Last session ended with a stand-off. The Whiskered Gang, a disorganised band of wererats, had overtaken a gold mine just outside of Conyberry after being driven from their previous nest in a nearby Shrine. The adventurers had tricked the wererats into thinking they’d left the goldmine, while in fact sneaking back in and attacking. Both sides suffered in the fight and an uneasy truce was called. The adventurers, bruised and tired, have an audience with the rat leader, Zeleen Varaster.

“You lied to usss.” She screams at them.

“You lied to us too - we found the graves. The miners didn’t give up without a fight did they?”

“You are outnumbered. You cannot win.”

“Then we shall die fighting. And take many more of you with us.” A murmur from the other wererats, perhaps Zeleen’s leadership isn’t entirely unquestioned. She hisses at the others to reassert her dominance.

“What do you propose? We still need somewhere to live.”

Don-Jon, the troubleshooter employed by the mine, steps forward. He is pale and sweating. He doesn’t quite stand as tall as he did and he’s nursing a wound on his neck where he was bitten by one of the rats. “I will help you return to the shrine. My friends will stay here and clear out the rest of this place. Then we shall meet at the shrine and take it together.”

The adventurers are confused but this works. He provides them with a note. “Give this to Wester. You’ll get your pay.” He leads the rats out of the mine - they follow him.

The adventurers look at each other. What has happened here? “Let’s clear out the mine, get some rest and then head to the shrine.”

Much like their previous searches, the mine is empty. In the south-east corner, though, a barred room. Inside five malnourished, tired and drawn dwarves - all that’s left of the miners. Presumably left here to starve. “Damned rats,” says Lotho.

Eating the first rations for weeks the miners ask “Are they dead? The wererats?”

“Not dead. But gone. And we’re going to make sure they don’t come back,” Lotho says kindly. He takes the found ring, with the engraved pick-axe, and hands it to one of the miners. “Here, I think this belonged to one of your colleagues.”

“Aye son. It did. Thank you.” Dwarves are not known for tears, but he’s clearly welling up. “Look, I think the shrine they’ve gone to… it’s the one south of Conyberry? A long time ago, we helped forge a special bell for them. It’s made from the town’s reserves, solid gold, but disguises, see? Looks like a big iron bell but it’s gold. Hidden, you see, from the raiding orcs. Maybe it’s still there? Good luck to you. You seem like good people. Rest up in our cots for the night. And… thank you”

The giant Aasimar pulls two cots together to take his frame. The bard, Galandra, is composing a ballad praising their exploits. The two fighters rest. It is quiet.

In the middle of a large flat field, some five miles south of the abandoned village of Conyberry there’s a walled courtyard with corner towers and a temple in the middle. A belfry juts from its peaked roof. The building is little more than a ruin, only on of the towers still intact. The party gather a few hundred feet from the front gate. There they meet an air genasi called Elran - more curious than anything he asks the party to join.

“I don’t see any rats” says Lotho, hardly surprised.

“There’s an orc standing guard on the tower. Armed. Doesn’t look like he’s seen us. Wait… I have an idea.”

Whizzbang is, by his own account, a master of disguise. He disguises himself as an Orc and approaches the tower. With the others still hidden a way back, he’ll be on his own if anything kicks off.

“Hello, Orc!” he ventures in Common “I’ve come about the thing with the thing. You know? Have you by any chance seen any rats?”

The orc grunts. “State you business and what band do you come from? And what’s all this about rats?”

It’s dawning on Whizzbang how courageous his plan is when the orc lets out a loud volley in Orc. The sound of more orcs coming into the courtyard. And two gigantic beasts, ogres.

The other adventurers begin sprinting down the field towards the ruin. Whizzbang cowering out of the sentry’s line of sight. Lotho hangs back, choosing to take aim at the sentry with his longbow. Two orcs are piling out of a breached section of wall just west of Whizzbang, another two are encouraging an Ogre to lift the steel portcullis and give them a quick path to enter the fray.

A battle. The orcs are put down easily, but there are surely a lot of them. The ogres, though, are tough. Round after round of traded blows, an untidy melee sees the characters flanked and flanking. Will these Ogres ever yield? A thunderwave from Whizzbang nearly drops the gatehouse on a couple of Orcs. Elran magic not quite strong enough to throw the ogre through the air.

The sentry fires a volley of arrows at the bard for playing a Cat Stevens song. The song brings back memories of a lost love and a bitter parting, a pain for the ogre more cutting than a thousand rapier cuts. “Play that again, I dare you.” The bard runs and hides, heroically, in the undergrowth. The ogre is soon dispatched, a forlorn tear still in his eye as he falls.

Finally we’re left with the seemingly-unstoppable ogre surrounded by the party. Whizzbang lies unconscious behind him, a victim of his enormous club. Thank Thor he has a healing potion in his bag. The bard heals him before he too falls, and then the fighter, Talon, is down too. Now, only the wizard and the ranger left, neither of them unscathed.

Whizzbang draws on his God’s powers and tolls a mystical bell to finally put the creature down

“Did we miss something?” A voice from the undergrowth as Don-Jon and number of wererats reveal themselves. Don-Jon is transformed further. More wiry, his whiskers straighter, his ears… were they pointier all of a sudden?

“You were supposed to be here to fight alongside us” Lotho spits. “And where is Zeleen?”

“Zeleen didn’t make the journey. I now lead the Whiskered Gang”

“Figures.” Lotho says, barely hiding his contempt.

Don-Jon is sending rat-people to the four corners of the ruin, establishing sentry and guard positions like a military commander.

“Is the inside clear?”

The glare from Lotho tells him all he needs to know. He sends two minions in to check who return a few minutes later. “It’s clear” The party decides to rest a little.

“Maybe we should spend the night here?”, Elran says.

“I don’t fancy getting bitten. Do you?”

“No. You’re right.” he shivers “I came here for loot though, let’s at least check out the building before we leave”

The shrine itself is a ruin. A stone altar at one end, a high vaulted roof with a square opening where the belfry juts out. Elran approaches the altar, it has a relief in the shape of a large, humanoid eye, he touches it. Suddenly he’s floating. Through the roof of the shrine, soaring towards Icespire Peak, there on the mountain a fortress and there on its roof a sleeping dragon. He falls back quickly.

“What happened?” Lotho says. All the other characters saw was him freeze for a few seconds then stagger back. He relates the vision.

“Let me have a go” says Whizzbang. He touches the altar. Disappointed, nothing happens.

Remembering the dwarf’s story about the bell the characters briefly discuss trying to get it. The air elemental’s powers are spent, he can’t get anyone up to it. Besides, how would they get it past Don-Jon and his growing wererat army. Another time, perhaps.

“There’s nothing here. Back to Phandalin. And a long rest”

“Yep.”