Guildmaster Holia Thornton

Guildmaster of Phandalin’s Miner’s Exchange — and, as her dragon-symbol pin revealed, an agent of the Zhentarim. Dax’s former contract employer.

• Received the King’s sealed letter from Dax, closing out his original trade contract (Session 4).
• The letter’s mention of the dragon prompted pointed questions; then came the pin, the crossbows, and a forced information-sharing agreement — the party keeps her informed on dragon intelligence, and she pays for updates (Session 4).
• Her guard outside is the same strange figure who watched the party at the inn back in Session 1.
• Let slip a lead: a ruined temple south along the Trivial Trail, where locals stash their gold (Session 4).
• Harbin keeps private notes on her — notes Bean now has.

The night the news broke (Session 8)

The dragon’s attack on Umbrage Hill reached her before the party did, and she was delighted by it — “our lovely visit from our reptile friend.” She would not pay a premium for news the whole town already had, so Dax stopped selling it and offered it as a freebie instead — thrown in on top, on condition they came to terms on orcs first. “I like you. You’re smart.”

He then made her agree the currency before he answered anything: gold, or information for information. She agreed to the trade, and he spent his first question on Harbin before spending anything of his own. Only then did he pay: where the band that attacked the excavation had come from, that all seven were dead, and where the much larger force behind them had gone. She had a map out on the desk before he finished and paid 50 gold for it.

Collecting the rest of the bargain, he asked about Harbin again. She said he had been afraid of this dragon a long while, that the party had handed her “a great opportunity” — and then caught herself and finished more carefully.

Well, let’s just say things may be looking up in Phandalin. And Harbin may no longer be a part of it.

On the way out she stopped being pleasant. If anyone is caught around the Miner’s Exchange at night again she knows where to find them, and she knows where Harbin sends them, and she would start with Thom.

What she said when she thought the room was empty

Thom and Bean were standing invisible in the middle of it.

Well done. Well done on your scouting. Soon Harbin will be out and I will be town master. Those foolish adventurers have brought me everything I needed.

Then, to one of her guards: if any of the party are caught sniffing around again, they all die — the entire troop set on them. Then she packed up, and went down through a trap door in the floor behind her desk, and two guards followed her, and the third locked up and went down after them. The door sealed flush behind him. Nothing on the floor shows it was ever there.

She calls wherever it leads their recon point, and said they had a lot of work to do that evening.

• She intends to replace Harbin. She said the adventurers had brought her everything she needed; she did not explain how their information would secure the office.
• Her ledgers record what she has paid out, Dax’s fee among them — ordinary business, plainly kept, nothing illegal in any of it.

Beneath the town (reported in Session 9)

Thom and Bean returned and told the whole party what they had found: a long mining passage with a bear trap, an arrow pressure plate they triggered, and a tripwire Bean kept Thom from crossing. Beyond it was an occupied hall with roughly twenty to thirty people, maps that appeared to track orc movements, gold and unopened chests. Their headcount was an estimate.

They followed her into a private office and glimpsed paper headings while she moved to a dresser. Thom interpreted them as shipping business, orc information and plans for a new foothold along the Sword Coast. A Phandalin base and smuggling were his theories; no orc alliance was established.

After a cook tripped over Bean, they escaped by another ladder and hatch before invisibility ended. They reported that nobody saw their faces, though the hatch was heard closing. Three hooded figures later searched the inn; their target was not confirmed. The innkeeper upheld Thom’s paid alibi.

Dax shared her fifty gold and warning with the party. The next morning the party sold Harbin the tunnel intelligence and entrance information. Thornton has not become townmaster, and her standing threats remain.