Story 1: Here There Be Gerblins

This article is about the podcast arc. Click here for the graphic novel adaptation.

Here There Be Gerblins is the first story arc of The Balance Arc, and also of The Adventure Zone. It follows the Tres Horny Boys on their first adventure, which includes goblins, jack-hammer robots, and the destruction of an entire town.

Summary
Started off with us adhering to the adventure book. The three of you had to prove your salt. You were hired to transport Gundren Rockseeker's belongings from Neverwinter to Phandalin. He had a ward named Barry Bluejeans. You found that they were attacked by gerblins and abducted. You reached a cave that housed the gerblins that attacked them and you met Klarg, the Bugbear leader of the band and Yeemick, his second in command.

You were embroiled in Yeemick's plot to overthrow Klarg who, in turn, just murdered Yeemick. Taako charmed Klarg, (and we learned later, apparently permanently) to learn that Gundren had been kidnapped by a powerful wizard named The Black Spider, who wanted to use him to unlock Wave Echo Cave, a source of tremendous power near Phandalin. You rescued Barry Bluejeans who told you how to access the cave using Merle, who was Gundren's distant cousin, using Merle's blood.

After fighting through the strange fauna and machinery of Wave Echo Cave, you meet a few interesting individuals inside, including Killian, who is an extremely capable Orc woman who warned you not to meddle in her own pursuit of the Black Spider, and then you met the Spider himself, who was a Dark Elf named "Magic Brian", whom you kind of befriended, and then summarily killed.

The three of you, with Killian and a worse for wear Gundren Rockseeker entered the vault in the middle of Wave Echo Cave, not before Taako finds a powerful umbrella-shaped staff on a skeleton wearing a Red Robe. Inside that vault, you find a gauntlet which Gundren takes as his birthright, but it grants him a fiery power that he seems incapable of controlling. He flies from the room.

You pursue him back to Phandalin, stopping a convoy of Orc slavers and you free Kurtze, who is a young Orcish boy whose encampment had been destroyed by Gundren. You rescue him from a cage, although he leaves without thanking you. In Phandalin, Barry warns you that Gundren has grown too powerful before Gundren, who is now just made of Living Fire, destroys Barry Bluejeans. You nearly talk him down from his rage but Kurtze, in retribution, shoots him with an arrow from the outskirts of town.

You three and Killian dive into a well at the last second as Gundren goes thermonuclear and Phandalin is reduced to a circle of black glass. Killian explains that she represents an organization designed to stop these things from happening and enlists you after you are able to reclaim the Gauntlet without falling prey to its thrall. Killian summons a glass spherical vehicle from the sky which you ride up to a hole in the Moon.

- Griffin's summary from The "The Adventure Zone" Zone, transcribed by Reddit user MooseEatsBear.

Characters

 * Gundren Rockseeker
 * Ruby
 * Barry Bluejeans
 * Yeemick
 * Klarg
 * Killian
 * Magic Brian
 * Spider Bryan
 * Renee
 * Kurtz

Locations

 * Neverwinter
 * The High Road
 * Cragmaw Hideout
 * Wave Echo Cave
 * Sword Mountains foothills
 * Phandalin (Haverdale)

Deaths

 * Multiple Goblins
 * Multiple Wolves
 * Multiple Slimes
 * Multiple Unidentified Bandits
 * Multiple Unidentified Orcs
 * Most (if not all) of the population of Phandalin
 * Yeemick
 * Magic Brian
 * Spider Bryan
 * Tharden Rockseeker
 * Nundro Rockseeker
 * Barry Bluejeans
 * Gundren Rockseeker

Loot

 * Umbra Staff
 * Magic Boots of Striding and Springing
 * Enchanted feather duster

Long-Term Significance

 * Merle debatably loses his hand axe.
 * Taako casts Charm Person on Klarg.
 * The group attracts the attention of Killian, and the Bureau of Balance by extension.
 * Phandalin is totally destroyed and turned into a huge, flat circle of glass.
 * Taako carries a Grand Relic without apparent ill effect.