3. The Redbrand Hideout

Armed with information from both Halia Thornton, proprietor of the Miner's Exchance, and a Redbrand grunt, the party of adventurer's resolved to infiltrate the Redbrand operation, confront Glasstaff, and get that much closer to finding their captive acquaintance: Gundren Rockseeker. Before climbing the winding ascent to the ruin of Tresendar Manor, the adventurers recalled a tall tale that came from a short creature the day before. Pip, Toblen Stonehill's adolescent son, hoping to impress the "real-life adventurers," had bragged about a secret entrance his best friend, Carp, a halfling farm boy, had found a week earlier. The party of four traveled to Alderleaf Farm and met Qelline, the owner of the farm and Carp's mother. She was quite friendly offering assistance and information freely. Like Linene and Sister Garaele, Qelline condemned the Redbrands. After calling out for her son, Qelline mentioned two friends: Daran Edermath, a retired adventurer and orchard keeper who lived on the north side of town, and Reidoth the Druid, an idiosyncratic old man who "knew the land surrounding Phandalin better than anyone." Eventually joined by the Carp, the halfling boy, the adventurers were informed of the whereabouts of a nearby secret entrance to some sort of tunnel that was regularly used by the Redbrands.
Armed with this information, the party set out north from Alderleaf Farm toward Tresendar Manor. Without too much trouble, the adventurers found the trapdoor in a copse of trees. They waited for nightfall. As the moon crept higher into the sky, the party was surprised by a hooded individual who stepped out of the trapdoor, heading west into the village. The adventurers stealthily apprehended the individual, questioned him, knocked him unconscious, and kept him as prisoner as they descended into the depths.
The tunnel stretched for some 50 meters before opening out into a dark, cold, and expansive cavern. It was rent in two by a deep and craggy chasm over which two wooden bridges spanned. Without wasting a moment, the party forged deeper into the cavern but were quickly stopped in their tracks by a bizarre, telepathic voice. It cackled madly between its broken musings about fresh meat and intruders. Heeding not the warning words of the mysterious creature, the adventurers provoked its wrath causing it to jump out from behind a natural column of rock. The creature was a sickly shade of green, sporting long claws and one giant, piercing eye: a Nothic. It attacked with abandon, eager for a taste of tender, pink flesh. But with a series of dissonant whispers and a thunderous smite, the party drove the hideous one-eyed creature back and eventually dispatched it on the north side of the cave.
Weary of battle, the adventurers hoped to take a rest in one of the nearby unoccupied rooms. They were interrupted by a bugbear guard who had been sent out to investigate the source of the thunderous boom. The party pursued the guard and slew him before he could alert anyone else within the subterranean complex. The group pressed onward, finding a barracks of bugbears. They attacked and made short work of the hairy brutes. After slaying the goblinoid beasts, the adventurers found a brutalized and vulnerable goblin named Droop. Upon the death of his former tormenters, the pitiful creature was eager to befriend the traveled adventurers. He told them all the secrets of the operation that he knew. Eventually, he led them to a secret entrance that he swore led into the very lair of the mysterious Glasstaff. Skinnej was determined to use Droop as a distraction and compelled him by intimidation to walk straight through the secret door into Glasstaff's quarters. The poor goblin's heart burst under the stress of deciding exactly how to forfeit his life.
The party left the goblin's corpse to freeze and rot on the flagstone floor. They opened the secret door to confront Glasstaff. Sure enough, the man bearing the mysterious moniker was there, sitting at his desk, scribbling intently upon a scroll of browned parchment. The very instant he noticed the intruders, he swirled around to his feet, bearing a crystalline glass staff. He put up his best fight but was entirely outnumbered. Forced to surrender, he told the adventurers everything they wanted to know.
Glasstaff, leader of the Redbrand Mercenary Guild, was actually Iarno Albrek, a former member of the Lords' Alliance and old friend of Sildar Hallwinter. Iarno had been dispatched by the Alliance to Phandalin to help bring order to the region. Nearly the same time Iarno disappeared, Glasstaff stepped in to take control of the outlaws plaguing the area, organizing them into a crime syndicate known as the Redbrands.
The party continued to explore the rest of the great cavern slaying gambling guards, cursed skeletons, and even freeing the widowed family of Thel Dendrar. Of note, the party looted the Nothic's treasure hoard finding a finely crafted longsword bearing the name, "Talon."
In one fell swoop, the adventurers had answered Halia's call to eliminate Glasstaff as well as solved Sildar's mystery of the missing Iarno Albrek. Of particular importance, the party learned through a found missive that Iarno was reporting to someone else - an individual who called himself the "Black Spider." They resolved to bring Iarno back to Phandalin to turn him over to Sildar and to justice.