Erwen picked his way through the darkness of Phandalin’s southern
outskirts as the faint sounds of the melee in town faded into the background.
Behind him, the Halfling heard the confused shouts of the Redbrand thugs as they
discovered their trussed-up comrade where Erwen had left him behind an outbuilding.
Erwen put as much cover and distance as he could between him
and the prowling thugs. In the dim moonlight, he caught a glimpse of a barn and
farmhouse across the way. Taking advantage of his diminutive stature, he kept
low and ran between the rows of corn towards the refuge of the barn.
He was out of breath by the time he reached the barn door.
Erwen noticed that the wide barn doors had a much smaller door cut into it,
just the right size for a Halfling or Dwarf to pass through without going
through the hassle of sliding the whole thing open.
Erwen pushed his way inside the inset door and crept towards
the hayloft. He climbed the ladder and peeked through a small louvered vent in
the barn’s wall.
He could see a line of torches-much shorter now in the
aftermath of the street fight-snaking their way back east towards the ruined
manor at the top of the hill outside of town. Apparently the Redbrands were
choosing a speedy retreat over a thorough search of the town.
Erwen sighed a sigh of relief and got comfortable in the
pile of hay. He was asleep in seconds.
A gentle prodding roused Erwen from his slumber.
He looked up to see a stout Halfling woman, one hand on her
shapely hip, the other holding a half-sized pitchfork handle, standing over
him.
“Why, good morning, Sunshine.” The woman said. Her curly
brown hair was tucked beneath a homespun kerchief, and she wore a thin peasant’s
tunic and overalls that strained to hold back her substantial upper works.
Erwen started, getting up on his elbows and spitting out a
mouthful of wet straw.
“I’m Qelline,” the woman said. “Qelline Alderleaf. And who
might you be?”
Erwen coughed. “I-I’m Erwen.”
“Well, Erwen, what are you doing in my hayloft? You weren’t
mixed up in that strange business in the street last night, were you?”
Erwen shook his head. He considered charming the farmer, or
farmer’s wife, whoever she was, but judging from the lustful look in her
shining eyes, she was already charmed.
“It’s nice to see another Halfling ‘round these parts,”
Qelline said. “But you didn’t have to sneak around like a thief in the night. I’d
have given you a much more comfortable place to sleep if you’d have knocked on
my door.”
“Really?” Erwen asked.
Qelline fixed Erwen with the sort of look that a starving
person would fix on a banana they were peeling. “Oh my, yes.”
So, maybe not a farmer’s
wife, then, Erwen thought to himself.
Erwen felt his social awkwardness wrestle with some deeper
urges he didn’t have much occasion to entertain.
His mouth was suddenly dry. “W-well, I-”
Qelline cast the pitchfork aside, where it landed in the hay
with a shuk sound. She reached up and
undid the buttons on her overalls’ straps, which flew back over her shoulders
like the slings of a pair of trebuchets.
The morning sunlight filtered through the shuttered barn
windows, and motes of dust danced in the sunbeams.
A short while later, Erwen found himself seated at the
kitchen table in the Alderleaf farmhouse as Qelline fixed him a hearty
breakfast.
“So, you’re some manner of druid then, are you Erwen?”
Qelline asked as she set down a plate full of bacon, eggs and scones in front
of him. “Raised up somewhere remote, always traveling from one place to the
next, more comfortable with animals than with people?”
Erwen nodded and shrugged.
“Yes, I gathered that from your lovemaking, not that I’m
criticizing or anything,” Qelline smiled as she pulled a few pieces of straw
out of his tousled hair.
Erwen blushed with the heat of a thousand suns.
“There’s a druid in town here, by the name of Reidoth,” Qelline
said, handing Erwen a hot mug of cider. “If you’re looking for advice on where
to travel next, Reidoth’s your man, as there isn’t an inch of the local land
that he doesn’t know.”
Erwen drank and nodded.
“You two might have a rapport, being druids and all,”
Qelline continued as she fixed herself breakfast over the hearth. “He took to
the road a few days ago for the ruins of Thundertree, a village near Phandalin,
but he should be back soon. Or you can find him in Thundertree.”
Erwen nodded again.
The kitchen door banged open and a tow-headed boy of about
ten wandered in. He fixed Erwen with an appraising stare.
“Are you my new dad?” he asked.
Erwen spewed out a mouthful of cider and it was Qelline’s
turn to blush.
“Carp!” Qelline said sharply. “This is Erwen. He’s passing
through town.”
Carp nodded and took a bite of a large apple in his hand.
Suddenly he turned to Qelline and hopped up and down. “Oh! Oh! You won’t
believe what I saw this morning!”
Erwen was making a discreet move towards the kitchen door
but stopped when he heard the excitement in the Halfling boy’s voice.
Carp was hopping from one foot to the next. “Mum! Mum! I met
some adventurers this morning!” He grabbed a scone from a heaping platter of
scones and crammed it in his mouth. “They were hiding in the forest north of the
hill!”
Erwen’s eyes narrowed. “Where?”
Carp turned to the druid. “Well, I told them about the secret
tunnel under Tresendar Manor.”
“Carp, what have I told you about wandering around that
horrible place!” Qelline folded her arms across her cantilevered torso and
frowned.
“Ah, Mum,” Carp said dismissively, spitting scone crumbs and chunks of apple everywhere. “You know I’m the sneakiest sneak who ever sneaked. I can take care
of myself.”
Qelline turned to Erwen. “Are you sure you weren’t involved
in that nasty business outside the taphouse last night?”
Erwen coughed. “N-no. No ma’am.” He shook his head.
Carp, undaunted, continued. “Those adventurers were so cool,
Mum! One of them looked like a dragon, the other had a cool shield, and there
was a wizard. A wizard, Mum!”
Qelline nodded. “Maybe these ‘adventurers’ of yours could deal
with the Redbrands once and for all, seeing as our useless Townmaster doesn’t have
the stones to do anything about them.”
“Mum!” Carp said. “Watch your language around my new dad!”
Erwen coughed. “Speaking of the Redbrands, isn’t there an
evil wizard around here? Working with a drow, maybe?”
“A drow?” Qelline frowned. “Can’t say I have ever seen a
drow around here before. But rumour has it that the Redbrands’ boss is a
wizard.”
“The Redbrands were just a bunch of shiftless layabouts
until this guy, Glasstaff, showed up,” Qelline continued. “This wizard has
ambitions, it’s been said. He’s turning the Redbrands into a bona fide militia,
and if the Townmaster doesn’t watch out, we’re all going to be in serious
trouble.”
Erwen thought for a moment. “Well, I might know something
about the fight that happened last night.”
Qelline grinned. “So there was a fight last night, after
all! Well, if you or your friends put a bunch of those ruffians in their place,
then you’ll never have to pay for a drink in the Stonehill Inn again, I can
promise you that.”
“Th-thank you for your hospitality,” Erwen said. “But I
think I must be going to find my friends.”
“Well Erwen, feel free to stop by any time,” Qelline said
with a smile.
Carp whispered to Erwen as he snatched a scone from his
plate. “I can show you where your friends went.”
“Qelline, would it be okay if your son pointed me in the
right direction?” Erwen asked.
Qelline twisted the bib of her overalls. “Well, Carp does
have chores to do this morning, but he seems to have taken a shine to you. So
that’s fine by me. Carp,” she turned to her son. “You come home right after. I
don’t want you hanging out around that manor any longer than necessary.”
As Carp led Erwen out of the kitchen, Qelline gave the druid
a hearty slap on the rear end.
Erwen overcame enough of his shyness to give Qelline a sly
wink as he headed out the door.
“Now, we’ve got to be extra sneaky,” Carp said as he led
Erwen into the forest that ringed the hill on the eastern edge of town. “Big,
ugly bandits go in and out of that tunnel all the time. I think they have some
kind of deal with the Redbrands.”
“Sure thing, Carp. We’re both Halflings, right? We always
know how to hide.”
Carp beamed.
Quiet as a pair of mice, Carp and Erwen sneaked through the
fringe of trees at the base of the hill. The ruins of the Tresendar Manor house
and grounds loomed over them as they picked their way under fallen logs and
over beds of brown pine needles.
After several minutes, Carp triumphantly pointed at the
mouth of a tunnel in the hillside. There was a worn pathway leading to it that
wound its way to the northwest through the trees. Erwen’s keen tracker’s eye
picked out several fresh tracks that went into the tunnel, made as recently as
this morning. He counted four human-sized boot prints and tracks belonging to a
slightly larger humanoid. Erwen also caught a whiff of lamplight oil and pitch,
as if someone had sparked up both torch and lantern before entering the tunnel.
Erwen knelt next to a patch of trodden grass and picked out
a bronze dragon scale from the flattened earth. He nodded to himself.
Erwen counted the tracks again. Five? I was traveling with four humans and a dragonborn. Who is the
fifth wheel now?
Erwen got to his feet and turned to Carp. With a flourish of
druidcraft, he caused a flower to sprout in the palm of his hand.
“Give this to your mother,” he said to Carp. He patted the
boy on his blond head.
Carp’s eyes widened and got all watery. “Gee, thanks, New
Dad! Good luck in there!” The boy scampered off.
As soon as Carp was out of sight, Erwen turned to the mouth
of the tunnel and called upon his druidic reservoir that seemed to have deepened
overnight. He brought to mind the image of a small housecat, and his body began
to blur and shift into a new shape.
His new feline senses picked out the scent of the recent
travelers, and he padded silently into the darkness of the tunnel.
Erwen could smell blood. His whiskered nose twitched and he
picked up the pace.
As he followed the tunnel, his sharp ears picked out the
sound of a thunderclap – an unnatural sound given where he was – within the
depths of the hill ahead of him. There was a faint rumble that sent more than a
few pebbles raining down on him, but he continued on. His feline sense of smell
was now picking up a faint whiff of decay from ahead of him.
His ears flattened against his head involuntarily. None of
these smells or sounds were very good.
He could see that the tunnel opened up into a larger cavern
several feet ahead of him. The hair on his back began to stand on end as he
heard the familiar clang of steel and shouts of rage of a melee in the
darkness. Then, nothing but silence.
He padded out on four soft paws and peered into the cavern,
his cat’s eyes shining. To his immediate right was a deep crevasse that divided
the area on a north-south axis. The natural cavern ceiling was held aloft by
two stone pillars.
To his left, he could make out the familiar forms of Ragnar,
Varien, Xylon and Theryn, and also a human man who he had not met before. They
were standing over the bodies of three brutish bugbears, very recently
deceased.
There was another creature in the room. Erwen’s tail bottled
and he suppressed a hiss of fear as he saw its vaguely humanoid shape crouched
over the corpse of one of the bugbears. It was feeding on the dead goblinoid in
a most horrible fashion, tearing into it with bone-like claws and a maw of
needle-like teeth.
His companions were standing around like they were okay with
this creature’s terrible savagery.
In the darkness, Erwen sat back on his haunches, his tail
swishing back and forth.
He knew what he had to do.