30. Walking in the dark

Walking In The Dark

Encounters

Level: 5

Summary

The party was well rested after a good night’s sleep at the inn. Assembling in the common room to break their fast and decide what to do next - when who walks in but Grik! The party was very surprised to see him and he was very glad to have found them. The party introduced Grik to Piety, and Grik commented on Hamidal’s new hangers-on, Gozrien in the form of an albino gazer, and Merle in the form of a… new corpse.

Grik related how he’d become lost in Skullport for the last few days. While they were still near the slaver’s market near thee port, he wandered off because he thought he’d recognized a tiefling moving through the slave market as the butler of Lord Cassalanter. By the time he thought to look back for the party he’d already lost them in the crowd, so he continued to follow his quarry, he was now sure was the butler. He followed him to a small, dingy shop in the Lower Trade Lanes where he saw him examine and then purchase a large cylindrical red gem.

Grik had completely lost the trail of the party, and so he returned to the market in hopes of retracing their steps, but to no avail. He eventually found an inn to rest for the evening and continued his search the next day. At first he was completely lost in this large and chaotic city, but he eventually got his bearings and started a more methodical search of the various inns and taverns in hopes of finding the party. It wasn’t until the morning of the third day of his search that he made it to the Lower Heart and finally lucked out.

The party discussed the gem Grik had seen - could it be one of the vault keys the Stone of Golorr had told them about? They also had in their possession a fish that was the prized possession of the Xanathar, a professed enemy of the city of Waterdeep. It seemed they now knew two of the three keys required to enter the vault. Now it was just a matter of getting back home again. The party turned to Veldrin to ask his advice on leaving Skullport, since he was the most familiar with the city.

Veldrin told them there were basically three options for them. They could return to the docks and see if there was anyone willing to take them back to the city by that route, but it wasn’t guaranteed anyone would do so. There was also a mage who ran a shop called ‘The Poisoned Quill’ in the Central Trade Lanes who was known to perform teleportation services for a fee. Veldrin had never used his services, so he didn’t know much more about it than word of mouth. The other option was to take a long walk in the dark, going through the Undermountain to come back up to the city by one of its exits, such as through the Yawning Portal. Veldrin thought this sounded like the best route, in his opinion.

The party decided it was best if they took a vote to see which way they wanted to go. Grik was very excited to see that his idea of democracy had taken hold in the party and they had not forgotten it in his absence. When tallied, votes for heading to the boat won out. It seemed the easiest route as they’d already come in that way and knew they could handle it.

Gathering their things, the party headed out the front door to the inn with Veldrin in the lead, but he quickly motioned for them to stop. His attention was drawn to the Dark Harvest Market around the corner. A dwarf in plate mail adorned all over with horns was accosting a merchant under the watch of a group of bugbears and gazers. It was hard to make out from a distance, but watching his mannerisms, and what he could hear of his shouts, Veldrin was sure that the dwarf was Ahmaergo, of the Xanathar’s Guild. Realizing he was probably hunting the party, he quickly ushered them back inside.

Veldrin asked the innkeeper if there was another exit from the inn and was directed to use the door upstairs. Taking a quick peek out of said door, Veldrin saw that the middle level was similarly crawling with patrols of bugbears and gazers. Hamidal grabbed some food for the road while the party discussed how to change their plans. They were now a long way from the port, and with guards on their trail it didn’t seem as safe a bet any longer. The wizard was only slightly farther than the nearest entrance to the Undermountain, but they were afraid that he wouldn’t be trustworthy. He could easily either turn them in for a reward, or teleport them to somewhere not of their choosing - like right back to the Xanathar’s lair.

It was decided that their best bet of escaping the Xanathar’s hunting party was to head north towards Beggar’s Rest Pass. It wasn’t the easiest, safest, or quickest way back, but it was closer and allowed them to rely on their own devices rather than trusting some shady Skullport wizard. Veldrin again took the lead, using his superior Darkvision to guide the party along the catwalks while avoiding the search parties. The bugbears seemed to be heading north, in the general direction they were heading, and so they slowly crept along behind them, avoiding various catwalks that were still guarded and heading for the Pass.

As they got closer to the Pass, they could see that bugbears were similarly moving in that direction on the lower level as well. A few blocks away they could start to hear a commotion - the din of a crowd coming from somewhere near their destination. The end of the catwalks came into sight, the Pass just to the north and a level below. The bugbears gathered off to the west a little, looking over the edge of the catwalks to discuss whatever was happening down there, and to keep an eye on the gathering crowd.

Peering down themselves, the party saw that something was about to go down. Right in the neighborhood they were headed towards a large gathering of thugs was pushing and jostling one another, armed with swords, clubs, and various improvised weapons. Small fights broke out, but were quickly squashed, and two lines began to form, with the bugbears on the one side and the Skulkers on the other.

Seeing that things were only escalating and realizing that they didn’t have time to see how this would play out, Veldrin cast ‘faerie fire’ on one of the bugbears on their level, causing the whole group to grow alert and scramble. When he then cast ‘darkness’ on a group of the bugbears, they panicked and started to flee, fearing they were now in the line of sight of a drow attack. While they were thus distracted, Veldrin ran for the north end of the catwalks and shouted for the others to follow before jumping off into the crowd below.

The rest of the party gave each other a quick glance before rushing to join him. While some landed more gracefully than others (with Merle just kind of falling over the railing to land in a thud), the party brushed themselves off to find themselves caught right between the two lines of what looked to be some kind of quickly escalating gang war. Taking potshots at the approaching bugbears, the party moved to quickly move through the gathering line of thugs to reach the nearest pass. Seeing that they were still some ways from Beggar’s Rest, Veldrin instead guided them towards Taglath’s Gap, which was nearer at hand.

The bugbears were moving in, and the thugs were moving south to meet them, pushing and jostling against the party as they tried to move north towards the Gap. They were in a foul mood and ready for a fight, but the party wasn’t the focus of their attention, and obviously weren’t aligned with them, so the begrudgingly let them pass. Only Merle was caught behind in the tangle of bodies as the two lines collided. Veldrin ran off into the Gap while Footsteps took up the rear. Hamidal, not wanting to leave his newly purchased friend behind, used a spell of levitation to float Merle above the crowd before heading off into the dark tunnel.

As they ran down the tunnel, Veldrin recounted the tales he’d heard of Taglath’s Gap. It was named after some poor sod that was murdered in the tunnel some ages ago and was said to still haunt it. But those were mostly just fireside tales. Running headlong into the Undermountain, something unseen slammed its way into the party, knocking them around as they fled. They tried to track where it was moving through the air by whom it had slammed into, and they got a few lucky hits against some sort of resistance in the air, but with no way of seeing what it actually was, they had no idea if they were doing anything effective.

The tunnel had been fairly wide near its entrance, varying between 10 and 20 feet, but they could see an area ahead where it narrowed significantly. Hamidal told the party he had an idea for something that might get the ghost off of their tail once they got to the narrow pass. Paranoid for another attack, the party hurtled deeper into the darkness…

*Image by kobitriki from Pixabay