Session 4-X, The Big Recap
Haven’t written in a while, so here is a big one.
Into Blue Alley
Let’s start where the party left us last session. They were heading to a mysterious dungeon in Waterdeep called Blue Alley as a mission for Victoro Cassalanter. Victoro is a noble and a moneylender. In exchange for a unicorn hair located in the Blue Alley, Victoro promises to finance the reconstruction of the party’s new property: Trollskull Tavern. Victoro tells the party he wants the unicorn hair for its medicinal purposes.
The party went into the dungeon, encountered many dangers, puzzles, traps and treasure and got out safe and sound. They found a unicorn statuette which transformed into a unicorn when they got out of the dungeon. The unicorn gave them three of his hairs as a thank you and left the city.
The party returned one unicorn hair to Victoro who kept his promise and gave the player’s their reward.
Trollskull Tavern or Spirits and Spirits?
With their money, Victoro’s and some extra from selling the other two unicorn hairs, the players partner up with a member of the guild of innkeepers, Broxley Fairkettle. Broxley is a middle-aged male halfling with a nonatuplet of halfling babies, strapped around him as a belt. He is a charming and friendly fellow, and he and his dwarven construction friend make the reconstruction go very smoothly.
The players also hire several staffmembers: a halfling cook, a trio of floating elves as waiters and Lif the Ghost as their barman. They dub the tavern “Spirits and Spirits” and their grand opening is a great succes.
Tuuu-Du-Tu--Tu-Du-Tu
The next morning, something horrible happens. Broxley Fairkettle comes by the tavern and knocks on the door. Coco opens the door to a big surprise: a big fireball fills the alley, killing several people and knocking Coco unconscious. Coco is saved and the players start investigating what happened.
There were many victims. including Broxley and his nonatuplets... There was one survivor in the alley. In the confusion he revealed his name: Urstul Floxin, which he quickly realized was a mistake. Urstul attempted to flee the crime scene. Merlijn reacts quickly and cast a hold person spell on him while others quickly use rope to bind him and pull him inside the Tavern.
Some start to interrogate Urstul, while others stay outside to investigate. The party recognizes Urstul to be a wanted Zhentarim operative. During the questioning of Urstul, Urstul proposes to pay the party to let him escape. The party agrees and Urstul gets out.
Outside, a type of robot called a Nimblewright was seen by several witnesses as well as by some of the party members. During the investigation, the party finds a “necklace of fireballs” dumped into a water barrel. They also find out that the Nimblewright took something of a dead gnome.
Renear Neverember, the son of Dagult Neverember, recognizes the gnome. He tells the party his name was Dalakhar, and that he was an operative for his father. Dalakhar was shadowing Renear for about a year, but Renear hadn’t seen him in about a month. Renear tells the party he was contacted by Dalakhar with a request for help, as Dalakhar had obtained the key to Neverember’s Enigma!
After some investigating, the watch arrives. A duo, Saeth Cromley and Barnibus Blastwind, questions the party members about what happened.
Barnibus is a wizard of some sort and Saeth is an experienced watchman. Together they question the party about what happened. The party answers honestly about most of the parts, and are able to lie their way out of trouble regarding the release of Urstul Floxin. Saeth requests the party in a friendly but firm way to stay OUT of the investigation and let the watch do its job, of course the party does not listen and continues their own investigation.
The Nimblewright Investigation
Cithras remembers his parents talking about buying a Nimblewright and the party visits the merchant who is selling these constructs in town: an eccentric captain and carnival leader named Zardoz Zord.
After some sweet talking and explanation, Zardoz is quite willing to help the party with their investigation, if he is allowed to go on a date with Coco, whom he finds very interesting. Zardoz looks into his records and reports that the Nimblewright fitting the description was sold to the Gralhund Noble family, who actually live quite near Trollskull Alley.
Invading the Gralhunds
The party plans a heist on the Gralhunds to find out what happened and what was stolen from the gnome. After a short stakeout, they find out that more parties are interested here. They see some Zhentarim operatives, some monsters from Xanathar’s Guild as well as some unknowns in a building opposite the villa, all are keeping an eye on the building.
The party take a sneaky route, Ludoviche disguises himself as a maid and Venthras follows him inside with an invisibility spell cast on him. Ludoviche is set to work to cut unions and peel potatoes, whereas Venthras sneaks into the villa and does some recon.
Venthras eventually gets upstairs and takes Lady Gralhund hostage. He gets the stolen object, a green stone with 3 crevices, from Lady Gralhund, and escapes. After which suddenly two other teams start to invade the villa. The Zhents go through the back entrance and the unknowns use a rope to get to the roof. The unknowns are revealed to be Drow as well!
The party returns to the tavern and Ludoviche attunes to the stone. It reveals itself to be a sentient item, but it has been blinded, it’s missing its three eyes. It can reveal more once his eyes are returned to him. Even in its weakened state, it’s obvious this is an artifact capable of very strong magic.
The two dates
Two dates have occurred during the timeline, first of which is Ludoviche’s date with Cithras’ sister, Esvele Rozsnar (of house Rozsnar). They take a walk in the park, which is also a cemetery. The date goes smoothly when Ludoviche suddenly spots someone performing a grave robbery! He and Esvele confront the robber and discover he is a necromancer, digging up bodies for his experiments. He seems to have good intentions but is panicked by this confrontation. He attempts to cast a spell, and Ludoviche and Esvele cut him down. Esvele is surprisingly handy with her blade, scarily so. Ludo is impressed and Esvele as well. They go back to Ludo’s place and do the hoinky boinky.
The second date was with Zardoz Zord and Coco. When everyone wanted to go to sleep, there was the sound of an elephant trumpet outside. Zardoz Zord is in Trollskull Alley and has a magnificent date planned for Coco. They take an elephant ride through the town, go see a play and eat nice food. Zardoz is an excellent date and great conversationalist. The date ends in his ship, where he readied the bed with Bronze Dragon Scales like rose petals…
Meeting Zelifarn
The party get information from Vajra Safahr that there is a small dragon in Waterdeep harbor, and that there are some dragon cultists taking interest. They have the option of using some potions of water breathing, or to ask a cracky magic shop owner, Grinda Garloth, if they can borrow her submarine.
They choose to use the submarine and go underwater to find the dragon, as part of the deal they will have to get rid of an intelligent shark that has been foiling Grinda’s plans of looking for treasure on the sea bottom.
The party contacts Zelifarn, a very young bronze dragon, basically a small child, and discover that he’s here looking for his mother. A while back, some sailors came to their island and stole something from his mother. He hasn’t seen her since. The sailors also stole a magical orb that could help Zelifarn find her. He shows the party: he swims to a ship which has a submarine connected to it below the ship. Through a window, the party sees a magical orb on a cushion. Coco recognizes the ship, it’s the one she visited during her date with Zardoz Zord! The Bronze petals during that date seem very ominous now.
Ludoviche has the spell “Misty Step”, which sometimes breaks the game and he just teleports into the submarine, gets the orb, and gets out before anyone notices.
The party convinces Zelifarn with cake and sweet talk that the Dragon Cultists should not be trusted, even if they want to give him cake and candy as well.
Rescueing a Bregan D’Earthe Operative
Venthras gets a message that one of the Bregan D’Earthe operatives, Fenerus Stormcastle, has been kidnapped by the Zhentarim. During the night, this place is very heavily guarded, and for obvious reasons, Drow don’t like going out during the day. J.B. Nevercott, the Bregan D’Earthe contact, asks the party to go to the hideout during the day to rescue Fenerus.
The party goes to the known location and knock on the door and bluff their way in. Inside, they are greeted by a woman in wizard robes. Venthras attempts to One-Shot her but does not quite succeed. She’s quick and is able to cast a Cone of Cold on the party before going down, causing devastating damage.
The rest of the Zhentarim there engage as well, being holed up in the interrogation room stacked together. Area of Effect spells would kill Fenerus if used, so Venthras smartly throws a fear-bomb into the room, and with an excellent intimidation check and overwhelming numbers, the Zhentarim quickly drop their weapons and surrender.
The players tie them up, rescue Fenerus but also hear another voice in another interrogation room. Here they find a peculiar dwarf, who calls himself Ott Steeltoes.
Ott isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, and he is quickly tricked by the players to reveal some key information: he is the Fish-Keeper of Xanathar and he’s in dire need of a new fish!! He has a dead fish in a fishbag, and wants to resurrect the fish with magic. He begged the party for help, but Coco just went ahead and ate the fish.
Ott almost dies of a heart attack but Venthras and Rogelio use illusions and trickery to make it seem like they have another fish. They intimidate Ott with this fake fish and trick him. Ott reveals an important secret: that Xanathar has hidden his eye in the fish bowl.
Ott then leads the party to a Xanathar outpost: a candy shop who make lollipops in the shapes of eyes. The party learns the secret keyword to enter the backroom which leads to Xanathar’s lair! In the candy shop, they look for a lollipop that looks like the Eye of Xanathar and they bought a few of those.
The party return Fenerus to his house and Venthras gets some magical dagger throwing bracers as a reward. Fenerus has a task for the party, which he wants to discuss the next morning.
Gladiatorial fights
Before going to Fenerus, the next day the party returns to the candy shop and enter the backroom for some recon. They learn that there’s a gladiatorial fight going on and Xanathar’s guild thinks they are here to join. The tournament works in teams of three, so the party splits up and goes in.
They go into Xanathar’s lair as tournament participants and hash it out against a troll, some orcs, an ogre with goblins strapped to his back, a werewolf and each other in finale!
I honestly can’t remember who won. Anyway, one of them wins and they get a nice prize: a black onyx statuette of a beholder and both got an invitation to the next fight in three days time with a dinner with Xanathar to boot!
They also find a Zhentarim operative caged there called NOT Ingrid. They lockpick her jail but don’t do much else.
Accidentally finished a quest??
The party returns to Fenerus to see what his quest was all about and find out they accidentally did it already! Their task was to enter the tournament and win to get an invitation to the next fight, where Bregan D’Earthe is planning a heist.
The party has two roles in their heist:
First, during dinner, they must attempt to poison Xanathar with a blinding poison, an infiltrator has obtained some poison for this. They are tasked to sneak it into Xanathars food.
Secondly, during the third fight of the gladiatorial rounds, they are to head to a certain room which is keeping an eye on the entire lair. Clear the room of the surveillance magic there.
The party is also approached by Vajra Safahr again, who has found out that the party is planning to go back to Xanathar’s Lair again. She sees this as an opportunity to get rid of a Mindflayer called Nihiloor, who is a danger to the political landscape in Xanathar’s Guild. Vajra warns the party to NOT engage Xanathar, even if they can kill him. His second in command is way more competent.
She also tells them of an informant of hers called Thorvin Twinbeard, who has a shop in skullport, he can help the party escape Skullport if they choose to leave that way.
Next Blog
The party agrees and goes to Xanathar’s lair in three days, the events and conclusion of which will be told about in the next blog post!
