass-Staff's Hoard: 180 sp, 130 GP (returned to the townsfolk)
* 3 random potions

## Quests

### New

* **The Village Necromancer (Everyone):** Deal with the undead threat in Old Owl Well.
* **The Village Squirrel (Sofiel):** Rescue Reidroth from Thundertree.

### Ongoing

* **The Missing Dwarf (Everyone):** Find Gundren's whereabouts. Discover the exact location of Cragmaw Castle. Question the captive Goblin for information about Cragmaw Castle's location. Find Reidroth the druid or one of the Goblin raiding parties.
* **For the Glory of doG (Herbie and Sofiel):** Return to Sister Garaele once she has fully healed from her recent misadventure.
* **Orc Trouble (Everyone):** Learn more of the bounty on the Orc Raiders. Defeat the Orcs at Wyvern Tor to receive 100 GP. I don't even know at this point. Help the orcs storm Cragmaw Castle?
* **Ascending to doGhood (Herbie):** Acquire Divinity by freeing 1000 dogs or wolves. 3 / 1,000

## Reflections

* **Godric:** "These past few days have flown by so quick - from ambush, to vengeance, to ambush, to heroism, to outlandish escapades, all blending together in a blur in my mind. I've been doing my best to live in the moment, like I did when training with Nazarius. That's how you survive when times are tough. But somewhere under the abandoned manor, I woke up again - maybe it was when the shoddy iron sword sunk into the Nothic's eye, that the same red mist that clouded my vision since the goblin encounter, just... finally faded. Now that I look around, everything around me is both mad and exciting. Genevieve killed the same wizard who blasted me to kingdom come - her killing is something new, but it seems she grows stronger every day. I grow closer to Sophiel and Herbie - without the former, I'd have been long dead by now, and without the latter? Well. He sure keeps us on our toes, I can say that much. Just today, he helped us make some... unusual allies. For the first time in so long, I'm actually excited. I have no clue what's going to happen next, and I may very well be viciously beaten again, but at least I feel alive again."
* **Genevieve**: "Herbie, you little maniac, what have you gotten us into? What was supposed to be a simple scouting trip has turned into... I don't even know what. I thought for sure we'd have to fight to recover his body, or at least negotiate a ransom, but I underestimated Herbie. Only Herbie could wander into an orc camp and convince the chief they were best friends. How fortunate, because while I did learn orcish a few years ago - I don't even remember why - I'm not fluent enough to handle hostage negotiations. I'm not sure if I even used the right greeting, or if that word actually means "good morning", "attention!", "over here!" or something similar - orcish has a lot of words whose meaning depends on the context. That may explain how things got so out of hand - we somehow convinced the orcs that the Cragmaw goblins and bugbears have been mocking them and stealing the good loot, and now they want revenge. Well, the enemy of our enemy is our friend - we just need to find Cragmaw castle before they catch on..."
* **Herbie**: "Turns out taking care of rats is much harder than Morel made it look. I came back to pick up Rat, and he's already being chased out! Guess I shouldn't have let him there anyway, there wasn't much food. Then I leave him and Not Rat in the stable with Ferdinand, and a cat almost got them! Ferdinand, how could you? I trusted you! Stupid cats, doing whatever they please, getting into everything, not like dogs. Dogs are friendly, oh sorry Ciros, I haven't had a chance to save one in so long... I'm starting to think maybe it wasn't just the beast that Rat's children didn't live so long - not that I'd ever tell him that, his little heart might give out! At least Godric had the good idea to get baskets to keep them with me, I'm going to have to keep a close eye on them, make sure they keep out of trouble. I need to teach them to be really sneaky-like and charming, like me! Why, I finally got mom's disappearing trick down and used it to poof around an orc cave. They'll never find me, unless I want to be found! Pity I haven't figured out how she sees in the dark. Everything lives in the dark! So that left me to deal with only half the camp. There was just one little problem - an ogre snoring, shaking up the cave. How do these orcs even sleep through it? No wonder I snuck by so easily. Ah, but I was tricksy, and almost got them to fight. Almost... They stand together, unlike the goblins, maybe they're alright. So I show up, little ol' me, and I know they'll love me right away. I put on my cutest smile, just like Pollen does when you know she's been playing with Dragonfly's caterpillars again, and the chief he scooped me right up. Genevieve helped too, she knew exactly what to say. Why, we all know orcs are so much better than silly goblins and icky bugbears. Orcs are much more reasonable. Why, they even agreed to help us! What great guys. I see a whole lot more people going south real soon..."
* **Sofiel:** "Nightly Prayer: Playing fetch was rather fun, but I think that I need to learn some sort of spell to enhance my strength. I have never quite thrown the sun before so maybe next time it will be a bit more challenging for you. But, where do I even begin Ceros. We convinced the town to let some of the Redbrands help us in the coming days. I haven't yet gotten their names, but I am sure they will be fine folk and a welcome help around town. Maybe seeing them doing some good for a change will help change people's hearts. Give the souls of the other Redbrands and creatures slain eternal rest and guide them to their respective plains. Herbie has been showing great promise recently. Although he was a bit reckless with the potions and wants to use fire, he has a great enthusiasm and joy for what we do. His heart is in the right place, and he even found good in the hearts of the orcs. I am not sure what happened in that cave, but Herbie seems to have made some new friends. Now I only hope these are real friends in the future, and we can set them on a good path once we rescue our Dwarf friend. I will need to work on some new potions or strengthen my healing supply because healing this large group is going to require a lot of energy."

## Appendix

Lost Mines of Colmanth Sessions
**Chapter 1: The Frontier**. Session 1 · Session 2 · Session 3 · Session 4 · Session 5 · **Session 6** · Session 7
 Session 8 · Session 9 · Session 10 · Session 11 · Session 12