Shadows Over Phandalin - A Dungeons & Dragons Audio Story - Episode 4: The Bugbear's Lair

Heroes moved past the dripping, empty bridge and continued up the passage, which soon opened into a much larger, smoke-filled cavern. The sounds of a small mob of goblins—cackling, yipping, and arguing—echoed from within. The heroes took cover behind a large rock formation, and Kyria crept forward to scout.

She returned a moment later, grim-faced. "It's Sildar," she whispered. "Alive. He's being held on a high ledge by their leader. There are five other goblins below, near a cooking fire."

"A hostage," Jerry said, the word tasting like ash. "This complicates things."

"Complicated is my specialty," Tordin snarled. "We rush them. I'll take the five by the fire, you three go for the ledge."

"Unwise," Nysse countered, her voice calm and analytical. "The leader will kill Sildar before we can cross the room. We need to neutralize the lower group instantly." Her eyes began to glow with a soft, silver light. "I have a suggestion. Let me lead. When I give the word, be ready to strike."

Nysse stepped to the edge of their cover and began to whisper a complex arcane phrase. A cloud of shimmering, sparkling dust formed in her palm. With a soft breath, she blew the dust into the cavern. It floated silently, almost invisible in the hazy air, and settled over the goblins by the fire.

"Dormio," she whispered.

The effect was instantaneous. The goblins' bickering ceased. One dropped its head and face-planted into a bowl of murky stew. Within seconds, four of the five were slumped over, fast asleep. The fifth looked around in a stupor, just as Tordin and Jerry charged into the room. A single, non-lethal blow from Tordin's axe handle sent the last conscious goblin slumping to the floor.

On the ledge above, the goblin leader, a larger specimen, stared in stunned disbelief. "Treachery! Alarm!" he shrieked. But before the heroes could charge the natural staircase leading to the ledge, he grabbed the bound Sildar and hauled him to his feet, pressing a jagged dagger to the man's throat.

"TRUCE!" goblin screamed, dragging his captive to the very edge of the ten-foot escarpment. "Or the human dies! Stay back!"

The heroes froze. Tordin lowered his axe, a frustrated growl caught in his throat.

"That's right, big-shot!" leader cackled, thinking he had won. "You want your friend? You'll have to earn him. The boss of this cave is a bugbear named Klarg. You go kill Klarg for me, bring me his head, and I'll let the human go!"

From the goblin's grasp, Sildar managed to gasp out a warning. "Don't... trust him... He's a liar..."

Jerry stood at the bottom of the stairs, his mind racing. To bargain with such a creature was against his code, but Sildar's life hung in the balance. Beside him, Tordin quietly drew a small throwing axe from his belt. Just give me the word, Jerry, he thought, measuring the distance. It's a risky shot... but I can make it.

The paladin made his decision. He ignored Tordin and leveled his longsword at the goblin leader, his voice ringing with cold authority. "Your terms are not acceptable. Release him now, goblin. Face us with what little honor you possess."

Goblin leader grin vanished, replaced by a furious snarl as his bluff was called. "Foolish big-talker! No honor! ONLY GOBLIN!" he screeched. His face twisted with pure malice. "You want him?! HAVE HIM!"

With a final, brutal shove, he pushed Sildar over the edge.

Sildar fell. For a heart-stopping moment, he seemed to hang in the air, his eyes wide with shock. Below, the heroes lunged forward—Jerry with an outstretched arm, Tordin dropping his axe to try and break the fall, Kyria a blur of motion, Nysse with a cry of horror. They were all just an instant too late.

The thud of Sildar’s body hitting the stone floor echoed in the now-silent cavern. For a moment, the heroes stood frozen, the reality of their ruthless efficiency hanging in the air, immediately followed by the shocking consequence of their hesitation to parley. Above, goblin leader cackled, a wild, terrified sound. That sound broke the spell.

"RAAAAAAAGH!" Tordin’s roar was one of pure, unrestrained fury. He snatched the throwing axe from his belt and hurled it at the goblin leader. The axe spun through the air, and the enemy shrieked as it whistled past his head, clipping his ear before burying itself in the rock wall behind him. The goblin’s triumph evaporated into sheer terror. With a final, panicked squeal, he turned and fled into a dark passage at the back of the chamber.

Tordin took a step to give chase, his great axe ready. "He's not getting away!"

"Tordin, stop!" Jerry’s voice was cold iron, devoid of its usual warmth. It was not a plea between friends, but a command. "The goblin is a rat. Sildar is a man. Our duty is here."

"Secure the prisoners," Jerry commanded, already turning towards the stairs to the ledge.

Tordin, however, had a different interpretation. He stood over one of the sleeping goblins, his axe held grimly in his hands. "I'll secure them," he growled.

Jerry stopped, turning back to the dwarf. "What are you doing, Tordin? They are helpless."

"They're alive," the dwarf retorted, his voice a low rasp. "We leave them, they wake up. They pick up their rusty little knives and stick them in our backs while we're fighting their boss. I'm not dying because of a sleepy goblin."

"He's not wrong, Jerry," Kyria said quietly from the shadows. "It's a tactical risk. They wouldn't offer us the same courtesy."

"Courtesy has nothing to do with it!" Jerry’s voice was sharp with disbelief. "This is murder. We are not butchers."

"I am, when it comes to these things," Tordin said. Before Jerry could protest further, the dwarf acted. With four swift, brutal blows, he dispatched the sleeping goblins. The acts were brutally efficient, devoid of honor or glory.

Jerry stared, with a mask of disappointment and sorrow on his face. "This. Was. Not. Necessary," he said.

Nysse was already kneeling, her hands glowing with a soft, golden light that she pressed against Sildar’s chest. The man was horribly wounded, but alive. After a moment, his eyes fluttered open, and he coughed, his voice a ragged whisper.

"You... you came..." he gasped.

"Rest easy, Sildar," Jerry said, his tone softening slightly for the injured man. "You're safe now."

Sildar gripped the paladin's arm - "Gundren," he rasped, "the Black Spider... his goblins took Gundren and the map. They're taking them to the castle... to King Grol... You must get to Phandalin. Find my contact... a wizard named Iarno Albrek..." His strength failed him, and he drifted back into unconsciousness.

Kyria finished bandaging his most immediate wounds. "King Grol. The Black Spider," she said, her voice flat and business-like. "The mission parameters are getting clearer. But first, we finish the job here."

There was no debate. A grim, unspoken accord settled over them. Leaving Sildar where he lay, they advanced into the passage where filthy goblin had fled. It opened into the largest cavern yet, a chieftain’s den piled high with stolen supplies around a smoldering fire pit. The air was still.

"He warned them," Jerry stated, his shield raised. "It's an ambush."

"Good," Tordin growled. "I'm not done killing things yet."

"FOOLS!" a voice boomed from the shadows. "YOU DARE TO ENTER THE LAIR OF KLARG?!"

A massive bugbear erupted from behind a stalagmite, swinging a heavy morningstar. His mangy wolf leaped with him, while two goblins fired arrows from behind cover. "KLARG WILL FEAST ON YOUR BONES!"

The battle was not a coordinated dance but a release of violent tension. Tordin met Klarg’s charge with the fury of a rockslide, his axe swinging with brutal, almost reckless force, seeking to obliterate the bugbear. Jerry, full of righteous anger, engaged the wolf. There was no mercy in his movements, only efficient duty as he put the beast down with a powerful sword thrust.

Kyria and Nysse, sensing the dangerous schism between their two warriors, operated as a detached and lethal unit. Kyria’s daggers flew, silent and precise, forcing the goblin archers to keep their heads down. Nysse’s spells were tactical—bursts of fire to deny cover, rays of frost to slow and hinder.

Klarg was a brute, and he met Tordin’s rage with his own, knocking the dwarf back with a powerful blow that dented his armor. But Tordin gave a bloody grin and came back harder, his fighting style now a near-suicidal onslaught. Seeing an opening, Jerry moved to flank the bugbear, his sword a blur. Klarg, caught between the furious dwarf and the cold paladin, roared in frustration.

Seeing the fight was lost, the bugbear made a dash for a fissure in the cave wall—an escape route. He never made it. A final, furious swing from Tordin’s axe bit deep into his leg, and a precise, calculated thrust from Jerry’s longsword ended the bugbear’s reign.

The cave fell silent, the air thick with the smell of blood and magic. Tordin stood over Klarg’s body, breathing heavily, his rage finally spent. Jerry cleaned his sword with a practiced, detached motion.

Kyria, ever the pragmatist, began to search the stolen goods, quickly locating Klarg’s hidden treasure chest. She pried it open. "Payment for services rendered," she announced to the quiet room, holding up a jade statuette.

There were no cheers, no shared looks of triumph. They had cleared the hideout. They had won. But as they gathered the treasure and prepared to carry Sildar out of the bloody cavern, the division between two warriors was a wound far deeper than any the goblins could have inflicted.

The gray light of dawn found the heroes emerging from the Cragmaw Hideout, the stench of goblin and blood clinging to them like a shroud. The mood was as heavy and somber as the morning sky. Kyria and Nysse supported a weak Sildar Hallwinter, while Tordin and Jerry walked on opposite sides of the path, a chasm of silence between them.

"Thank you," Sildar said, his voice raspy. "I... I owe you my life."

"Our duty was to find you, Master Hallwinter," Jerry replied, his tone clipped and cold. "Nothing more."

The journey back to the Triboar Trail was a silent, punishing march. They retrieved the wagon and the patient oxen from the ambush site, turned towards Phandalin and pressed on.

It was late afternoon when the rutted track finally widened, and the first simple log buildings of the town came into view. Phandalin was a rugged settlement, carved out of the wilderness and surrounded by the crumbling stone ruins of a forgotten age. "My friends, we made it," Sildar said with a sigh of palpable relief. Townsfolk looked up as they passed, their faces curious but guarded, before quickly returning to their chores.

The party pulled the wagon to a halt outside the largest establishment on the main street, a trading post with a sign that read "BARTHEN'S PROVISIONS." A kindly-looking man with a balding head came out to greet them. "The gods be praised! Gundren's supplies!" he exclaimed, his relief turning to concern as he took in Sildar’s state. "But where is he?"

Inside the shop, as Sildar recounted the grim tale of the ambush and capture, Elmar Barthen’s face fell. "The Black Spider..." he murmured. "Dark news. Gundren was a friend. He was so excited, talking about rediscovering the lost mine of the Phandelver's Pact..."

True to his word, Barthen paid them each ten gold pieces, pressing the coins into their hands. "A thousand thanks," he said sincerely. "I pray you find him. His brothers, Nundro and Tharden, are camped in the hills. They'll be devastated."

With their original mission complete, Sildar leaned heavily on Jerry. "I must rest," he said. "I'm told the Stonehill Inn is the best lodging available."

The inn was a large, newly built roadhouse of fieldstone and timber, a bastion of warmth and safety. After seeing a weary Sildar to his room to recover, the four companions took a large table in the common room. The unspoken tension from the cave was a tangible presence between them; Tordin and Jerry sat on opposite sides of the table, avoiding each other's gaze, leaving Kyria and Nysse caught in the silent crossfire.

The proprietor, a friendly-looking man named Toblen Stonehill, welcomed them. "More ale for you folks?" he asked, though his eyes darted nervously towards the door. "Just... try and keep a low profile, eh? This town... it's not a good place for folks who stand out."

He speaks of it like a sickness, Jerry thought, his hand resting on his mug. Not a sickness of the body, but of the spirit. Fear is a poison that makes good people look away.

"We need to talk," the paladin said, turning to the dwarf.

Tordin took a long drink of his ale before answering, his eyes hard. "Nothing to talk about. Goblins are goblins. I did what was needed to keep us alive."

"What was needed was to neutralize a threat," Jerry countered, his voice low but firm. "What you did in that cave... that was an execution. They were helpless. There is no honor in that."

The dwarf leaned forward, his voice a dangerous growl. "Honor? Honor doesn't keep a goblin's knife from your back. My people have been fighting those creatures in the dark for a thousand years. We've learned the hard way that the only honor they respect is a sharp axe. I did it to protect this party. To protect you."

Jerry listened, the anger on his face softening into a weary conflict. "My code demands I protect the helpless. Any helpless. It is a line I will not cross."

A long silence stretched between them. Tordin studied the paladin, seeing not weakness, but a strength as unyielding as granite. He let out a long breath, the fury finally draining from him. "No," he said quietly. "You wouldn't. Your honor is a harder shield than that steel one you carry."

He pushed his own, still-full mug of ale across the table. "I won't apologize for what I did," Tordin said, his voice gruff. "But I'll not have you thinking I did it for pleasure. I respect your code, Jerry. Even if I think it's going to get you killed one day."

Jerry looked at the offered mug, a silent truce. He slid his own ale next to it. "And I... respect your commitment to protecting us. Though your methods may be harsh."

Tordin picked up his mug and raised it slightly. "Let's agree on this, then. We're here to save my kinsman and get paid. We'll do it together. And I'd rather be drinking with you than fighting you."

A small, genuine smile finally touched Jerry’s lips. He lifted his own mug, clinking it gently against the dwarf’s. "On that, we can agree," he said. "To Gundren."

"To Gundren."