Ashley steps out of the tent with a stretch

Alice please release her!

M-He saw that and said, "she's dead. No one rats out the Cloaked Wolves and lives, she's dead for talking and you're dead for listening.

[Inside the Tent]
Daniella rubs her wrists and looks around nervously, she leans in and whispers despite the howling wind and no chance of the other bandit hearing, "Considering 'I'm dead' anyway, I'm not holding back. Alric's summons don't exist without him, he could also charm beasts, but without his constant care they'll revert to wild beasts, but most importantly, he wasn't recruited, he infiltrated their ranks. It's a long story but he joined when I was still... incapacitated by them and he never treated me like they did, in fact, he seemed to only play the roll when he needed to and that's how I knew he wasn't really one of us, or them. The Cloaked Wolves are smugglers but they also have other interests if those interests are aligned with cheating, stealing or otherwise taking advantage of the nobility, but otherwise they're just traders, specifically of one good and the greater good would be moving the organization away from the less, more immoral side of the trade. Some of them are also themselves nobility and legitimate traders. What the Cloaked Wolves have done is turn it into a high risk, high reward trade and as a result of that, one of the nobles were killed recently on the high road and all his 'cargo' taken, not by us, by other stray adventurers. Another group was thwarted by another group on the Triboar trail. We came here I presume to set a trap for them, but then... oh..." Danielle has a stark realization that the ones they were setting up to trap are in fact the ones she's talking to. "Oh... well that could have gone better."

"Did you four... happen upon a noble by the name of 'Von Brassel'?"
"He had a large shipment, that set the Cloaked Wolves back quite a bit, so if you were then you'd be the number one enemy of them by now..." She thinks carefully, "I suppose this makes sense now, we wouldn't have come here to set up just for the two. And with the Black Spider here, I suppose there's no way they'll let... whoever did that, get away with it."

"He isn't a spider, he's The Spider, a drow, one of the highest rank as far as I know, and not usually involved directly." She shook her head, "You all have to get out of here if you want to live, that's not a threat, there is a battalion in there! You may be skilled and you took out our troop, but you can't possibly win against them all."

Yulyas face turns paler with each of Daniellas responses. Her already faked confidence collapses like a house of cards realizing every enemy they had defeated so far was part of this organization and they now walked into a trap set up for them.



Yulyas paranoia skyrockets. Who set up this trap? Sir Sildar? Master Edermath? Are even Gundren and his brothers members of this organization? Mister Stonehill even? Had Alice been right from the beginning? Yulya fears all of Phandalin is involved in a conspiracy against them yet nothing appears to make sense. Yulya shakes her head and tries to assess the situation logically

She looks unsure what to say, the truth spell has worn off, and she knows this, "I can only tell you based on what others have said, cunning, intelligent, strategic, manipulative, ambitious, resourceful, and powerful. I can't confirm this but it's said he could take a dragon single handedly. He has spies everywhere, in places you would least suspect, oh, and he's a powerful wizard as well. How he speaks? I can't say. His age? Do elves age I don't think they do. He also goes by Nezzner if that helps?"

She looks down as if ashamed, "There were two young girls obtained by nefarious means recently, and Alric was determined to stop the transaction, but they were taken deep into the mine before he could take action, I don't know what happened to them. I haven't seen a live orc in the mine but I've never gone past the first level, I did see the remains of a dead one. There's a lot of dead and death in that mine, the bodies I saw are old and desiccated, they have some sort of means to keep the smell down."

"I can't go to Phandalin, Triboar is an option but I won't be able to stay, my only hope is to somehow get the supplies to travel East, I'll just keep going until I'm either caught or long forgotten. Even the Cloaked Wolves' reach isn't infinite, but the sword coast is firmly in their grasp." She glances toward the tent door, "I know he will track me, I know he'll follow me if we're released together, please, I know I'm not in a position to ask, but if you do care about me, after what I've told you, release me first and give me a long head start, at least hours, the longer the better. I don't know if I'll make it to Triboar before he catches me, but I know he'll go to Triboar too. So I won't be able to stay there either. I know you took my purse, you have my weapons and everything I own other than the clothes on my back, my dagger would get me far, my purse would give me the supplies I need. I had 160 silver saved up, even a quarter of that would be enough."

Ashley sighs and holds up a purse, counting out 40 silver. She also holds up a dagger and sheath, "Yulya, I'm counting this from my own supply and I'll pay the sale price of this dagger if need be. Daniella, don't be stupid, if we catch you again my pet will eat you like it was said yours would eat us. Yulya, I say we let her go if we're done with her, and as she says, hold the other one for a while. We should feed her too, I say we don't feed him, that'll give her the advantage. She's given us a lot of good information

He rolls his eyes and sighs until he hears about nobles, "Are you from that Tabaxi tribe that got wiped out? You can thank a high noble for that. Even we're not brazen enough to try to attack a warrior tribe for girls. I could tell you who it was but you wouldn't know him and he's dead anyway. That happens when you take a Marquis' men and promise a Marquis fresh tabaxi girls and return with neither." He laughed, "that's one thing you adventurers are good for, at least the assassins types, they're real good at making it look like an accident."

"AND AFTER YOUR WORTHLESS INFORMATION YOU THINK WE'LL JUST LET YOU GO?! HA AHAHAHAHH!" Loud enough to be heard she then gives Daniella a thumbs up and exits the tent.
"Cat, help me move this lout, and by that I mean, please move that lout to the side of the tent into the tree cove. Gotta get that armor off, so you'll need to hold him as I get it off."