DreamLyrics™ Play-by-Post Forums Hall of Fame - Latest Top 10 completed games LMP: Lost Mines of Phandelver N-2.1 Redbrand Hideout

Chandan

"Hmm. Where I come from, it normal for criminals to be unarmed when they face punishment." He says to Iarno with a shrug.

"I see many terrible thing done here. I don't care about etiquette, I just make sure you don't do it again."

And indeed, to the monk of Khazari 'justice' is more an elemental force of nature, revolutions of the Great Wheel, than a system of laws and courts.

He helps free the captives and sees that they're well. Cleaning their faces and any sores with water, he also carries herbs to make a poltice if need be.

[Chandan Medicine skill check. 7+5=12]

Chandan

Without further ado, he rifles the dead slavers' pockets for the keys and will toss them to Kallista, should he find them.

[Chandan Persuasion check w/ disadv. 11,14=11]

DM

As Chandan approaches the cages, the prisonners shy away in a panic. The mother yells at him "YOU STAY AWAY FROM US!" They obviously want nothing to do with him. The ruffians have nothing in their pockets.

Outside the room with the cells, Inaro says quietly to Davroar, "I've been honest with you and haven't given you any troubles. I can get you the key to the cells."

Jaliera

"If the wizard doesn't have the key, I'm happy to come and try the locks but I'd like to swap with Kriv so that Davroar is not alone in guarding the prisoners."

She maintains her watch whilst the others sort themselves out.

Chandan

He bows his head respectfully to the mother. What horrors her family had endured... But it troubled Chandan more wondering how many others had shared a similar fate and not been rescued.

The monk knows it will take the mother and child sometime to recover a semblance of normality, if they ever do.

Either way, he will back away peacibly and leave Kallista to aid them.

He ambles over to replace Jaliera, shaking his head in disgust at Iarno as he passes.

Kallista

"Brutish men", she says consolingly to the woman as Chandan moves off. "Don't worry. You can stay near me. I will have Jaliera", she points and beckons, "that nice young girl there, come over and see if she can get you out of here."

Jaliera

"Just remember to watch for the familiar."

She cautions Davroar and Chandan as she lowers her bow, her arms glad of the respite as she heads into the room of cells.

Slinging her bow, she tucks the arrow in her belt as she extracts a small leather folder and selects a tool, once she has looked at the lock.

"Soon have you out of there."

She smiles at the woman and girl before bending to work on the lock.

Jaliera Pick lock
Gypsy rolled 1d20+7 and got 10

(OOC - If needed, Kallista will "assist".)

Davroar

He nods in acknowledgement to Jaliera about watching out for Iarno's familiar, and will wait to see if she has any success with opening the cages on her own, before asking Iarno where he has the keys. Davroar has a good suspicion that the wizard will want something in return for giving up the keys.

DM

Jaliera struggles with the lock for a few minutes but eventually she hears an audible click and the cage door to the south cracks open, freeing Mirna and her daughter Nilsa. She'll need to pick the northern lock to free the boy.

After Jaliera moves into the other room, Inaro says, "You know that neither of those dead men are the ones that kill that man. It was another hired hand and he is no longer with us." From the tone the druid gathers that the man is dead.
Please provide an "insight" roll for Davroar

Chandan

While the locks are picked and captives tended to, Chandan shuffles around the room. Perhaps there are manacles? Perhaps there are more clues about this skullduggery of Inaro's?

DM edit: Chandan does not hear the conversation between Inaro and Davroar. They are in the other room.

[Ah OK, groovy, edited. Thanks Nep! -nemarsde]

Kriv

"I let a man be murdered. An unarmed man. A man who had given his word to take no further violent action in exchange for reasonable treatment. Perhaps he had a wife. Perhaps he had children. Tell me, Chandan. What should I do with that murderer, lest I be condemned by association for tolerating his continued life?"

Chandan

He raises an eyebrow at the Dragonborn's question. It's not a bad one and it has been a long time since he's had anyone to talk philosophy with.

"All killing is sorrowful, sometimes it is wrong, sometimes it is right, sometimes it is both and neither."

Chandan gestures to the bodies with his spear.

"Did they have families? Hmm, perhaps so. But matters less than they not ever able to do such evil again."

The old man decides to use some of the poltice on himself, since they have a moment.

"You feel bad because the man gave his word? What if he gave you money? Same thing. He buys your mercy with something precious to you."

Kriv

"Feel bad? What a nonsensical way of putting it. There are two sides to a surrender, after all, the victor and the vanquished. It is not a mercy, it is a preservation of resources: Those men could have been indentured to work off their blood debt or match it should they perish in honest toil. He gave his word that he would not attempt to commit further harm in exchange for not being physically harmed. In corollary, I gave my word that he would not be unjustly physically harmed in exchange for renouncing the means of physical harm.

Then you had to go and impale him like some mad savage, cutting down a defenseless man out of pettiness over your own minor injuries. Your conduct disgusts me, and worse than that, you broke the word that I had given. You despoiled that which matters more to me than your life. Should I not revenge upon that injury as you did upon yours?"

Kallista

"Why don't you see if you can open the other lock and free the boy?" She says to Jaliera. "I'll stay here and make sure these women are alright."

As the conversation between Chandan and Kriv wafts into the room she simply grunts.

She looks at the two females. "I am Kallista. I will make sure you get back to your homes. Are you from Phandalin?"

Davroar

He shakes his head and quietly replies to Iarno, "Doesn't surprised me. The old mans actions were rash."

Davroar holds his tongue, not wanting to say anything truly bad about the man, but it seems to him that Chandan has some craziness in him.

Davroar Insight roll
Dugan rolled 1d20 and got 3 - not sure if I have any bonus that can be applied, but I doubt for such a low roll that it matters.

Chandan

The grey beard is twizzled in thought.

"Unless you psionic, you did not say what you think you said.

"You said it was time for eye for an eye, 'restitution through retribution'."

Chandan has a close look at the edge of his spear. The Dragonborn has a point. It isn't terribly sharp or well made.

"You asked what these monsters had done, that little boy there said they killed his father.

"Good enough for me. So far we have proven that the Redbrands invaded the Drendar's home, murdered the father and kidnapped his family.

"They fed the father's corpse to the nothic and enslaved the family here. Don't know what they did or planned to do, but as you see, this dungeon is well used. What they done to the Drendars, they done before."

Finally he decides that he definitely does a better spear.

Kriv

"Ask the bereaved family what they think of your take on justice, vagrant. If they will allow you close enough to begin speaking without shying away from you in horror from what they saw you do. They didn't even react to their captors in such a manner. Why do you think that is?"

Chandan

He shakes his head. Such is the way of things. The family will likely be scarred for life by their ordeal.

"I don't know much about justice. I only make sure evil-doers don't keep doing."

He searches through the piles of clothes. They might give some idea of the number of captives the Redbrands have processed, clues to where they were from and perhaps who they were.

DM

While Kriv and Chandan finish discussing the recent events, Jaliera opens the other cage door, reuniting the boy with his mother and sister.

Chandan saunters over to the large pile of clothes and sifts through it. Whatever valuables had been in these pockets, they are now gone. It appears to be the clothing of about a dozen people.

Davroar listens to Inaro and is beginning to believe the man. He has been forthcoming about matters. The nothic was just hungry and had acted in accordance with it's nature. Even after it surrendered, it was killed. Now these two guards, whose guilt was never confirmed, were slain. Chandan's actions weren't just rash, they were consistent. And what proof was there that Inaro and his men committed grievous crimes? What was true?

The family, now reunited, thank Jaliera and Kallista for rescuing them. "I don't know what they were planning to do with us," the mother says to the two female rescuers. They keep their distance from the disheveled old man.

Kriv

"Your actions in doing so were themselves morally repugnant. Your conduct has been unacceptable. You will answer for it in accordance with the law, just as Inaro will. I should be grateful you haven't decided to murder him on a whim as well, for all that his crimes and leadership require it more. Come, let us leave this chamber. You're scaring the liberated ones. Mosk, come as well."

He headed out to join Davroar and the more dangerous of the prisoners.

Davroar

When the others begin returning from the cells, he asks Inaro, "Before we leave, what's behind those double doors?"

Since they are here, he figures it's best that they make sure they are not leaving anyone behind.

Chandan

He shrugs as the Dragonborn leaves. After all, it was Kriv that intended to eat the wizard's hands and feet, so it seems to Chandan to be a labyrinthine moral code that Kriv adheres to.

The monk might be able to help Kriv with that, but not with the law. Chandan has barely any knowledge of the laws of his own land, let alone these.

Either way, the surviving Drendars are rescued, but at least twelve others were not so lucky. So Chandan hopes Sildar Hallwinter will put the wizard to the death once he's done with him.

Chandan and his companions have another of Sildar's friends to find, Gundren Rockcutter, but before they do, there must be some record of the Redbrands business, the missing twelve.

There are no records in this room, so the old monks wanders back out, thinking over their route through Tresendar Manor so far.

There must be a journal or log, Inaro must have an office or at least a bedchamber. Would he sleep in the same room as his minions? Not likely!

The double doors in the crypt are probably how the sarcophegi were brought into the crypt in the first place, so should lead to an exit.

Why didn't Inaro flee through the crypt to the exit, instead of through the cavern to an exit (possibly the same exit)?

Chandan can't answer that, but since the wizard first emerged from the northern storeroom with the barrels and crates, it does seem most likely that the wizard came from either the door in the corridor north of the crypt, or from the secret door on the west wall of the storeroom.

"Hmm. We should retrace our steps, check unchecked doors." He says to his companions, hobbling off to the north.