27. I don't know why I came here tonight

Session Summary Dragon Heist Xanathar's Lair

I got the feeling that something ain’t right

Treasure

Treasure	Value (gp)
4 Potions of Healing	200
Potion of Hill Giant Strength	125
50 platinum	500
1 awakened goldfish (Fin)	(depends who you ask)
1 enchanted backpack	about 250 gp now, about 2 gold in 48 hours

Summary

After speaking with Saphara and convincing her to leave her life of crime in Skullport to help them run their tavern in Trollskull Alley, the party headed back to their rooms at the Burning Troll to rest up. It’d been a rather long day for Hamidal and he was looking forward to some sleep - even if it were in less than ideal surroundings. Not needing much rest, Veldrin decided to scout out Skull Square to see if he could find the young pickpocket, Rinn.

If there was any sense of justice in Skullport, Skull Square would be where you’d find it. Of a sort anyways - if your sense of justice was pillories and cages for those who displeased the more powerful in the city. The irony was that the square was just east of The Gauntlet, an alleyway that acted as a magnet for local petty thieves and pickpockets. They occupied their time going after each other’s fortunes as much as anyone else’s. Rinn wasn’t too hard to spot, if you knew what to look for. She blended in well as a street urching, but ultimately her age gave her away.

Veldrin approacher her unawares, coming up beside her to say, “The Gargoyle Gang is no more.” Rinn was. more than a little surprised by this. Hand on her sword, she threatened Veldrin not to bother her, but he was able to convince her that what he said was true. He knew all of their names, and said that Pog and Saphara had already left the gang. He said that he had a better job for her, acting as informant for him in Waterdeep.

A hundred gold pieces convinced her that his proposal was at least worthy of consideration. She was still wary of this stranger who came out of nowhere to give her promises and gold, but she said she’d seek out Saphara to confirm his tale, and if what he said was true, to consider going to Waterdeep, to do spy work like Wit would normally do, and maybe to fleece the pockets of a few nobles here and there. She hurried her way out of the square, and Veldrin headed back to the inn to wait for the others to join him.

In the morning, or, at the very least, after some time sleeping, the party gathered at the tavern. A conversation on the finer points of the contract they signed with Vorici, and Hamidal’s leaving of Grick’s name from it. They were affronted that not even a day after his sudden disappearance, Hamidal had not thought to include him on a document to be signed by the entire party - had he forgotten him already? After chastising him for his forgetfulness, the party discussed their with the Gargoyle Gang. Veldrin told them that he’d taken care of Rinn, and that she was probably already on her way out of Skullport. They weren’t happy that he’d taken such action upon himself, but it was done and they decided that with three of the five members delt with, their mission was probably complete.

They headed to the Guts & Garters and told the innkeeper that Shava had reserved rooms for them. They were rested, but decided to check the rooms out anyway, to stash some of their gear and unwind for a bit while they waited to hear word on what was next. The innkeeper gave them keys to only three rooms. Vorici got a room with a queen bed. Veldrin and Footsteps took another room with a queen bed, they were fine with snuggling. Hamidal and Aradaine took the last room, with two twin beds. Hamidal thought Aradaine was probably the best roommate he could get out of the bunch and was glad to have his own bed.

While they were looking over the space, Shava came and invited the party to the local tavern to celebrate things over a few drinks. She refused to answer any questions until they were there. On the way out, they noticed she was carrying a bulbous leather backpack that they hadn’t seen before. The local tavern turned out to be The Thrown Gauntlet. There was a bar, and a few small tables, but most of the people there were crowded around a small fighting pit. Shava took them to a table in the corner of the bar away from most of the crowd. She asked about their work with the Gang and seemed satisfied that what they had done was sufficient. She told them that they had to speak here at the bar because there were spies at the Guts & Garters, so it wasn’t safe to go over things with them there.

As a reward for their work, she gave them a bag containing four potions of healing, a potion of hill giant strength, and a small sack with 50 platinum coins. They counted the coins out on the table to divvy there and got into a small argument over how many ways to split the proceeds. Some in the party felt that they should include Grick’s share, while Vorici and Hamidal insisted that the contract did not state him having a part. Veldrin said that that meant Hamidal should pay part an extra part of the share to cover Vorici’s split because he was the one who had drawn up the contract. Footsteps put Grick’s share back into the sack and insisted they would save him a share.

While they argued over their coins, an urbane gentleman’s voice interuppted and asked them to stop fighting. The voice had come from Shava’s side of the table, so they all looked up confusedly to see who this new speaker was - and found they were looking at a goldfish peaking his head out from Shava’s backpack, which she had opened and placed on the table. The fish introduced himself as Fin (of course). They spoke with him for just long enough to make Footsteps’s jaw drop. Hamidal knew that a talking fish was a rare thing indeed, but he’d heard tales of powerful magicians who were capable of even stranger creations. They gave him such a hard time for being a ‘talking cat’ but here they are talking to a talking fish like it’s something they saw every day. After a few moments, Shava let Fin go back into his bowl and closed the bag, so as not to be too conspicuous.

Shava asked if they knew who the Xanathar was. Aradaine and Hamidal were fairly sure they’d actually seen the Xanathar - a beholder, during the Rat Plague in the Docks Ward. Shava was surprised, while there were definitely rumors not many people knew that the Xanathar was actually a beholder. She told them that his lair was utterly impossible for them to infiltrate. While they could get spies inside, none of them could get close enough to extract any useful information, and come back out alive anyway. The Xanathar was a paranoid lunatic, always looking for those around him to betray him. But he had a weakness, an obsession - his pet goldfish. His most prized possession, out of the entire array of his posessions was this pet.

Goldfish only live so many years, and the one he currently had had seen quite a few of them already. So every few years his closest lieutenants planned an extraction mission. A team of agents would be let into the lair to exchange the old goldfish for a new one without the Xanathar being any wiser. The Harpers had learned of this mission and were now infiltrating it. The party would be the extraction team, exchanging the fish for the Xanathar’s Guild lieutenants. But the fish they’d exchange would be an intelligent Harper spy - Fin. While they agreed that this was a good idea, they wanted to be sure that this Fin had volunteered to take on this role and wasn’t being pressured or coerced into it in any way.

Shava was glad to open the bag to let them ask Fin himself. When they asked him directly if he knew what the mission was, if he knew the dangers and was volunteering himself to face them, Fin heartily agreed. Then he turned and asked Footsteps to get him some fish food, high quality only, as he had a refined palate. Footsteps strode up to the bar to order a whole fried fish. Fin, meanwhile, told Hamidal (the only other noble at the table) that the Xanathar was known to pamper his goldfish - only the best foods and finest treats for him. He had volunteered for this mission because he knew it would be a good life. “And besides,” he said, “how many goldfish do you know that get to go an adventure like this?” That was about the time Footsteps returned with his fish and began eating it in front of Fin. Fin, no longer feeling hungry, asked to go back to his bowl.

Shava explained that the backpack was enchanted. It would keep the bowl inside of it safe from cracking or shattering for the next 48 hours, more than enough time for them to enter the lair and leave. The extra time was just a safegaurd in case anything went wrong. She assurred them that Xanathar’s minions wanted them to complete this mission just as much as the Harpers did - it was pertinent that they swap the fish to prevent the Xananthar from going on a mad rampage, putting all their lives at risk, should the fish die. As long as they kept their eyes open, their mouths shut, and they followed Ahmaergo’s instructions closely everything would be just fine. The party was not convinced things would go that smoothly, but they nevertheless agreed to the plan.

Shava gave them one last piece of advice. She told them that Mirt told her that there was a secret stairway somewhere under Castle Waterdeep that went straight into the Xanathar’s Lair. It was said to lead into somewhere near the entrance to the lair, but she didn’t know exactly where. She said that should they need a quick escape, for whatever reason, that it might worth knowing there was a hidden escape hatch. She said that as long as they followed the plan, it shouldn’t be an issue, but that beholder’s were crafty creatures and highly unpredictable.

With a few hours to kill before Robier would return, the party split up to do their own things. Veldrin took Footsteps to a ‘cat house’ to sample some of the local wares, while Aradaine and Vorici hung out back at the inn. Hamidal went in search of a fresh corpse, and stumbled onto Shradin’s Excellent Zombies, a business near the south end of the cavern that specialized in renting zombies for menial labor and defense duties. The proprietor appeared to have sampled his own wares, as he did not seem to be one of the living any longer.

Hamidal asked if he would be able to sell a fresh corpse instead of an already animated one. Shardin was quite excited to have a customer who was also a practitioner of the arts. He was more than happy to dig up a fresh body for sale. He entered his shop and returned with a zombie carrying a corpse. Hamidal gave him a few extra gold to allow him to raise the corpse there outside his shop. Shradin was only too happy to allow him to witness his technique.

Hamidal’s was a strange one involving wires, bits of metal, and electrical current. Hamidal was happy to share his knowledge about the ritual he used, a technique he’d learned from the writings of one Faulkenstein - a practicioner in the mountains far to the east. He offered Shradin a copy of his dissertation, which he gladly accepted. With his new ‘Merle’ in tow, Hamidal headed back to the inn to meet with the others.

Vorici decided that there was really no further profit in trying to hide from the party any longer. They were headed into Xanathar’s Lair and so would have more important things to concentrate on. And so he revealed to the party that he wasn’t actually Vorici. In fact, he wasn’t a “he” at all. Dropping her disguise, she revealed herself to be an ice blue tiefling with large horns sprouting from her forehead. She told the party her name was actually Piety.

When asked why she had deceived them, she told them that Vorici was actually her father. She used his disguise because he was more powerful and intimidating than she was, so it was a useful garb for such a dangerous town. Wearing the guise of her father helped her stick out less with the natives, and warned away any who knew his legend. While the real Vorici was a bard, and she had sold herself as such, her real talents lay in sorcery. What about the contract? Was it now null and void, since she wasn’t Vorici?

Hamidal remembered that Vorici had crossed out all of the places in the contract where it said “Vorici” and replaced it with his signature - or, Piety’s signature. The contract was still valid. The party had felt a little deceived, but overall it didn’t really change anything for them, and so they took it in stride. They still needed a companion to aid them, and it was too late now to do anything about it.

Shava finally came back to the inn and retrieved the party. She said that Robier was downstairs and they were ready to go. They found him standing in the lobby. He congratulated them on having been selected to take on the mission, then nodded to Bolton, the innkeeper. Bolton led all of them down into the wine cellar, where he opened a hidden doorway hidden behind a wine rack. Behind the hidden door were a set of stairs leading to a long carved stone tunnel. The further end of the tunnel was lit up, and right before a doorway to their left they came upon a dwarf.

“You’re finally here,” said Ahmaergo, “Good. Come quickly, the sooner we do this the sooner it’s over.” Ahmaergo laid out the ground rules - stay with him, don’t talk to anyone, don’t touch anything. He led them further down the hall. As they passed the stone door they could hear the muffled sound of shouting and cheering. When they got to the end of the hallway, he turned to give them one last piece of advice - “there are eyes everywhere.”

The party turned the corner to the sight of four bloated balloons of flesh floating around a large room, each with a large eye on its side. It was some kind of beholderkin, but it had no eyestalks, nor did it have the big toothy maw under its single large eye. The thing these strange creatures floated around did have the toothy may, or the remains of one. It was a large beholder, obviously undead just by the smell of it. It’s central eye had completely milked over, its maw was a mess of cracked and missing teeth and a warm fetid stink. Not all of its eyestalks remained, but all of its remaining eyes stared at nothing in particular. The party was instantly on edge. If these were the ‘guard dogs’ of the lair, they were probably in way over their heads.

Ahmaergo reached into his cloak and removed some kind of token that he showed to the beholderkin. Upon sight of it, they retreated to one side of the room, allowing them all to pass through the door on the other side of the room. That doorway led to a small hallway. Ahmaergo ushered them all in and closed the door before guiding them forward and out of the hall. The next room was large and covered in eyes. Although they appeared stone, they were all blinking at random. They quickly moved through this room and into a large circular hallway with stone columns with more blinking eyes that seemed to follow them as they walked.

Ahmaergo led them halfway down the circular hallway to another stone door. He told them they were getting close and put his ear to the door. “Shit!” he exclaimed. “He’s not supposed to be in there!” The party looked at each other. This didn’t sound good. “He was supposed to be occupied elsewhere,” Ahmaergo said, “But that’s fine. We’ll go around the other way - there’s a door back in the Watched Hall. We’ve hit a detour, gentlemen, but be assured this plan is still on track.”

As they followed Ahmaegro back up the hallway, Hamidal was frightened by a loud horn blast from right behind him. Turning to see what had done this to him, he glanced down to see a gnome dressed in outlandish clothing with a painted face and pointy shoes laughing at the look of fright on his face. “Damnit gnome! Shut the hell up!” Ahmaergo said in a hoarse whisper. “Solve my riddle and I’ll leave you be! I come with a smile; In slaughter I rest; I can be contagious, But my medicine is best.”

“Laughter?” asked Hamidal. “HA! HA! HA! HA!” said the gnome. “Laughter! You’re… you’re so funny!” Then he threw some glitter in the air, and as it landed on him he disappeared from view. They heard his voice fade away down the hallway, where he gave one final toot on his little horn. They took a second to regain their composure and turned to continue heading up the hallway. Suddenly, a large and angry beholder appeared in their path, stopping Ahmaergo in his track.

“WHERE IS THE GNOME!” it growled. “Ah! Sir! There you are! I.. I don’t… I don’t know where the gnome is sir,” stammered Ahmaergo. “I was… I was just playing escort to these gentlemen here.” The beholder seemed to take notice of them for the first time, even though its eyestalks had been staring at all of them intently the whole time. “Ah yes, more of them!” it said. “Do you think they’ll win?”

Ahmaergo looked the party over with a brief flash of pity in his eyes. “They might, sir, either way it will be fun to find out.”

“Of course!” the beholder shouted in delight. “Now go ahead and take them along,” it said, motioning to a door on the other side of the hall.

Ahmaergo relunctantly ushered them through the door and down a set of stairs to - an arena. Stone benches overlooked a large sand arena where a human woman was currently fighting with a minotaur. Seeing the minotaur in action, Ahmaergo seemed to forget all about the party, enjoying the spectacle while they all stood on watching with him. The minotaur was slow but had a serious bite with its greataxe. The human was much quicker but had a hard time getting in close enough to the minotaur to deal any real damage to it. The minotaur started wildly swinging its axe, and eventually all but chopped off the woman’s arm. Blood jetted out of the wound as it cleaved back the axe from the wound and she fell to the sand to bleed out.

The crowd on the benches cheered and exchanged money to finish out bets they’d made on the fight. Pumping his greataxe with one hand, the minotaur headed for a tunnel in the arena wall. Ahmaergo led the party onto the sand and towards the same tunnel. A pair of goblins came to loot the human woman’s corpse and remove her from the arena floor. The crowd booed and cheered in equal measure to see new faces on the arena floor. Ahmaergo led them into a room with four cells. Another dwarf named Noska entered and opened a cell door with a key from his belt. He told them all to enter the cell, they’d be let out when it was time to fight in the tournament.

The party was confused, what tournament? They’d never entered a tournament. Ahmaergo excused himself and left them with Noska. It seemed they had no choice but to go along with it, for the time being at least. The party was reluctant to enter the cell, with Veldrin attempting to intimidate Noska into allowing them to remain outside the cell until their turn. He backed Noska all the way into the arena, where he goaded the crowd into cheering for Noska to join the tournament - to see him fight on the arena floor. There was a lot of jocular agreement, but there seemed to be a nervous edge to it.

And that’s when Veldrin froze. Completely and utterly unable to move a single muscle, he toppled to the sand. Noska grabbed him by his feet and dragged him back to the cell. As Footsteps entered the cell, a prisoner two cells over said, “Hey look, Ren! It’s one of them cat people you told me about!”

“Tabaxi! They’re called Tabaxi,” a woman’s voice said from the back of the cell. Suddenly, Footsteps changed. His eyes became narrow slits, his ears pointed forward, his tail and body fur poofed out. He knew that voice. It was Rin - the woman he’d been looking for. The woman who slaughtered the people of his village and kidnapped the rest. When he confronted her, she was jocular and haughty. She called him “Footpad” and chided him for holding a grudge for so long. He asked her what she’d done with his people, but she said, “A girl’s got to have her secrets.” It turned out she was more than willing to tell another girl, though. Piety suggested that Ren tell her what she’d done with his people.

Ren said, “Sure, why not? I sold them all to this yuan-ti named Zstulkk Ssarmn. He’s part of the Iron Ring, the slave trader’s of Skullport. That’s how I ended up in this place. It seems they’re not quite as powerful as they used to be - the Xanathar’s been closing in on the market recently and he wasn’t so happy with us selling slaves to someone else without coming to see him first.” Realizing she’d said too much, she stalked away to the back of the cell.

Footsteps angrily paced the cell, barely containing his fury. He would have her, he would kill her. She was right there in the next cell. Veldrin took this anger as his cue to pick the lock on the cell, and then attempt to pick the lock of Ren’s cell. All the while he tried to convince the other captives that they should revolt and attempt to escape. The minotaur liked the idea of starting his next fight early and moved towards the cell door with its greataxe. Veldrin noticed the other humanoid in the cell with the minotaur slithered away from the door, revealing his snakelike lower body. Aradaine’s ire was now raised when Veldrin told them what he saw.

Footsteps urged him to back down. He wanted to kill her, but he could wait for the tournament to get his chance. Once Veldrin backed away towards their cell, the minotaur finally stopped trying to bashing his own door open.

Footsteps still fumed and impatiently stalked the cell, but they waited for the tournament to begin…