This story occurs in the same Tyranny of Dragons campaign I mentioned in my last story, and takes place not long after. To preface this, the player who had been playing the human wizard/knowledge cleric – the character’s name being Sedrik Schwartz – up until this point of the campaign informed me a few weeks earlier that he really wanted to play a martial class character for the campaign and said that he’d be switching to this new character shortly after the Redbrands were dealt with. We discussed as to how we could smoothly make the switch, and we soon had a plan – a plan that I had to keep secret the whole time.
By the time this story starts, it had been roughly a day or two since Glasstaff was detained. Sildar had already called for reinforcements, both from the Lords’ Alliance from an old friend of his back in Neverwinter, where he and Gundren, the dwarf who had given the Glass Breakers the assignment to escort the caravan to Phandalin in the first place, had first met the group. This old friend was none other than Nigel Heume Mann, a mercenary with a distinct Texan accent who isn’t officially among the Alliance’s ranks but is considered a valuable ally and the new character this player was planning to switch to.
It had taken him roughly two days to arrive since he received Sildar’s notice, as Neverwinter was quite far from Phandalin, even on horseback. Keep in mind, the rest of the group was in the dark about who this human battle master fighter was, so they were quite surprised to learn that he was familiar with Sildar. After introductions were made and current developments disclosed between parties, with everyone in one place and his time of departure drawing nearer, Sedrik figured that it was time to speak up.
“Well, everyone… I believe I have something to tell you. I’ve already informed Sildar of this, but… well, you’re all aware that I came here to Phandalin with all of you to obtain some field experience and… well, I certainly got what I came for,” the wizard/cleric began. “Now, with all of that said and done, I’m afraid I must inform you that… I believe it is time I returned home to my loved ones, and especially my dear Charon.”
Naturally, having kept this whole thing a secret from the rest of the group, they were all shocked to learn that Sedrik was leaving the Glass Breakers so soon – and they had just only come up with their party name that same session too! Ultimately, they understood and accepted that their tiny squishy wizard friend would no longer be travelling with them.
Sedrik did decide to leave them a number of parting gifts. First of those was the Staff of Defense – the staff that Glasstaff used during their fight with him and earned him his alias, which he gave to Rare, the tiefling knowledge cleric. Second was Urmon’s journal, which they found while revisting the Redbrand Hideout since Sedrik wanted to obtain Glasstaff’s spellbook, for the Glass Breakers to use since he figured it would be useful to them. Last but not least was a concoction of that the wizard himself had made not long ago; mechanically, it was a normal potion of healing, 2d4 + 2 and all. However, this “potion” took the appearance of a piece of hard candy and was just about as sweet as one would expect; we call it “Sedrik’s Candy of Healing”.
By this point, just about everyone else in the party – and eventually myself – started crying, especially Rare, whom I recall was really looking forward to being knowledge buddies with Sedrik and just went up to the small wizard and gave him a big hug. Speaking of which, up until this point, Sedrik was utterly terrified of the tiefling cleric and did not so much as want to stand next to her; he had never seen a tiefling before, if I recall. Now, here we are only several days later, and Sedrik has gotten used enough to Rare that he ends up returning the sudden hug – albeit incredibly awkwardly and clarifying that she is still the most terrifying thing he’s ever met.
In the end, the rest of the Glass Breakers just get into one big group hug, saying their farewells to the soon-to-be-departing wizard/knowledge cleric that was one of their only sources of actual reason amidst this pool of chaotic dumbassery and generally a good boy – definitely someone they wished stuck around just a little longer.
“Are they always like this, Sildar?” Nigel asked Sildar with a hint of humor in his voice.
“No. But considering what these six have been through these past few days… I’d say let them have it,” the older soldier replied with a smile on his face.
[zombify_post]
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