7th of Marpenoth, 1492 (Afternoon) We rejoin the party having finished off the harpies as Briar helps warm up and dry off his sisters from the freezing ocean water. As he does this, Alatar found himself waking up the morning prior in a back alley of Phandalin. 6th of Marpenoth, 1492 (Sunrise) Confused by the scene of the ladders, Alatar goes to Toblen to see if he knew where his siblings went. Toblen told him about the lighthouse and how his family might've gone there, and he'd be better riding with someone given it's about a day out. Alatar agrees and finds someone heading west, paying him to take him as close to the lighthouse as they'd take him. The next day Alatar is taken to the cliffside shore, where he spots the familiar cart, skeletal horse, and undead orcs by the cliff. He hops off, thanks to his ride, and heads to a crevasse that has a stone stairway carved into it, leading down to the beach below. He finds himself on a land bridge of sorts, heading out from the crevasse to a rock outcropping, then off to this odd lighthouse that emits a strange green glow from its peak. He decides to head in, figuring this would be someplace his siblings would wander to, spotting a strange giant crab on the beach before he heads into the small cave that was carved out for the pathway. Inside he spots a small cavern where a ghostly visage of an elven woman, floating like she was suspended in water. He speaks with her, finding out about her conch and that her name was Miraal. He offered his aid after she asked for it to be returned to her so her spirit can come to rest and that she'd already sent others to perform this task. He makes his way up the winding pathway towards the lighthouse, finding evidence of his siblings' droppings as he passed by a harpy body on the way up. Once there, he finds Briar warming his sisters with the fireball, both of the girls looking cold and battered, while Briar looked perfectly fine for some reason. Once Alastar joins the party once again, they start storming the lighthouse. finding the half-orc responsible for taking out Miraal and stealing her conch. A quick deflection of a bolt of lightning by Kia, the party quickly rushes this half-orc and they slay him in rapid succession. They retrieve the conch and find the half-orc didn't have any other real possessions. They search the lighthouse completely, finding the source of this green glow to be a giant green heart about 10 times the size it should, slowly beating and sending pulses of the green eerie glow out to the sea. Briar having looked directly at it, the light caused him to become blinded for about a minute. Not liking how ominous the heart was, he blasts it with a fireball while blind. Having the magical prowess he has, he was able to still hit the heart, causing the glow to die and the heart to shrivel up and implode on itself. The party was a bit taken aback at how simple this was, checking over the rest of the lighthouse one more time. Alatar and Briar check out a lightning rod in the roof of the housing unit attached to the lighthouse. Alatar wanting to knock it over grabs ahold of it to start to push. However, as soon as he does, a bolt of lightning shoots out of the skies and into the elf. Alatar was shot backward against the railing of the roof, having suffered a heavy blow of lightning he looks at his siblings singed and smoking. The three roll their eyes at him before continuing their search, coming across a small shrine to the storm god Talos. Kia having a religious background recognized him after a few moments, knowing that he's one of the more evil-leaning gods and is commonly worshiped by half-orcs and orcs. Talos favors the demise of humans through acts of storms and deaths at sea, which was that the lighthouse was set to do, to pull sea-faring ships in with its alluring glow to a watery grave. While Kia looks over the altar, Briar checks out the southern balcony, where the Harpies were nesting. He collects a bundle of feathers and a potion some kind from their nesting before returning. Kia informed Briar that she senses the altar to be magical, so Briar goes to touch it to cast identify. But before he was able to identify it, he feels a surge of energy rush through his arm, he felt a sense of energy and life course through him, as he gained a Charm of the Storm effect, giving him 3 uses of lightning bolt. He proceeds to use identify on the potion, finding out it's a portion of water breathing. Satisfied with their findings, the party goes and returns the conch to Miraal, who sets it with her long weathered away skeleton, giving the party a smile and her thanks as her ethereal form fades, her spirit finally able to rest. Kia felt a sense of responsibility to Miraal after learning of the poor elf lady's fate, so she gingerly gathers her bones and the conch, she takes her to the beach, and with the aid of Alatar, she buries her bones and the conch into the sands of the beach near her crab friend. The crab gave his gratitude to the party and asked them to wait for him to return, going to retrieve a treasure he could grab from the shipwrecks while Kia and Alatar bury the bones. Upon returning, they find in his claws an amazing-looking lance with a blue oily finish on it. Kia's eyes light up as she takes the weapon, finding the lance lighter than it should be, and with one hand she gives it a few test swings, loving the sound the two-pronged end made. She traded in her longsword for this, eager to keep such a cool-looking weapon. After the party leaves the crab to enjoy resting on the beach with his buried friend, they start to head back towards Phandalin. However, before they were able to make it back, they woke up on the second day heading back, going through a lightly wooded part of the Triboar Trail, as they were stopped by a one-eyed and armed man, looking to the group with a grin. He asked which one of them was Naisys, and he told her that he knew what she'd done a few nights prior. He intended to blackmail the group, asking for 100 gold otherwise he'd let the whole of Phandalin know who really littered the town with ladders. Not taking this guy seriously, and not liking that a single man had that gaul to threaten them with blackmail, Briar attempted to summon a small barrage of miniature meteor beads around himself. He was about to send one of these at this man before the beads suddenly fall out of the magical field and onto the ground, made completely inert. The one eyed man grins more, as he says he and his boys didn't like threats, and for the rudeness that was shown to him, the price went up by another 50 gold. Still confident in the party's abilities, none of them backed down, which the man responded with giving a whistle. Suddenly, two assassins appeared by Kia and Alatar, dealing a heavy blow to both of them with a combination of poison and surprise attacks, wounding Kia deeply while Alatar retaliates with his own blade against the Assassin, but it was not enough to fell him. Briar takes a step back with Marrow, attempting an eldridge blast, finding it too fizzled. With how these magic attacks were fizzling, he knew someone was nearby negating the magic, and they had to figure out who as the bandits started to close in. Briar and Naisys spotted movement in one of the bushes and had heard the sounds of magical incantations coming from it, as someone healed one of the assassins. Naisys having recently gotten the ability to teleport, threw her dagger to the landing location, which was next to the bush, and she teleported right in front of a hidden druid. The druid being caught off guard, he falls backwards into the bush as Naisys summons a psychic blade. Reacting, the druid pulls out a wand with a glass bead wrapped inside the end of the wand, and with a subtle flash from the bead, her psycho blade was gone. The party fought for a short while hitting them back as hard as they could before Kia suddenly fell unconscious to the strong poison on the assassin's blade, Alatar also deeply hurt by the necrotic effects of the strong poison in his wounds. Upon seeing Kia go unconscious, the leader turned towards Naisys and called out to her, giving her one final chance to pay up the ransom fee, or he will kill the rest of them and take it anyway. Seeing that these bandits were a lot tougher than they anticipated, Naisys weighed her options as she looked to her brothers and sister before slowly she stands up and she yielded, throwing her hands up towards the bandit leader. The fighting stopped right after that, the leader calling off the attack and demanding more gold as an added "asshole tax" for fighting back. Unfortunately, they were short, but they traded in some magical items to the bandits as tribute in place of almost half the gold owed. The leader accepted and sent them on their way, assuring her secret was safe with them. Defeated and hurt, the party returns to Phandalin, most heading to the inn while Briar cashes in 500 gold worth of his guild notes before joining his siblings. At the inn, he hands out the gold to his siblings in their rooms so they can have something in their pockets and not be broke. Toblen sees the party was quite beaten up, and after giving them a round of drinks they got to chatting about what had just happened. Tolben said that sounded like the work of Rod the Grin, a notorious bandit of the Neverwinter woods. They asked if the bandit group ever operated out of the woods and Tolben said that wasn't something they usually did. Alatar took Briar aside, speaking lowly with him on a detail that bothered him, that not only did Ron the Grin know about Naisys' prank in the town, but the fact they were exchanging a lot of coin in that very same tavern. They agreed that they should be more careful and to keep an eye out as there may be bandit spies in Phandalin. With a drink in their bellies, the party decides it's best to tend to their wounds and head to bed to rest through the night. Session paused 8th of Marpenoth, 1492 (Evening)