SESSION 22C: WORKINGS OF THE CHAOS CULTS

May 18th, 2008
The 10th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

The walls, floor, and ceiling of the room were covered in a haphazard array of magical circles, symbols, and strange characters. The sight was almost dizzying. After little more than a glance, Tee called out for Ranthir to join her.

Ranthir quickly identified the symbols as belonging to a variety of rites, although none were immediately known to him. He did note that many of them bore a more than superficial resemblance to the rites performed by the Seyrunian demon-binding cults of the previous century. And others seemed to have something to do with the creation and binding of energy. Some simply seemed to be mad scribblings to which Ranthir could not ascribe any immediate sense. One particular section of the wall had been completely covered in charcoal, and then written upon in chalk:

Tee, meanwhile, had discovered that one of the wood panels on the floor was loose. Prying it up revealed a small cache containing two books and a gold ring bearing the device of a broken square:

Ranthir was immediately distracted by the books. Eagerly taking them from Tee’s hands he began flipping through them.

TRUTH OF THE HIDDEN GOD

What appears, at first, to be a copy of the Book of Athor is nothing of the sort: The pages inside are covered with scrawled diagrams and heretical desecrations of the Nine Gods.

A closer reading reveals this to be a cult manual for the “Brotherhood of the Blooded Knife”. The cult venerates chaos in all its forms, focusing their blasphemous rituals around the practice of human sacrifice. These sacrifices are given to a Galchutt named Abhoth, who they venerate as the “Source of All Filth” and the “Lord of the Zaug”.

Disturbingly, much of the book is given over to material designed to mock the holy rituals of the Church. It appears that the cult establishes itself secretly in society by posing as other religious orders. Actual followers of the deity may choose to join them, usually to their dismay – either they come to join the cult itself or they die beneath the cult’s “blooded knife”.

In other cases, a few cultists will infiltrate another religion and use force, blackmail, magic, or simple persuasion to sway its members into secretly worshipping chaos. This process can take years, but eventually the cult eats the other religion from the inside out, consuming it until the temple is entirely a front for the altars of the Brotherhood hidden in their subterranean complexes.

The last few pages of the book appear to be a prophetic rambling of sorts, beginning with the words: “In the days before the Night of Dissolution shall come, our pretenses shall drop like rotted flies. In those days the Church shall be broken, and we shall call our true god by an open name.” The remainder of this section is a description of the faux religious practices for a fanciful “Rat God”, with the apparent intention being that a church could be openly established for this “god”. Eventually, the prophecies, say even this “last pretense” will be abolished and “Abhoth shall be worshipped by all who are not blooded by the knife”.

TOUCH OF THE EBON HAND

The pages of this volume are filled with disturbing and highly detailed diagrams of the most horrible physical deformities and mutations. A closer reading quickly reveals that these deformities – referred to as “the touch of the ebon hand” – are venerated by the writers as the living personification of chaos incarnate. Particularly prized are those functional mutations – an extra eye or oversized arms, for example.

The rest of the book describes horrid rites which make it clear that the Brotherhood of the Ebon Hand not only idolizes deformity and mutation, but seek to inflict it and spread it as well: Ritual scarring. Magical alteration. Alchemical experimentation. Chaositech-induced mutation.

Members of the cult have no distinctive garb, but they usually bear the symbol of a black hand in some form: A tattoo. A charm. A small embroidery on their clothes. Or so forth. Of course, most of them are also marked by their mutations.

THE COBBLED MAN

As Tee continued searching, Elestra also came into the room. Looking over Ranthir’s shoulder she pointed at the charcoal wall: “We’ve seen three of these symbols now. The hand, the knife, and the broken square.”

“I wonder what the others could mean.”

“Something to do with the cults, I guess.”

They continued chatting quietly as Tee probed at the walls and the floor.

Dominic, in the tower outside, stood looking in at them. And then pain rushed through his body as a heavy blow landed across the back of his skull.

Stumbling forward he felt a horrible wave of nausea rip through his body. Turning he saw a horrific, monstrous man: A second head had been awkwardly attached to its shoulder, and the muscles of its arms and legs were grotesquely over-developed. The hair on both of its heads was greasy, lanky, and sparse. The eyes on one of the heads was shut, but the eyes of the other were filled with rage. In its right hand it clenched a silvery rod.

“WHY ARE YOU IN WUNTAD’S ROOM?”

Its voice was a dull boom. Its words sullen.

Tor, reacting almost instantly, rushed up the stairs from below. Emerging into the cramped base of the tower, he was clipped nastily along the side of his head. Like Dominic, he felt a nauseous wave pass over him. Shaking it off, he swung his sword – opening a vicious gash in the creature’s arm.

Ranthir rushed out, as well. “Can’t we just work this out?” But his voice was drowned out in the sudden chaos of the melee.

But then Tee shoved her way past him and her voice carried a greater authority: “Stop it! Wuntad sent us! Stop it now!”

The creature froze, its massive hand hovering to deliver a devastating blow on Tor. “Wuntad sent you?”

“Yes,” Tee lied, putting as much earnestness into her voice as she could. “He sent us.”

“He’s been gone so long. I’ve been alone for so long…” The dimwitted voice was filled with painful sorrow.

Tee softened. “Are you the Cobbledman?”

“… someone called me that. Once. They left too. A long time ago.” The Cobbledman clutched absently at the rags on his chest. “They left me all alone… Do you have any food?”

Ranthir fumbled at one of his pouches and then held out an iron ration. “Why didn’t you leave?”

“Can’t leave.”

“Why can’t you leave?”

“Wuntad put something in my brain. Make me loyal. Make it hurt to leave. Can’t leave until Wuntad say I can leave.”

Ranthir had a sickly certainty that this was a betrayal of the flesh. He could see telltale lumps beneath the Cobbledman’s skin – tubes and… other things.

“What happened to Wuntad?” Tee asked.

“Don’t know. The angry men in the metal suits came. There was lots of angry noise. I hid in my tower. And then everyone left… You’ll leave me, too, won’t you?”

No one had an answer for that.

“Cobbledman,” Tee said carefully. “Do you have a piece of metal that looks like a spiral?”

A look of something very like panic entered the Cobbledman’s eyes. “Yes.”

“Could we have it?”

“No! No! My friend gave it to me! I have to keep it safe! She said so!” His hand groped against the rags on his chest, clutching something beneath them.

“I understand,” Tee said gently. “But if we promised to bring it back, do you think we could borrow it? You could even come with us.”

“Maybe…” The Cobbledman seemed to be losing focus. “Do you have any more food?”

Ranthir gave him some more and the Cobbledman chewed it absentmindedly. “I’m going to go to sleep now. So very hungry…”

He began shambling back across the bridge and disappeared into this tower. They watched him go, sadness and pity filling their hearts.

“Well,” Tee said. “At least we know where one part of the spiral key is. Now we just need to find out where Radanna hid hers.”

NEXT CAMPAIGN JOURNAL

Go to Part 1

EPILOGUE: HONORS

They contacted Vajra and made arrangements for the gold to be brought out of Neverember’s Vault. It took workers the better part of a full day to load it all up.

A day later they stood upon the grand stairs in the courtyard of Castle Waterdeep in a carefully negotiated and orchestrated ceremony. Renaer stood at Kittisoth’s side — the son of Neverember returning his father’s ill-gotten spoils along with the heroes of the hour who had been most responsible for its recovery. In her speech to the assembled nobles, burghers, diplomats, guild representatives, broadsheet writers, and other notables, Kora made a point of thanking “the great aid that our sister city of Luskan, by virtue of their Lord Jarlaxle, gave us in pursuit of this gold.” Jarlaxle, who was standing among the crowd of nobles, tipped the broad rim of his feathered hat in silent recognition.

Laeral, of course, had known that this was coming, and her own speech was careful in thanking, “Lord Neverember and all those who aided you in this brave enterprise as part of Force Grey.” Kora appreciated the subtle political touch of pulling an official shroud over the whole affair.

Publicly, Laeral awarded them all the Bright Sleeve – literally a sleeve of cloth-of-gold embroidered with (at their request) “The Trollskulls” in recognition of their “acts of bravery above and beyond expected conduct or paid duties.”

In a private ceremony, afterwards, Laeral passed over a small coffer containing one thousand harbor moons — a tenth of the hoard they’d recovered.

EPILOGUE: J

Even before the ceremony, Jarlaxle had released the Gralhunds’ son. (The Gralhunds could not express their eternal gratitude for what the Trollskulls had done.) A few days later, a note arrived on black paper and written in silver ink:

EPILOGUE: KORA’S SEARCH

Kora stood at the entrance to the Snobeedle Orchard and Meadery in Undercliff. Dim memories danced within her. In the wake of all that had happened, she had come looking for her mother. She’d felt a need to tie off loose ends.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped off the main road and headed down the private drive which drove into the heart of the orchard. The road was shaded by a canopy of tall fruit trees and lined with the gentle swell and distinctive round doors of halfling mounds.

All Kora truly knew about her family was that, after the death of her father in an accident on the docks, her mother had given up her and all three of her siblings to various temples.

Her sister, Kaila, had been taken in by the Hospice of St. Laupsenn, a Triad Temple dedicated to the gods of Ilmater, Tyr, and Torm that had been erected by the Ilmatari knights of the Order of the Golden Cup. Kora was introduced to Vhaspar, an old man in his seventies, half blind with cataracts, to whom Kaila had been apprenticed. Sadly, he told Kora that her sister had caught the spotted plague while tending to the sick in 1488 and died.

She had more luck at the Spire of the Morning, the temple of Lathander where her other sister, Kamara, and her brother, Keryth, had been fostered. The temple was built of pink marble and, as she had arrived, the first light of the dawn had just been striking the seven spires of copper, gold, and silver which had been designed to reflect that light brilliantly across the city.

Delsanra Iangella, the Sovereign Mother of the temple, told her that Kamara had recently gone on pilgrimage to the House of the Triad in Bryn Shandar, a Lathanderian temple far to the north near Ten Towns. “But your brother should be down in just a moment.” Delsanra hadgestured up towards the spires. Keryth had become one of the seven Dawn Priests, charged to stand atop the spires and call out the Songs of Dawn when the sun rose and the Songs of Night’s Warding when it set.

He, too, had thought about contacting their mother a few years before. “She was still working at the Snobeedle Orchard in Undercliff,”

“I was born there!” Kora exclaimed.

“I remember!” Keryth laughed. “But to speak true, I felt… unwelcome there. It felt less like an orchard and more like a cult. I… didn’t find the answers I’d hoped to. I haven’t been back.”

Keryth remembered more of their childhood than Kora did, and he had been able to share a few tales with her before needing to return to his duties. They’d made promises to talk again. Kora wasn’t sure if that would happen, but his words had led her here.

To the orchard.

EPILOGUE: THE CASSALANTER CHILDREN

Meanwhile, the others had been summoned to Blackstaff Tower. Entering the tower they found that, rather than ascending it, all of their paths led down… and down… and down.

They came at last to a room. Vajra was waiting for them outside the door.

“I found the Cassalanter children. You need to be here for this.” She opened the door and stepped in.

“No,” Kittisoth murmured, shaking her head. “No… No.”

But Pashar nodded firmly and followed Vajra. Theren went with him. Edana took Kitti gently and helped her inside. It was horrible, but it was their plan. It was their responsibility. Vajra was right. But she wasn’t sure she could ever forgive her for it.

As Vajra said, “It’s all right. It’s going to be all right,” she drove two blades simultaneously into the backs of the Cassalanter children’s heads, neatly severing their spinal cords. With a wave of her hand, the Blackstaff opened a furnace in the wall of the chamber and levitated the children’s corpses into it.

Kittisoth sobbed and fell to her knees, her wings quaking.

The bodies burned away.

EPILOGUE: KORA’S MOTHER

At the end of the private drive, Kora found a complex of larger buildings, mostly still built in halfling style. The main building, in fact, appeared to be less constructed and more grown directly out of the ground as a tangle of trees winding and twisting around each other.

After some short introductions, she was led to an elderly halfling woman dressed in green robes with silver trim. The old woman smiled at her. “Yes, yes, of course. Welcome. My name is Blossom. Blossom Snobeedle. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” She gave a small smile and her eyes twinkled. “I remember when you were born in the field, just over there.”

“That’s right,” Kora said. “I was born in a field.”

Blossom nodded, hearing the tone Kora couldn’t quite control in her voice. “I remember Samira’s heartache at giving up her children. Those were hard years after your father passed.”

“I’d like to talk with her, please,” Kora said.

Blossom tapped her cane. “You didn’t ever properly know this. Your mother didn’t want you to know. But no amount of hardship could have made her give you up. The only reason she ever gave you up was because she was following the Voice of the Wood.”

“What?”

“She’d joined the Circle of Initiates,” Blossom said. “All that you see here is owned by the Emerald Enclave, a powerful druidic order. Your mother had joined the order. She was still learning the druidic arts when she received a vision from the God of the Ents that she needed to give her children up for the greater good. It broke her heart. But she did what she needed to do.

“I wish I could introduce you to your mother now. But unfortunately that’s not possible. Three months ago she did me a great service: My youngest son, Dasher, disappeared in Waterdeep. He’d just been running some errands, but he didn’t come home. After much heartache, he was found by a man named Davil Starsong. He had been kidnapped by a gang of wererats named the Shard Shunners. They’d infected him. They’d turned my son into a monster; severed his connection from the Old Growth.

“He needed respite and time to heal. Samira offered to journey with him to the Isle of Ilighôn in the Sea of Fallen Stars, where the stronghold of our Enclave is located. They left three weeks ago.”

Kora wiped a tear that was threatening to fall from her eye. “Thank you. I am very proud of her for helping… for helping your son. And you should know that the wererats who plagued your son… they’ve been dealt with.”

“Indeed?” Blossom smiled. “Even out here we’ve been hearing good things about you Kora. About you and your friends.”

“When she comes back, could you please tell her to come and visit?” Kora asked. “I run a small tavern with some friends. I’d love to share a meal with her.”

Blossom nodded. “Of course. I’ll let her know.”

“It’s just off Trollskull Alley,” Kora said. “It’s called Trollskull Manor.”

EPILOGUE: THE FEASTS OF LEIRUIN

Festival season was finally coming to an end with the Feast of Leiruin. In Trollskull Alley, the celebrations they had arranged were a roaring success. Spring garlands were strung between dancing poles. Mattrim Threestrings was singing while laughing children dunked for apples and chased each other through the swirling, chaotic joy of the evening.

In the midst of this merriment, the five of them came together on the porch of Trollskull Manor and headed into the tavern’s common room. They were waving to various neighborhood faces that were starting to become familiar to them when Floon came running up. “Edana!” He was holding an orange tabby cat. “My friend Riklyn Harvester has been transformed into this cat by an irate sorcerer who was upset that he had picked up a girl at the Old Skull Tavern. Now, I’ve got Riklyn right here and—”

“Meow!”

“–I’m really hoping you can help turn him back!”

Kittisoth frowned. “Why do you think she would be able to turn him back?”

Floon looked confused. “Edana helps with everything, doesn’t she?”

Pashar laughed.

Kitti’s eyes narrowed. “Was it Riklyn who was trying to pick up the girl?”

“Of course!” Floon declared. “I was just being a good wingman! Riklyn’s a player! You’d like him!”

“I would not!”

Edana smirked. “Kora, can you do anything?”

Kora sighed and cast detect magic. “Uh… the cat’s not magical.”

“What?”

“That’s not Riklyn. It’s just a cat.”

“What?!”

Kittisoth laughed and laughed and laughed.

“Meow!” The cat leapt out of Floon’s arms and ran off into the crowd.

“Riklyn!” Floon shouted. “Wait… you’re sure that wasn’t Riklyn?”

“Positive,” Kora said.

Floon shrugged. “Then he must be with the girl.” And he headed off to get a drink.

Mattrim danced by with Bonnie, the barmaid from the Yawning Portal, in his arms. He made a point of flashing his Harper pin to them as he spun by. Kitti laughed again.

And then, across, the room she spotted Isgrigg heading toward Ilthaea, one of the floating star elf triplets. She pounded Pashar on the shoulder. “Look!”

Isgrigg nervously said, “Would you… uh… like to get a drink some time?”

“Oh!” Ilthaea blinked. “I always thought you liked Ulthaea.”

“No!” Isgrigg said. “I like you.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Yes. We should go out for a drink. It is written.”

Pashar cried out, “It is written!”

“What?!” Kittisoth shouted.

Just then, coming in from the alley, they saw Valetta, the priestess from the House of Gond, accompanied by Nym the Nimblewright. Nym came over to them. “Thank you very much. For the invitation.”

They had a brief conversation with them, and then Volo came trundling over to them.

“Oh gods…” Kittisoth murmured.

“My friends!” Volo cried. “Trollskull Manor! I must say, this is the finest decision I’ve made in decades! So much activity! I’d actually like to talk to you about arranging for a signing of Volo’s Guide to Mountains… Er… Monsters.” He might have been a few drinks in at that point. “I also have a number of questions to ask you about the forthcoming Volo’s Guide to Spirits and Ghosts!”

EPILOGUE: THE DANCE OF LEIRUIN

Later that evening, Kittisoth and Renaer danced in the midst of the Feast at Brandathall. They swirled about the ballroom, gliding (and occasionally floating) beautifully across the floor. The others were nearby, part of the large crowd mingling around the busy dance floor.

They saw the Gralhunds come in. Their eyes met and, from across the room, the Gralhunds mouthed, Thank you…

Kitti and Renaer swept around the ballroom. Kitti twirled around just in time to see Laeral and Vajra teleport in on one side of the room. Mirt was with them! He was a little pallid, but he gave a grateful nod of the head to the new Brightcandle and her friends.

Kitti danced on. As they passed the door, Jarlaxle came walking in – as himself, for a change. Seeing Kitti’s doubletake, Renaer grinned. “Don’t worry. Osco has an eye on him.”

“Oh good,” Kitti grinned sardonically. “My confidence is restored!”

They passed Hermione, who was dancing with a tawny-haired Calishite noble. She gave Kitti a bawdy wink, and Kitti replied with a bawdier thumbs up.

And then the song was winding down. Renaer took the lead and they twirled out into the middle of the floor. As the music ended, he spun down onto one knee and produced a ring.

“Kittisoth, would you go on one last adventure with me?” Renaer grinned. “The greatest adventure of all?”

The entire room seemed to hold its breath.

“… Yeah. Sure. Let’s do it!” Kitti grinned and blushed red. “But I may need to go to the Sea of Fallen Stars to save my friend’s mom. And I also lost a bet with Pashar, so I’m going to have go Dip first.”

“Well, we could be married in the Yawning Portal,” Renaer suggested.

“No!” Kitti said. “We could not!”

EPILOGUE: THUNDERSTAFF

Time passed. Now they were placing the last of the Harper cache into the secret chamber beneath Thunderstaff Manor. Theren tucked the last package onto a shelf and they all stowed their Harper pins, their business as Harpers completed.

They headed back up the stairs. As they came into the entryway, the doors burst open. The two Cassalanter children came rushing in, joining the other children who were there playing at the new Thunderstaff Orphanage.

EPILOGUE: THE SEA OF FALLEN STARS

Pashar stood at the prow of a ship, the sea wind in his face and an endless horizon before him. Kora stepped up to join him on his right side. Theren stepped up to his left.

Kittisoth swooped down from the skies, flying past them and alighting next to Renaer on the lower deck. She threw her arm around her husband and smiled.

The swanwing ship sailed on into the Sea of Fallen Stars, seeking the next great adventure.

EPILOGUE: TROLLSKULL FUTURE

One year later, Edana stood on the balcony of Trollskull Manor looking out across the city towards Mount Waterdeep. Below her, the Trollskull Gardens that had been meticulously planned by Theren filled the alley — a verdant sweep of green growth and flowering trees. Squiddly was down there, shooting at a target propped up against one of the trees.

Nat was sitting in the bole of a different tree off to one side, nearly of a height with the balcony. Her brow was furrowed in concentration… and little sparks leapt from her fingertips.

Jenks, who was working in the kitchens down below, called out, “Do you want a roll? Catch!” He hurled one up through the window and Edana snatched it nimbly from the air.

Taking a bite from the gloriously fresh bread, she turned to head back into the manor. But as she did, Vajra flew down from the blue sky and alighted gently on the balcony next to her.

There was still work to be done.

The Sea goes ever on and on,
Away from manor where it began.
On distant shores we light upon,
Let others follow us who can!
With them a voyage new begins,
But one day with thought of child and friend,
We’ll turn back to lighted inn,
Where toils began and journeys end.

THE END

GM: Justin Alexander

Kittisoth Ka’iter – Heather Burmeister
Mamoon Pashar Al-Eiraf Um-Hafayah – Peter Heeringa
Kora Marwood – Chris Malone
Edana – Sarah Holmberg
Theren – Erik Malm

POST-CREDIT SCENE

Edana sat cross-legged in the secret chambers beneath Thunderstaff Orphanage. She held the Stone of Golorr in the palm of her hand. Its alien thoughts melded and danced with hers. The secrets it had stolen from the world flowed into her.

She had gained so many of them already: Horrible racial slurs. The elvish word essylathir, which meant the beauty of eyes which are the color of a storm-tossed sea. The existence of tawny-haired bipeds known as “fuzzies” that lived in the High Forest. The Kingdom of Otheria, which ruled a demesne from the Sword Coast to the sands of Anauroch five hundred years before. The name Anu-Devan which had one been the most popular male elven name. The location of sixteen silver bars buried in the rear yard of a tavern in Murann in 916 DR. The spells of blacksteel and midnight shroud. The ritual required for the creation of a Hell cyst. The location of a vast complex of gothic archways, each leading to a different locale holding great secrets.

Now a new secret was leeching into her: An atrocity performed during the Crown Wars.

She saw the utter truth of it. How history had long maintained that the dark elf Ilythiiri had viciously attacked the kingdom of Orishaar on the thinnest of pretenses, thus beginning the Second Crown War.

But there, buried inside, was the secret: That the Orishaari had actually betrayed the Ilythiiri at a wedding which was to unite their two people and slaughtered most of the Ilythiiri royal family. The Stone had wiped this truth from history, leaving the official histories to turn the murderous moon elves into victims and the wronged dark elves into villains who were served with a cold justice when they lost the Crown Wars and were forced underground into the sunless realms of their cavernous kingdoms.

And none would ever know but her.

Her eyes snapped open.

Go to Part 1

INTO THE VAULT

They headed down the long, sloping dwarven hall and emerged back into the shadow-shrouded vault. Edana’s hooded lantern swept back and forth across the immense chamber.

Kora placed the dragon scale atop the bas relief of the bronze sun and cast daylight. The bright light gleamed off the bronze beneath her feet and glittered in the depths of the dwarven runes — as crisp and fine as the day they’d first been crafted — on the adamantine doors.

Theren stepped forward and struck the dragon scale with the mithril hammer.

In that instant, there was a deep, sonorous tone that echoed around them. The doors slid back silently into the walls, revealing a vast chamber beyond. As they stepped up into the doorway, they looked into an even larger chamber — at least a hundred feet long, with a ceiling far above their heads — lit by a silvery, magical light.

Three bridges crossed the chamber above them. These had become worn with age. Stone had collapsed from their spans, and also crumbled from the large support pillars which ran down the center of the chamber to keep them aloft. Despite this damage, they could see that the support pillars had been carved to resemble warhammers with their square heads pressed against the floor.

Down at the far end of the chamber, they could see three tall niches, at least twenty or thirty feet high, which contained chipped frescoes. An equally massive doorway of bronze near these and off to the left appeared to lead out of the chamber.

Before crossing the threshold, Kora cast a ritual which would allow her to detect magical auras and Pashar simultaneously worked a rite which would allow him to more easily translate any inscriptions they found within. The others drunk in the ancient ambience while they waited and then, when the time came, took trepidatious steps forward.

As they approached the frescoes in the far wall, they could see the scenes they depicted more clearly. The first showed the dwarven god Dumathoin placing glowing gems into a range of mountains which appeared to be a primeval representation of the Sword Mountains. The second showed Dumathoin visiting the Illithid god Ilsensine, manifested in its form as a disembodied emerald brain, and bathing with it in the greenish psionic energy of the maze-like Caverns of Thought. And the third showed Dumathoin, Ilsensine (depicted in its form as an Illithid avatar), and Laduguer, the god of the duergar, with hands clasped in a dwarven circle of friendship.

“I don’t understand,” Kora said. “Why would the dwarves depict one of their own gods being in league with the illithid?”

Theren approached the gargantuan door of bronze. Pushing lightly upon it, he discovered that it pivoted easily at its mid-point, rotating into a perpendicular position allowing them to pass to either side of it. The room beyond was only small in comparison to the chamber they had just left. A broad stairway without railing ran up the far wall and then along the wall to the left to an upper level.

“That must go up to the bridges,” Kora surmised.

“I could fly up?” Kittisoth suggested.

“The stairs look sturdy enough,” Kora said, walking towards them.

The wall behind the stairs was covered in another fresco, this one depicting a vast dwarven army battling goblins. As Kora drew near it, she realized the whole fresco was magical. She stepped closer to analyze its enchantments, and then backpedaled: The entire fresco was enchanted to mesmerize anyone looking upon it, drawing them into its ‘glorious’ details.

She quickly explained the problem to the others: The fresco was directly next to the stairs. Anyone walking up it was at risk of studying the fresco for the rest of their lives.

“I’m flying up,” Kittisoth said, and did so.

“Do we need to see it?” Edana asked. “Could we just close our eyes?”

Kora nodded. That would work, and she’d already resisted the effect. The others were quickly blindfolded, and Kora led them up the stairs to where Kittisoth was waiting.

The upper hall, with three archways that did, in fact, lead to the bridges, had a series of pillars running down its length that, like the larger pillars below, had been carved in the likeness of warhammers. The wall opposite the archways bore a cracked mosaic depicting a dwarf smith at a forge, crafting dwarves out of black metal and diamonds. (Kora detected no magic emanating from this mural, but did recognize the figure as Moradin, creator god of the dwarves.)

Looking out at the bridges, they could see that two of them, although damaged, still appeared to be passable, but the third was missing a section in its middle. All three bridges ended in seemingly identical adamantine doors, smaller in scale, but similar to the larger one below.

After a brief discussion, they decided that crossing the broken bridge actually made the most sense. “Because it makes the least sense, if that makes sense,” Kora said.

“Makes sense to me!” Kittisoth said, and flew them across one by one.

Edana discovered that the door had been magically locked, but Kora was able to dispel it. The door swung open, revealing a modest chamber (only roughly the size of the Trollskull common room!). Four suits of rusted dwarven plate stood in the corners of the room, draped in cobwebs. The floor was a mosaic in a dwarven abstract style that was no longer very popular, arranged around a circular motif in the center of the floor. Carved into the far wall, in dwarven characters which Pashar (with magical aid) could read, was an inscription: A secret never told will part Dumathoin’s lips.

Pashar pulled out his notes and read aloud one of the banal, graffitied secrets he had copied form the long hall.

Nothing happened.

“I don’t think it’s a secret any more because it was written on the wall,” Kora said.

“All right,” Pashar said. Then he took a deep breath. “I… I didn’t really do something good. I stole this crystal from my master’s collection and released a djinn. That’s the real reason he erased my name from the Book of Fate.”

The others stood in a stunned silence which allowed them to clearly hear the faint puff of air as the motif in the center of the floor began to rotate up into the room.

“I can’t believe it,” Kitti murmured.

The motif revealed itself to be a hollow pillar which recessed into the ceiling above, allowing access to a staircase leading down.

“This is why you follow the letter of the law so carefully now?” Edana said blithely to Pashar.

“Well, I… We have a treasure to find!” he declared.

“Uh-uh. No!” Kittisoth said, following him down the stairs. “I have more questions for you!”

The circular stairs bottomed out onto a large landing leading to another set of broad stairs. At the bottom of these they could see a glinting, glittering light, almost like sunlight reflecting off a pond at dawn. At the bottom of the stairs was a vaulted antechamber, and a twenty-foot-wide doorway opened into another vast chamber beyond.

There were four more of the titanic, hammer-headed pillars here, defining a central area within the wider chamber, and leaving a kind of walkway around its perimeter. In the space between these pillars was a pile… a mound… a mountain of gold. A hoard of coins eight or ten feet high, spilling down into a haphazard carpet that covered the floor.

So abruptly confronted with the treasure, they were hesitant to enter the chamber. Edana instead reached out with a mage hand and telekinetically pulled one of the coins to herself.

It was a Waterdhavian dragon. Bright, shiny, and new. It was definitely Neverember’s Enigma.

“Hello?” Kora called. Theren echoed her in Draconic and Deep Speech.

Kittisoth walked forward, slightly dazed. The others also took a few steps forward, as if drawn in her wake. Then, with a pulse of her wings, Kittisoth took to the air, as if the earth could not contain the enthusiasm bursting within her.

And then they heard the shifting of some titanic bulk.

The dragon uncoiled from behind his hoard of gold.

THE DRAGON

The red dragon’s head curled up. One heavy foot crashed down atop the pile, unleashing a cascade of coins. Its tail began whipping back and forth.

Kittisoth screamed. Kora cursed, and then cried out, “STOP! We have a legal claim to the gold!”

“Oh no,” Edana said, “I don’t think dragons—”

“MY GOLD?!” The dragon’s voice boomed.

“We can’t cluster!” Pashar shouted. “Split up!”

Edana broke left. Theren simultaneously broke right, racing around the perimeter of the room while pestering the beast with arrows from both sides. Unfortunately, their shots simply ricocheted off its thick scales.

The dragon took to the air, beating its wings. The wind from those monstrous pinions actually blasted Kittisoth back against the wall. As she, knocked slightly senseless, slid to the floor, Pashar, who had also been knocked off his feet, scrabbled across the floor and fetched up behind the thick stone of the doorframe.

He was just in time. The dragon’s chest drew in air like a bellows, and then its fire spewed out. Kittisoth reacted quickly, pulsing her own wings in order to sort of half fly, half leap across the floor, scooping up Kora in one arm as she dived behind the other side of the door. Both of them were still badly scorched as the flames washed around and past them, but they managed to avoid the worst of it.

“IT IS MY GOLD NOW!” the dragon roared. “MINE! NEVEREMBER WILL NEVER TAKE IT BACK FROM ME!”

The dragon dived to one side, looping through the pillars and circling in behind Theren, who cut between another pair of pillars and ran fleetly up the pile of gold. Theren kept up a steady volley of arrow fire the entire time and a few managed to find chinks in the dragon’s armor.

It roared again, this time in pain, and swooped up in a high arc in order to follow Theren through the pillars. Pashar, however, had been waiting for this moment: As the dragon reached the highest point of its flight, he cast a paralyzing enchantment.

The dragon froze in midflight and plummeted from the sky, barreling down straight towards where Theren stood. Theren leapt over the top of the pile, sliding down the far side of it with gold coins scattering around his feet. The dragon plowed into the mountain of gold behind him, sending a huge avalanche of glittering coins cascading down and around Theren as he landed at the bottom of the pile.

Kittisoth swept past him, flying down the length of the dragon and hacking left and right with her greataxe, her mighty thews punching through its scales and laying bare the muscle beneath the ghastly wounds.

In her wake, Theren spun around and lowered his bow. The flame sacs to either side of the dragon’s neck bulged, glowing with a pure, white hot rage… but it could not move while Pashar’s spell laid upon it. Not even to breathe.

Theren shot it in the eye. Drew again. Shot it through the other eye. His arrow lodged deep in the creature’s skull.

With a final, shuddering breath, it was done.

The dragon was dead.

AFTERMATH

“That is a lot of gold,” Edana said.

Theren had set to work preserving the corpse. (“Dragon steaks at Trollskull!”) Kittisoth claimed one of its scales as a memento.

Discussion fell to logistics. How were they going to get all of this gold out? And, once they got it out, what should they do with it? They’d promised Vajra that it would be returned to the city and the citizens of Waterdeep from whom it had been stolen. But now that they were actually faced with the physical reality of all that gold, it suddenly didn’t seem that simple.

“Do we let Jarlaxle take any of the credit for this?” Edana asked. “As a way of—”

“—of getting him off our back?” Kittisoth finished.

“Yes,” Edana said. “There’s the kid. And the Stone. And all of that. But to cut to the heart of it, what he wants is to be publicly recognized as having helped Waterdeep. He wants the political leverage.”

Theren nodded. “I think we can speak honestly on Jarlaxle’s behalf and say that he’s been of help to us.”

“But he took a kid,” Pashar said. “A kid.”

“I know,” Theren said quietly.

“And this might be the best way to recover the kid,” Edana pointed out. “Or, if he knows that the game is done and he gets nothing, does he care about any of this — any of us — any more?”

“No,” Kitti said. “He kills everyone and then he comes for us.”

“Or he might say, ‘Well played,’” Theren suggested.

“I think we should give him credit,” Kora said. “He’s worked with us in good faith. I don’t forgive him for taking the kid, but that’s also why we should broker the deal and get it done. All he wants is the Lords’ Alliance. He just wants a seat at the table.”

“Which, in all fairness, maybe he should have,” Pashar said.

“Having a neighbor that’s constantly in conflict with you isn’t great for business,” Edana said. “As we well know.”

“But is Vajra really going to be all right with this?” Theren asked.

“Does it matter?” Kittisoth snapped.

“We’re talking about negotiating a seat in the Lords’ Alliance,” Theren said. “Is she going to be all right trading that for gold? Even if it’s a lot of gold?”

“Look,” Kittisoth said. “They don’t have to. Just because Jarlaxle gets credit for this, they can still do whatever they want. If they don’t want to accept him as members of their council, bullshit, whatever… That’s on them. If we broker the deal — if we give him credit — it’s not our decision to make him a Lord Whatever.”

The others nodded.

“I think we’re agreed,” Kora said.

Go to Epilogue

Go to Part 1

AFTERMATH

A little while later, Pashar and Kora met Vajra at the front door. They briefly explained the situation.

“Is there anything else that needs to be done here?”

Pashar shook his head. “Just dead cultists. Although the woman is still alive if you need to question her.”

“What about the Cassalanter children?”

“We didn’t find them,” Kora said. “But they’re in danger. We need to find them quickly. Before the Festival of Leiruin.”

“You’ve found a solution?”

“After a fashion,” Pashar said.

“We’ll find them,” Vajra promised. “Take Jenks home. You were never here. I’ll take care of it.”

As they left, Kittisoth grabbed Renaer’s hand and gave it a little squeeze. She pulled him after her, and he willingly came.

While the others carefully guided Jenks out of the windmill (Kittisoth covered his eyes with one wing), Pashar lingered with Vajra a little longer to explain what needed to be done once the Cassalanter children were found. “Based off our research, if, when their birthday comes, the parents on whom the blood ritual is attuned and the children are dead with every trace of their original bodies destroyed, then the triggering moment of the ritual will pass. The children could then be returned to life with a true resurrection, and Asmodeus would have no further claim to their souls.”

“That’s very dark,” the Blackstaff said.

“But necessary,” Pashar said, glancing back at the room where they’d left Lady Cassalanter.

A BRIGHTER MORNING

On the ride back to Trollskull, it was clear that Jenks was shattered. The horrific experiences of the last few hours had broken him. When they got back to the Manor, the other kids came rushing out of the maroon dome. There were tears and hugs and endless comforting.

The next morning, Kittisoth woke up in bed with the three kids snuggled around her. One of her wings was protectively draped over the top of them.

Renaer, who had slept in the couch in the front room, was cooking breakfast as they all came staggering out of their rooms. Kittisoth joined him and showed him how to make a pirate’s breakfast. The kids came out a little later, rubbing their eyes. Jenks was clearly still a little shaken by his ordeal, so Renaer made him pancakes in the shapes of various divine symbols and began quizzing him on which gods they belonged to.

After breakfast, Pashar and Edana headed over to Amara’s Bakery and cleaned up the blood. Kittisoth kissed Renaer goodbye and spent the rest of the morning hanging out with the kids. Kora headed to the Market to track down a dragon scale.

“How much for a gold dragon scale?” Kora asked.

“Sixteen hundred gold pieces.”

“… how much for a tin dragon scale?”

Even chromatic scales proved expensive, but they didn’t have time to wait for Zellifarn to fly back from wherever he lived (even if he’d agree to). Kora paid what needed to be paid.

Leaving Pashar to finish up at Amara’s, Edana headed over to Steam and Steel. Embric and Avi were quarreling about which one of them had won their drinking contest the night before.

“Were you drinking at Trollskull?” Edana asked.

“No,” Embric said regretfully. “We went to a friend’s party instead.”

“Oh! So you both lost!” Edana grinned. Embric and Avi laughed heartily.

“What can we do for you?”

Edana wanted two things: A mithril hammer for the vault and a set of Trollskull Manor amulets for the kids: a flask didn’t seem appropriate, but she wanted something they could theoretically cast locate object on in the future.

They could wait a few days for the amulets, but Edana agreed to give them a fistful of free drink tokens for Trollskull Manor if they finished the mithril hammer that same day. Nevertheless, with the cost of the true silver they’d completely tapped out their once substantial cash reserves.

But if everything went well, that wouldn’t be a problem soon enough.

A HARPER TRIAL

As Edana opened the front door of Trollskull Manor, however, she looked down the street and saw Dain storming down the street towards her, accompanied by a pair of men in blue robes. She sighed and went down to the bottom of the stairs to wait for him.

Dain pulled up in front of her, flanked by the other two. One was an albino elf with piercing blue eyes. The other was a dark skinned human male whose eyes were just golden spheres that glowed softly. All three of them wore their Harper pins, openly displayed.

“Where is she?” Dain demanded.

“Not today,” Edana said.

Dain opened his mouth to retort.

“Not. Today.”

“This is Harper business,” Dain said. “Move aside if you honor your oath.”

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” Edana said. “But it can’t be today.

“Are you a Harper or not?!” Dain fumed.

Edana messaged Kora. Dain’s here. He’s pissed. I’m telling him to go away. He’s not listening. Should I convince him?

Inside the Manor, Kora sighed. No. Wait for us.

A few moments later, the others stepped outside. Dain looked up at Kora, who had been the first through the door. “Kora,” he said. “I’m very disappointed.”

“I thought you would be,” Kora admitted.

“You disobeyed orders.”

“I acted with a Harper’s discretion.”

“We’ll see what the High Harper has to say about this,” Dain concluded. “You’ll come with us now. You and your friends.”

“No,” Kora said. “This was my decision. I’ll answer for it alone.”

Dain shook his head. “They’re all Harpers.”

“I’ll come with you,” Kora said. “But I can’t speak for the others.”

“You’re making this worse for yourself.”

Kora sighed. “I can’t make people do things. That’s not how the Harpers are supposed to work.”

“Couldn’t the High Harper come here?” Theren suggested. Kitti laughed from the top of the stairs.

Dain ground his teeth. “For the last time: will you come?”

The others nodded their agreement, but Kora shook her head. “Someone needs to say.” She turned to Dain. “To protect our children.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Please. One of them was kidnapped last night.”

Dain softened. “Yes. Of course.”

It didn’t take them long to conclude that Kittisoth — and her temper — was the best one to leave behind with the kids, and then Dain lead them across the city and deep into the Castle Ward. On Waterdeep Way, west of Castle Waterdeep and east of Piergeron’s Palace, their escorts turned abruptly and vanished into what had appeared to be nothing but a vine-covered wall a moment before. Passing through the nigh-invisible gap there, however, they found themselves climbing up the side of Mt. Waterdeep.

They climbed quite high, in fact. The griffon patrols above the city were flying even with them and the air was getting quit thin when they passed into a crevasse on the side of the mountain. There, inside a kind of cleft, they came suddenly upon a cave.

At every step along the way they had been baffled by their route. They would have never seen the gap in the wall, nor the path beyond it. There were several more turnoffs they didn’t see until they’d taken them. Even the cleft had looked like nothing remarkable until they were already on top it. It seemed as if they were in plain sight on the side of the mountain, and yet they weren’t even certain they would be able to find their way back here if their lives depended on it.

As they entered the cave and worked their way into its depths, they noticed that Dain was touching various places along the wall with clear deliberation. Whatever path he was guiding them along here was warded, and there were numerous other passages they did not take (and perhaps were not designed to be taken).

At last they emerged into the heart of a massive geode. Crystals, glittering in the light, lined the dome of the cavern and had been leveled beneath their feet to form a smooth floor. On the far side of the cavern stood a statue of a man with a bald head and long beard. Edana, Kora, and Pashar recognized this as Lord Aghairon, founder of Waterdeep. The statue was gesturing outwards, as if taking in the whole room as a conclave. In one hand it grasped an actual staff — somehow cleverly worked through a grip of stone. Pashar recognized this and gasped. Leaning over to the others he whispered, “That’s the dragonstaff of Aghairon.” The keystone of the dragonward which kept all dragons out of Waterdeep… unless they had been touched by the staff.

They realized that, as they had been captivated by the statue and staff, a dozen people had stepped forward from the darkness rimming the chamber into the light. They wore hoods low over their faces, masking their faces in shadow and leaving them unrecognizable.

Dain stepped forward. “We have brought those who are to be judged.”

A figure floated through the statue of Aghairon. The translucent blue ghost of a young elven woman, with a Harper pin fastened even upon the clothes she wore in death as a tribute to the faith which held her to this world and its business.

“High Harper,” Dain intoned, “I bring before you Harpshadow Kora and her disciples, who have confessed in writing to disobeying orders and the theft of Harper property.”

The spectral Harper spoken then. “Step aside, Harpsinger, and let them answer the charges in their own voice.” She lowered her gaze to them. “We have been told that you have disobeyed the orders of a Harper given to you in good faith, and that you have betrayed the Harper trust by aiding and abetting our ancient foes the Zhents. You have furthermore stolen a cache of Harper supplies which are to be used in the struggle against all evil and injustice in the world. How answer you?”

Kora took a step forward. “First and foremost, we have stolen nothing. We have secured the cache, intending to keep it safe until it could be relocated. This we have done. Nothing has been despoiled. Nothing has been taken.”

“Where is the cache now?”

Theren spoke up. “I have it here in this bag of holding. I can dump it out here if you would like.”

“Unnecessary,” the High Harper said. “And where did you plan to relocate the cache?”

“The city recently bestowed the abandoned property of Thunderstaff Villa to us, beneath which there are hidden chambers which can be easily secured,” Kora said. “We intended to consult with Dain before placing the cache there, but we think it would make a good location.”

“And how do you answer the charge of being complicit in the plots of the Zhents?”

“We killed Manshoon!” Kora said indignantly. “And, yes, in this effort we allied with the Doom Raiders, who are also of the Zhentarim. In working with them, however, we have learned that they are not evil actors. They seek to shake off the malignancy of Manshoon. Are the Zhents truly the enemies of the Harpers? Or was Manshoon enemy to us both?”

Dain harrumphed from his place off to one side.

“You are young,” the High Harper said. “We have often seen the Zhents mislead those who are young.”

“Perhaps,” Kora said. “But if we have been ‘misled’ in to slaying Manshoon, will this council object?”

Edana stepped forward. “Shedding blood merely because they are living in a specific building seems unnecessary. And unjust.”

Theren agreed. “They have legal ownership of the tower. If we had done what we were ordered to do, we would have been in the wrong.”

“And we are not mere thugs to be ordered about!” Kora declared. “We are thinking people! We are a powerful group! We have brought demon-worshipping nobles to heel and thwarted Jarlaxle! We have infiltrated Xanathar’s lair! We have killed Manshoon!”

“We are no children to be summoned for scolding,” Edana said.

“We are Harpers,” Pashar said. “We are meant to be just and lenient! We are meant to use not only our initiative, but our judgment! And Dain has shown no judgment at all! Not only were these orders ill thought, but he had previously ignored us when we told him that one of his superiors had been enthralled by Manshoon!”

The spectral Harper seemed taken aback. “What is this?”

Dain snorted. “It’s a ridiculous conspiracy theory! They accused Mirt of being a traitor, but I think the truth of it is that they are the traitors!”

“We told you that Mirt had been compromised and that he needed help!” Theren shouted.

“Help that the Blackstaff is now providing,” Kora stated simply, laying a calming hand on Theren’s shoulder.

“The Blackstaff?”

“Dain wouldn’t do anything,” Theren said. “So we went to Vajra.”

“Surely someone here other than we are close to the Blackstaff and can verify the truth?” Kora asked.

A murmur passed around the chamber.

Edana spoke up. “The point is that you recruited Kora and promoted Kora because she is wise and kind and just. I became a Harper because of her. And if you don’t trust her judgment, then I have been misled about what it means to be a Harper. She is the best of you!”

The High Harper floated back a few paces. At some unspoken signal, two of the gathered Harpers stepped forward. The rest stepped back. The broken circle looked around at each other, there were nods, and then the two who had stepped forward also stepped back, as if to form a concensus.

“I see,” the High Harper said, coming forward again. “You have been found… innocent. And justified in your actions. Here is my judgment upon you: Brightcandle Kora, you will be taking over responsibility for the North Ward.” (“Oh shit,” Kora murmured.) “You will begin your work with your fellow Harpshadows. You have much work to do and we trust your judgement.” She turned to Dain. “Dain, we understand your concerns. But perhaps it will be best if Brightcandle Kora is allowed the… how did you put it, Pashar? The… initiative to follow her own instincts, in the Harper fashion.”

Kora bowed her head, uncertain of what she truly thought or felt, but certain in this: “You will not regret this.”

One of the Harper lords stepped forward from the circle and lowered his hood. It was… Mattrim Three-Strings, the bard from their own tavern. He winked and led them out of the cavern and back to the wall onto Waterdeep Way. “We’ll talk later,” he said, and then vanished in to the crowds.

KISS AND TELL

“Mattrim Three-Strings?!” Kitti shouted. “That’s amazing!”

They had just finished telling her the tale of their trial. Kora still seemed a little shellshocked. Kittisoth pushed a glass of whiskey over to her.

“For an organization founded to undermine authority…” Pashar mused.

“…they get real twitchy whenever somebody questions theirs,” Edana finished his thought.

“I’m just glad they came to the right decision, otherwise–“

There was a knock on the door.

“Ah, fuck,” Kittisoth said and opened the door.

Amara was standing there.

“Oh my god! Come in!” Kitti gestured with her hand, throwing her wings back to open the way.

Amara was clearly a little shaky. There were tears in her eyes. “The Blackstaff told me what you did for me. I can’t thank you enough!”

“Come in! Come in!” Kitti demanded. “And we should be thanking you! Or apologizing! We had no idea that we were putting you in danger.” She led Amara over to the couch and pushed a glass of the whiskey into her hands.

“Thank you,” Amara said again. “The Blackstaff — I still can’t believe that was the Blackstaff! — told me a lot of what happened. I just wanted to come by and say… I’m all right. Yes. I’m all right.”

Jenks, having heard her voice, came running into the room and gave her a big hug. “Amara! Oh, Amara! I thought your were dead!”

“I was,” Amara smiled. “For a little while. It’s all right Jenks.”

Jenks stepped back and wiped a tear form his cheek.

Amara patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll understand if you don’t want to come back to the bakery—”

“No!” Jenks cried. “We’ve got to bake the bread! We need to break the crust!”

Amara grinned. “That’s right, Jenks. You’ve got to break the crust!”

They hugged again. A little while later, Amara said her goodbyes. Kittisoth waved goodbye as she headed down the street and then shut the door. She turned back to look at the rest of the group. Everyone sighed heavily. It had been a long day and—

There was a knock on the door.

“Gods dammit!” Kittisoth exclaimed.

She opened the door. It was Embric, delivering the mithril hammer. “I’ll see you tonight for those drink tokens!” he laughed, heading back down the stairs.

Kittisoth shut the door again. “So who do we leave in charge of the kids while we head back to the City of the Dead?”

“Hasn’t Renaer been hanging out all afternoon?” Edana suggested.

Renaer — who had, in fact, already been playing with their kids in their room — was more than happy to oblige. He leaned in and give Kitti a deep kiss. The others cheered.

“Stop it!” Kittisoth glared at them. Then, with a grin, she went back in for a second helping, raising her wings to afford a little privacy.

Go to Part 6

Go to Part 1

THE STONE OF GOLORR

Blackness.

They were in a void.

Edana still had the Stone in the palm of her hand. They were still all linked in a network of outstretched hands. But all around them was utter nothingness.

Then, abruptly, there was a bloom of light.

Not an explosion. More like the opposite of an implosion. A rapid, organic expansion or unfolding. An entire planet that was bulging and shaping itself into existence before them. Then, as if a hand had swept across the blackness, stars appeared in a vast river that filled the sky. Soft starlight fell across the dark mass of the planet and waters gushed forth, covering its surface in cascading torrents of incomprehensible scale.

And then something went… wrong. The planet seemed to schism, as if their vision were double. Then it ripped. The sound of that washed over them in a horrendous wave. They were seeing impossibilities as the two worlds separated and began phasing back and forth in an impossible superposition.

In the midst of this chaos, there was a bolt of white light; or perhaps something vast and crystalline lancing in from out of the darkness. It plunged into the very heart of the two schisming worlds.

In her head, Edana heard a voice: “Thus I came.”

The planets ripped apart.

… and they found themselves back in the vault, standing atop the sunburst.

The others stumbled back half a step, but Edana could still feel these tendrils of alien thought reaching up along the back of her spine. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Her sensorium was… not overwhelmed, exactly, but shocked by a wash of sensations she had never experienced before: Not sight. Not taste. Not hearing or smell or touch. Impossible, alien sensations. There were etheric harmonies that she could see/feel/smell/taste passing through her. She was sensate to psychic tendrils that linked the world in endless enigmas.

She was attuning to an alien thought pattern that was emanating from the Stone of Golorr. The Stone was trying to find an interface between the way it thought and the way she thought. After an endless moment it began settling down. The mirrored thoughts still sizzled and warped in a fizzing cascade on the edges of brain, but she ultimately understood what the Stone was.

The Stone was in a weakened state from having been blinded by Lord Dagult, but it would grow in strength over time. Edana would be able to call upon that strength to pull out the secrets (so many secrets!) that had been encoded into the Stone. Knowing what secret to request of the Stone would be difficult – since these secrets had, as she knew from Manshoon’s research, literally been stripped out of reality – but in the absence of a specific conception, the Stone would nevertheless provide some random secret, chosen from its depths according to the whims of its alien logic.

“Gods…” Edana murmured.

When she’d had a moment to collect herself, she explained to the others what she now knew at a primal, even instinctual level.

“Can we just ask what Dagult did?” Theren asked.

“We know what he did,” Kora said. “What we need to know is how to get through this door.”

“Do we think it’s a password?”

Edana held forth the Stone. “Tell me how to retrieve the treasure of Lord Dagult Neverember.”

She felt its thoughts percolating and intermixing with her own. She reached out across the strange interface that the Stone had created between them. It took a long time for their thoughts to align — it was like the Stone was trying to pick her while she was trying to pick it — but they came together like two bodies orbiting into a collision, oscillating faster and faster until a tangle of images and words began bubbling up.

Where laid his wife to rest ‘midst bones of son’s blood sealed, there where Anri laid himself to rest, lies that which Open Lord concealed.

Twisted underground tunnels lit by strange lights. An endless field of corpses. Halls of stone. A golden dragon, aging so rapidly that scales shed from its skin; one of those scaled held in perfect focus as it falls. The sound of a silver hammer striking stone. A beam of sunlight in a darkened room. A chisel carving Dathek characters which transform themselves into two words: BRANDATH CRYPTS.

As Edana related what she had been shown, Theren recalled the enigmatic phrase Pashar had found in his research. “In beam of sun, strike dragon’s scale with mithril true upon the anvil sun.”

“We’re on the sun,” Theren said.

Kora nodded. “So we need to bring a dragon scale and a mithril hammer here?”

“There was something else,” Edana said. “A beam of sunlight.”

“I can do that,” Kora said. “With a daylight spell.”

“We know a dragon,” Kittisoth pointed out, thinking of Zellifarn.

“We can do this,” Kora said. “But we can’t do it right now. So we should leave now. Get out of the graveyard before they lock it for the night.”

Kittisoth nodded. “Let’s get home.”

CRISIS AT THE HOMEFRONT

As they returned to Trollskull, they could see that the tavern was rollicking. It was Goldennight and, as they passed by the windows, they could see the patrons inside were pasted with gold dust and encrusted with jewels streaming down their cheeks and arms. By the bar, Rishaal and Lif were looking in a book and laughing together while Lif served drinks. Fala Lefaliir, with her hair coiffed into an elaborate curly-cue topped with the miniature figure of a dragon with its wings spread, had arranged a huge assortment of teas in front of her and was sampling them in turn.

Outside Trollskull, they could see the Zhentarim, a silent perimeter. Ziraj was standing in the alley, watching the rear of the building. They found Yagra and two other zhents at the bottom of their stairs.

“It’s good to see you, Yagra,” Edana smiled.

“I heard you had cause to worry,” Yagra said. “

“Thank you,” Edana said. “Any problems?”

Yagra shook her head. “All quiet. But we’ll keep a watch through the night. We’ve got another shift coming to relieve us later.”

“Come in for a drink when you’re done!” Kittisoth said.

They headed up the stairs and through their front door, breathing a sigh of relief to finally be home. From the next room over, they could see the reassuring maroon glow of the tiny hut Pashar had created for the kids.

And sitting on the couch was Jarlaxle.

“Good evening.” The dark elf smiled.

“Son of a bitch,” Kora muttered.

“So you take children?” Edana said, her voice dripping with venom.

“Not plural,” Jarlaxle reassured her. “And only when necessary. Honestly, the child is probably safer with me than with his parents. Please! Sit!”

Some of them sat. Others refused.

Jarlaxle nodded. “So it would seem you’re acting as agents for the Gralhunds. I seem to remember suggesting that you’d be better off not getting involved with them.”

“What are you looking for?” Kora asked, cutting to the chase.

“The Stone of Golorr,” Jarlaxle said frankly.

“Why?”

“My understanding is that the Stone contains certain secrets that Lord Dagult wished to keep from the city. I want to see those secrets rightfully restored to Waterdeep.”

“To what end?” Theren asked.

“I’ve made no secret of my agenda. I want to see Luskan risen to its proper place in the Lords’ Alliance. It will be good for Luskan. It will be good for the entire Sword Coast to have that kind of unity in the face of a dark and turbulent sea.” Their faces were stony. Jarlaxle smiled again. “Now, I believe that the Gralhunds have the Stone, based on the information you so kindly gave me when we met under other guises, and I have what they want. It should be an easy arrangement to make. And as you’re acting as their agents, I’m sure you reached out to me to make those arrangements.”

“We heard you were busy tonight,” Edana said.

Jarlaxle’s smile faltered… just a fraction, but it was there. “Those plans were, unfortunately, not as successful as I might have hoped. I’m certain we’ll have better luck here.”

“So you want the Stone, and in exchange you’ll give us the child,” Kora said.

“Yes.”

“There’s a problem,” Theren said. “They don’t have the Stone.”

Jarlaxle laughed. “And yet they did! What do they say happened to it?”

“You could have just tried asking them,” Kittisoth snapped, anger at the stolen child roiling her gut. “Why didn’t you just approach them and ask?”

“I did approach them,” Jarlaxle said. “From a position of strength. Have we not opened negotiations?”

“You could have talked to them first! Before stealing their child!”

“My experience,” Jarlaxle said, “and I think you’ll agree with me from your own experience, that if you don’t warn the people whose houses you’re breaking into and then sinking, that you’re more likely to meet with success.

“Well, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kittisoth said, arching an eyebrow.

Edana, meanwhile, had gone over to the tiny hut and poked her head inside to check on the orphans. Nat and Squiddly were inside. “Where’s Jenks?”

“He headed over to bakery for his apprenticeship!’

“Everything all right?” Pashar asked as she came back into the room.

“Yes,” Edana said. “The kids are fine. Jenks is over at the bakery.”

But Theren’s eyes grew wide. They’d made a mistake. He dashed out the door.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Jarlaxle said, standing up. “The Gralhunds have told you that they don’t have the Stone. This is an obvious ploy. Tell them that this should be a simple arrangement. Bring the Stone to the theater tomorrow. The boy will go home. Waterdeep will be given what is its right. Everyone will be satisfied.”

“And what if they really don’t have the Stone?” Pashar asked. “Or if they’ve secured it somewhere that it will take a great deal of time to retrieve it from?”

“Then send me word and I’ll keep their child safe,” Jarlaxle said. “It’s probably for the best. As Kittisoth said, they don’t seem to keep their own home very well protected.” He opened the door and stepped out. From outside they heard Yagra yell, “What in the Nine Hells?!”

BLOOD AT THE BAKERY

Theren, meanwhile, had run around the tavern and into Trollskull Alley. Racing over to Amara’s bakery, he threw open the door.

Amara was laying in a pool of blood in the center of the floor. She had been stabbed several times. She was dead.

“Jenks?!” Theren screamed.

There was no answer.

Acting on instinct, Theren grabbed Amara’s body and began hauling it across the alley back to Trollskull Manor. He managed to slip past the Goldennight revelers without raising an alarm. As he reached the base of their stairs, Yagra gasped. “What happened? Is everything all right?”

“No,” Theren said coldly. “It isn’t.”

He went up the stairs and into the sitting room. The others gasped as he threw Amara’s body down. Blood stained one side of his clothes.

Pashar rushed to Amara’s side and cast a simple rite that would preserve her body for later revival. As he worked the rite, he found a note pinned inside her clothes and passed it to Edana. She read it out loud.

No one spoke for a long moment.

Then there were a dozen plans swirling: Edana asked Yagra to come in and help clean up the mess. Others were trying to figure out where Amara’s body could be moved so it wouldn’t alarm the kids when they came out. “What do we tell them?” Kora asked. Was there some place they could be moved where they would be safer? Kittisoth headed for the balcony, ready to fly to straight to Renear and demand that he keep them in his secret manse.

Kora cut through the chaos by sending a telepathic message to Vajra: “Ammalia Cassalanter murdered neighbor. Kidnapped our child. Threatening to kill. We are responding in force shortly. Please come to Trollskull. This must end.”

Coming now.

“She’s coming,” Kora said.

“I’m going to tell the children,” Edana said. “They have to know what’s going on.”

Before Edana could even leave the room, however, Vajra and Renaer appeared in the middle of it. Renaer rushed over to Kittisoth to embrace her and–

“Don’t touch me,” Kittisoth said. Her eyes boiled with rage.

“It’s not you,” Kora said.

“I understand,” Renaer said, taking a step back.

Kittisoth turned to Vajra. “What are you going to do? You promised us that you would clean this up.”

“I understand that you’re upset,” Vajra said. “Who is dead?”

Edana peeled back the sheet she had placed over Amara. “A baker who worked on the far side of the alley. Our boy, Jenks, was apprenticed to her.”

“I’m very sorry,” Vajra said. “You should know that Renaer and I have been working very hard. Over the past two days we’d gathered the evidence to take proper legal action. We raided the Cassalanter villa this afternoon to arrest Ammalia, but she had vanished. We don’t know where she is. We’ve impounded the mansion and were investigating both all of its contents and the temple beneath it.”

“What about other locations?” Pashar asked.

“There’s only one I can think of,” Renaer said. “An old windmill on Coachlamp Lane. Although it belongs to someone named Seffia Naelryke, it was originally paid for by the Cassalanters. It’s a thin lead, but…”

“It’s good enough,” Kora said.

Things moved quickly now, but with purpose: Edana went to the children. There were tears and anger and pain, but she talked them through it. Theren, meanwhile, went out to speak with the Zhentarim: they pulled the big guns, with Ziraj and Yagra coming inside to keep a close guard on the tiny hut while they were gone. Vajra told Yagra that she would have people coming to collect Amara for resurrection shortly.

Then they went down the front stairs. With a wave of her hand, Vajra summoned spectral steeds pulling a carriage. “Mount,” she said, and then lifted off into the sky, flying above them as they tore through the streets of Waterdeep to the Southern Ward. As they drew near Coachlamp Lane, Vajra swooped down to speak with them through the window of the coach.

“I’m detecting strong wards,” she said. “Abjurations designed to warn against the approach of strong magic. Lady Ammalia knows I’m the one who’s been pursuing the investigation her. I’ll need to hold back, but I’ll come quickly when needed.”

“Is everything arranged for her arrest either alive or dead?” Pashar asked.

“Do what you need to do,” Vajra said. “We’ll clean it up later.” She swooped back up into the sky.

They rode on. The windmill was easy to spot — a round tower two storeys tall, with some sort of blocky later addition thrust out awkwardly to one side.

They moved quickly but carefully. Edana slipped through the shadows, efficiently checking the perimeter of the building. There was a dark-haired woman in an upper window, looking out over the street, but no sign of Ammalia herself. Edana chose one of the entrances on the opposite side of the building, a door leading into the annex.

There were bedrooms back there. They checked them one by one until they found an occupied bed: Hope surged for a moment that it might be Jenks, but it was a man with a beard and short, dirty-blonde hair. Theren and Edana bracketed the bed to either side, and Kittisoth’s demonic shadow, cast from where she filled the door, fell across the man as they rudely awoke him and thrust the point of poniard against his throat.

“Scream and you die,” Edana said. “Is Ammalia here?”

The man nodded. His eyes wide with fear.

“Does she have the boy?”

He nodded again.

“Is he alive?” Theren asked and then, after another nod, “Where?”

“Upstairs,” the man whispered hoarsely.

“Where is she?” Edana asked.

“Asmodeus will have your souls,” the man said, still in a hoarse whisper.

Edana drove the poniard up into his skull. Blood gushed out across the white sheets. She stood up, dragging a blanket up with her to wipe her blade.

Edana, coming out of the room, put a hand on Pashar’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Kittisoth said. “No apologies. She took our son. She’s planning to sacrifice him. No more mercy.” She turned to Renaer. “She’s dead. You understand?”

Renaer nodded. “Yes she is.”

They went down the hallway, leaving the annex and entering the first floor of the windmill. Coming to the first door, Edana listened.

Creak. Creak. Creak.

A rocking chair.

Creak. Creak. Creak.

Edana signaled to Pashar and knocked an arrow. Theren came to kneel beside her, also knocking an arrow. She eased the door open. Ammalia Cassalanter was in the rocking chair, reading by the light of a fire.

Creak. Creak. Cre–

Pashar dropped a silence spell over the room. Edana shot.

Ammalia was already rising from the chair, raising her hand as if to cast, only for her eyes to grow wide as she realized she had no voice. Edana’s shot grazed her, but then Theren rapidly shot multiple arrows that struck her in the shoulder and then center mass. Edana shot again, her arrow joining the other blooming in Ammalia’s chest.

Kittisoth pulsed her wings, raw rage made manifest as she flew through the door above Edana and Theren’s heads. Electricity sparked from her eyes and raced down her arms, crackling across the head of her axe as she fell upon Lady Cassalanter. Blood sprayed across the wall, dancing in the flickering firelight. Ammalia reached up one plaintive hand to ward off the blow, but then Theren was there, having cast his bow aside, and his sword swept out and chopped off her hand, sending it spinning across the floor.

Lightning leapt from Kittisoth, burning silent, forked trails in the rug as it scorched Ammalia. Lady Cassalanter screamed silently, her mouth gaped in a rictus of terror and pain, and collapsed back in a hacked and ruined heap into her chair.

Pashar was horrified. They’d unleashed death before, but not like this. Not in visceral rage, nor so clearly in violation of the Code Legal. “I’m still sorry, Pashar,” Edana said. “But this was necessary.”

Revenge was done, but the work was not complete. They raced up the nearby stairs and found three doors. Behind one of them Edana was fairly certain they would find the silent watcher she had seen from outside. Avoiding that one, they quickly checked the others. The first room contained ritual paraphernalia arranged around a pentagram of blood upon the floor. Rage crackled behind Kittisoth’s eyes as a sick dread bubbled in her stomach, but behind the next door they found — in a crumpled pile on the ground, bound and gagged — they found Jenks.

Breathing.

He was alive.

Theren kicked open the other door and Edana used a sleep spell to dispatch the woman behind it. Kittisoth rushed to Jenks’ side and began undoing the bonds. He jerked awake in terror.

Now Edana was there, too. “It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Tears filled Jenks’ eyes. He sobbed. And then again. Uncontrollably. “Mommy!”

Kittisoth wrapped her wings around him.

And slowly, far too slowly, the sobbing eased.

And, at long last, stopped.

Go to Part 5