The Grand Game – Renaer Neverember:
Renaer Neverember is helpful but they still needed to find Floon Blagmaar.
Looking through the ordered creates Zarek finds that he Black Network’s main business is recruiting, training, and equipping sells words. Crates packed with weapons, rations, boots, black uniforms, and other gear fill the ground of the Zhentarim warehouse.
Renaer Neverember tells the adventurers that he was questioned by the Zhents about the Half Million Dragons his father stole from the city; then they ripped off, from around his neck, a cameo/locket that was very precious to him. Zarek exclaims that he had seen said locket and saw the (now empty) secret compartment inside it, Renaer Neverember also tells them that he had no idea that the compartment existed or what was stored inside it.
Both Zarek and Alley felt he was not deceiving them and believed his words. They go upstairs to recover the Mourning Locket and Zarek discovers 3 unused ‘Paper Birds’.
The open second level is stacked with crates where it overlooks the main warehouse. Alley searches through the crates finds all sorts of junk, including motheaten bolts of cloth, bottles of spoiled olive oil, and hundreds of pairs of wooden-soled sandals that were all the rage last summer but are now out of fashion.
Alley: “Strange, none of this junk is valuable.”
Zarek: “It’s all a cover or their real business, mercenaries for hire.”
Alley: ”You mean Sell Swords.”
Zarek then remembers that he wanted to find the origins of the trigger for all the bells on the first floor. Zarek, eventually, works out that they all connect to an area. He finds a trap door, to the west of the stairs and the room under them. When the secret door is opened, the adventurers can hear the faint sound of a bell ringing in the offices above them.
Inside the underground room, Zarek finds some locked bars and in the cell or store room he finds several creates. The Zhents have stashed two wooden crates here. There are four wide thin crates that contain wood-framed paintings wrapped in leather. One of the paintings, pulled out by Zarek, depict the cities of Baldur’s Gate and are worth several Dragons each he guesses.
The second crate holds fifteen 10-pound silver trade bars, all black from corrosion but still worth some 50 to 60 Dragons each.
Zarek: “I must make a mental note to take all this with us, but how are we to move it from here, we would need a small cart.”
Candle Lane:
Shortly after the Zarek finds the loot, a captain of the City Watch named Hyustus Staget leads a dozen veterans to the warehouse. Having received a report of suspicious activity, they barge in and try to prevent anyone from leaving.
Alley closes the trap door on Zarek to hide him from any questioning, as he was still in the guise of the Zhentarim from the Filed Ward. Zarek pushes his ear to the trap door and listens to the conversations between the adventures and the City Watch.
Renaer Neverember tells Alley that he will make himself scares and reveal himself in a while.
Renaer Neverember: “I recognise that voice and it will pay to have me hide.”
Alley: “But why, it that not suspicious?”
Renaer Neverember: “Wait and see.”
Kenku that are still alive and here are taken into custody, and it doesn’t take long for the City Watch to conclude that the dead men are members of the Zhentarim and the Xanathar Guild, since violent encounters between the two factions are becoming ever more frequent. While his Constables search the warehouse, Captain Hyustus Staget questions the characters.
Captain Hyustus Staget questions Alley and she tell him all that had happened without truly lying and hiding Zarek’s involvement.
Alley: “I am a member of the Watchful Order of Magists and Protectors and heard a commotion within the Warehouse and found this blood bath within.”
Captain Hyustus Staget: “Anything more that you wish to add as this looks like a lot of work for a young girl like you? “Not all City Watch officers are as nice as me.”
Alley: “Indeed, but what about these villains and their actions?”
Captain Hyustus Staget: “Keep the blood off the streets, okay?”
This is a common saying among City Watch officials, who care more about what happens in the city above than what happens in the sewers below.
Renaer Neverember: “She was not alone and was very brave to have helped me.”
Renaer Neverember steps out of the shadows on the first floor and descends the stairs. Alley then notices how Captain Hyustus Staget demean changes as he is in the presence of a Noble.
Staget and Renaer recognize each other, though they aren’t well acquainted. The involvement of a Neverember noble prompts the captain to be on his best behavior. He is prepared to overlook any crimes committed by the characters as long as Renaer is with them.
Alley and Renaer Neverember then leave the Warehouse, hoping that Zarek can meet-up with them.
Zarek, sneaks out of the secret vault and makes his way up to the first floor, out of the office loading door, onto the roof, back down to the courtyard and over the fence.
As Zarek looks about for his companions, he spots a gaudy, 6-inch bas relief of a unicorn’s head on a broken chain and holding a couple of blue pearls.
Zarek: “Did this fall of as the took poor Floon Blagmaar away?”
Zarek spots Ally and Renaer Neverember hiding on the corner and joins them both.
Renaer Neverember tells Zarek and Alley that Captain Staget is an uptight man who helps keep the peace in the Dock Ward. Every shopkeeper, guild member, innkeeper, and tavern keeper in the Dock Ward knows him, and most respect him regardless of their opinions of the City Watch in general. Staget doesn’t believe in rumours or gossip, he doesn’t drink, and he doesn’t let anger get the better of him. His job is to curb the violence in the Dock Ward, but he has been dragging his heels. After all, he reasons, if the Xanathar Guild and the Zhentarim want to destroy each other, why not let them?
Alley: “We need to pick-up the trail of the Xanathar Guild and Floon Blagmaar but they have gone in any direction.”
Zarek: “If only we had found a clue as to which direction Floon Blagmaar was taken in.” Zarek says while tapping the gaudy, 6-inch bas relief of a unicorn’s head on his chin.
Alley: “Is that a clue Zarek that you have forgotten to mention?”
The adventures and Renaer Neverember laugh and head back to the fence to find the trail that will lead to Floon Blagmaar. Zarek finds another of the blue pearls, which he realises are fake, and they follow the direction of it path.
The adventurers trace the kidnappers’ path through back alleys to a circular metal cover inset in the pavement. The cover is easily lifted, revealing a ladder down into the sewers.
The sewers have no natural light and the adventures without darkvision need light sources to see. Zarek hands Alley and Renaer Neverember his Dark Purple Magic Candle for them to use.
A putrid stream flows along this sewer tunnel, which leads in two directions. In one direction, you see a tiny symbol drawn on the wall in yellow chalk: a palm-sized circle with ten equidistant spokes radiating out from its circumference.
Zarek: “Remember what the Kenku Leader said in that in a thin, nasally voice.”
Kenku Leader: “Follow the yellow signs in the sewers.”
The hideout of the Xanathar Guild operatives who snatched up Floon is deep in the city’s labyrinthine sewers. At every location where the adventures must make a decision about which direction to go, a symbol scrawled in yellow chalk-a stylized representation of Xanathar-is marked next to the tunnel that leads in the right direction.
Before arriving at the Xanathar Guild hideout, the adventures have an unpleasant and unexpected meeting in the sewers.
After an hour of tracking signs through the tunnels, the adventurers come to a three-way intersection where a ladder leads up into a stone shaft capped by a circular metal cover. One of the familiar chalk symbols is marked on a wall nearby, and floating near the symbol is a spherical, grapefruit-sized creature with a bulging central eye and four stumpy eyestalks. It bares its teeth at you.
Zarek is not sure what the creature is and a battle ensues.
Zarek is hit by the creatures’ ray, as a magical ability, that emit from one of its stumpy eyestalks. Zarek can’t stay on his feet and is force 30’ feet directly away from the creature by an invisible force or Telekinetic Blast. Alley and Renaer Neverember manage to avoid being hit by the Tiefling and they both engage with it.
Alley fires her Hand Crossbow, but misses, then Renaer Neverember engages with his borrowed Rapier and Dagger and all but dispatches the creature giving no quarter.
Zarek then picks himself up from the filth of the sewers and completely decimated the dying creature.
Renaer Neverember: ”It is a Gazer; foul creature and the manifestation of a creatures dreams far more powerful than you two would like to ever meet.”
Zarek, hearing Iomhar in his mind again saying to check everything that piss-up the whole mission, climbs the ladder, listens and tries to push open the metal cover. The cover has been weight down and needs more than the Rouges Strength to open it and the smells and noise coming from behind it reminds the Tiefling of a tavern. But where in fact are they, Zarek has no idea.
The characters approach an area from the east, slogging through 1-foot-deep water and sewage. The main sewer tunnel expands into a circular hub, with a pair of arrow slits carved into its outer walls and directly across from each other. Zarek fails to spot them initially.
At the CENTRAL HUB, 2 passages continue on to the north and south. A stone door is set into the back wall of a stone ledge to the west and Zarek heads in that direction.