2. A Few Drinks Behind

The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind. (Humphrey Bogart)

Encounters

Level: 1

Summary

Luckily, we were able to interrogate one of the cultists, who told us his ‘Lady’ had left with her toxins in tow and had planned to unleash them on the Salvation Parade that was soon to happen. He told us of a shrine erected in her honor that we might be able to spot her at if we were lucky. As we finished getting anything intelligible out of that one, we were assaulted by the secretary, who, it turns out, was sporting a shortsword under her dress. Normally, I wouldn’t hit a dame, but this one had it coming.

We made out way out of the apothecary, and followed the rat’s tail into a dark alley that led into one of those courtyards hidden in the heart of a block of dirty tenements and second hand shops. The place was crawling with citizens cum vermin. Some were worshipping around a statue composed of junk, but most were sitting or lying around waiting for fate to hand them a cure. Instead they were handed swarms of rats. The citizens that could fled. We rescued a halfling who was being eaten alive by rats and he told us it was probably the Rat King who’d sent them - he saw them fleeing towards a nearby sewer entrance.

He said he was a sewer worker and knew where the Rat King’s lair could be found. Fresh out of leads, we decided to follow him into the stinky, slimy underground in hopes that he wasn’t sending us to our doom. True to his word, he showed us where to find her - The Rat King. She sat upon her throne of garbage, surrounded by her namesake, wearing them like a fleece blanket on the lap of a noble. She was already crying when we got there, shouting at us about betrayal and death, but once we showed her Mr. Squeaks her heart melted faster than an ice cube in a red dragon’s butthole. After reading her father’s letter from the bank, she realized she’d made a huge mistake - her Lady wasn’t her betrayer after all.

We rushed to find the Lady amongst the priests of Ilmater and other parishioners who’d joined the Salvation Parade, ministering to the infected now starting to fill the streets of the quarantine. And there she appeared on the street, green cape billowing, vial of poisonous plague raised. It seemed she might toss it off before we could stop her, but the Rat King stepped forward and convinced her of the error of her ways. We all knew now that it wasn’t the Lady of Plagues who’d released the Rat Pox. Yes, she’d created it, and that had been her original intention, but someone else had played a dirty trick on them both, and releasing another plague on the city would only serve those who had truly betrayed them.

The ladies reunited, disaster averted, the tin teapot of our little band of heroes went running off towards the alleys screaming something about slaves. It turns out he’d spotted some n’er-do-wells absconding with some scantily clad ladies wearing more cloth around their mouths and wrists than anywhere else. These gangsters were using the Pox and the Parade as cover to carry off their illicit trade in flesh. Unfortunately, knowing the price to be paid for such a trade, they didn’t allow themselves to be taken peacefully.

I don’t think it takes an illithid to know that whoever was behind this had ‘many eyes’ on the docks that day. And speaking of illithid, our doctor friend noticed what he thinks was a ‘cranium rat’ taking off down the alley after spying on our altercation with the slavers. This is more brazen than I’ve ever heard the Xanathar being. With recent troubles brewing between his gang and the Black Network, I fear the worst is yet to come in Waterdeep.