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3.1

Returning to Waterdeep, the party met an even-keeled guard who questioned their choice about leaving Daario Dundragon’s body in a shallow pond within the borders of a public park. They then returned to the Lamplighter, where Oswald let them know that the Eventide Orphanage had re-opened in Deothar’s old mansion. A man named Loque Brunwild brought rewards and a message from the Open Lord: he instructed the party to find a man named Gygax, of the Watchful Order of Magists and Protectors, and help him uncover what became of Deothar. The party sought Gygax out, and learned that it was likely Deothar had enlisted the help of Cultists of Bhaal to prevent his own death and put his soul into a new vessel. Gygax said that if anyone knew where Deothar might be, it would be the cultists. Gygax also asked what name the adventurers had given their party—Lamplighters was the moniker decided upon.
The party then split up to explore Waterdeep.
Mercy and Luna were joyfully met at Eventide House, which had taken on even more children, and found that Bindleblatt and Fasmus were now helping Arianna in the running of the place. To Mercy’s horror, however, they also learned that a skeletal hand wreathed in flame had taken Raisin on the night of the riots–the same thing that had happened to Deothar. Later, Mercy was approached in the marketplace by a young Tiefling woman named Sythia, who said that her own mother, Anakaris, in the distant city of Marsember, had the same pendant Mercy wore.
Viola learned that her friend, Ulbeth, had not survived his journey back from Secomber alone. His grieving widow, Illia, informed them that it was likely his final act was to cut Nutmeg’s harness so that she might escape. This happened somewhere near the town of Nightstone. In addition, Viola agreed to join the Order of the Aster in honor of the woman who’d saved her from Eegan’s clutches: Invara Ygdras. Her quest as a Paladin of Lathander is to find Eegan, bring him into the light, or destroy him.
Eldrich tried to entertain the masses, only to find himself unwelcome–no one recognized him as the true Eldrich Mandelion, confusing him greatly.
Kildrak was invited to find a White Apple from the Gulthias Tree as a test to see whether he might be capable of joining Waterdeep’s Watchful Order of Magists and Protectors.
Luna fashioned a crystal collar for Cedric, and decided to find a someone who could enchant it so that she would always know where he was.
The party reunited at the Lamplighter Inn, where they discovered Thurmack waiting for them. While away, he had joined a vessel called the Sister Fury with a group of sailors devoted to Valkur, a godlike being who, in ancient times, was a sailor who defied Umberlee and won. He revealed that he had turned his back on the Bitch Queen, come what may.
Finally, the party claimed Valencia’s house as their own, and undertook some modest interior remodeling, renaming it Bernard’s Watch. They learned that Blundo, one of the three orcish brothers, had been inspired to seek a life of adventure after being defeated by the party; his brother, Grundo, hadn’t heard from him in weeks, and asked the party to try to find him where he was last seen in Red Larch. The party agreed. Short of cash, they headed for the Fields of Valor to trial their skills against two terrible Tannaruks weilding huge iron greatswords; the fight was not going well. Then, suddenly, the Tannaruks fled.
An enormous white dragon swept overhead, blotting out the sun, its roar crashing through the sky.

It swooped down and landed on Ankhion Daardendrian‘s viewing platform, crushing it; splintered wood and canvas rained down as the dragon let out a thunderous roar and blasted a section of the onlookers with its icy breath. Dozens of people froze where they stood, arms raised in sad, hopeless defense; before the dragon could attack again, however, a phalanx of a dozen griffon-mounted soldiers flew in wielding lances; the dragon beat its gigantic wings and rose back into the sky, the soldiers giving chase, spiraling up behind it…

3.2

The dragon turned to fight and engulfed the griffon-riders in another icy blast, their bodies tumbling to the earth, shattering into thousands of pieces on impact. The air filled with screams as the dragon sailed around the perimeter of the arena. It has an enormous head and pure black orbs for eyes. The spines along the underside of its neck and thick scales along its legs and back were all the color of ice. It seemed to be searching for something; its eyes fall on the party. Gently, and silently as a snowflake, it floats down and lands.

The party was dragged into a fight which, in spite of their valour, quickly turned against them. When all seemed lost, the ancient sage they met in Secomber—Dolf—suddenly appeared. Dolf revealed that he was actually the silver dragon Itharuus in disguise, and that he knew the white dragon by name: Aezzerkaas, none other than the same dragon to whom Deothar had been delivered as a boy, setting him on the path to powerful sorcery.

Itharuus engaged Aezzerkas, luring him into an cacophonous airborn battle and eventually away from Waterdeep, leaving destruction and a terrified populace behind. After the general panic died down, Gygax asked the Lamplighters to find what became of the dragons while he investigated why the magical wards that kept such creatures out of Waterdeep did not function. He gave the party a Scroll of Death Ward and a small clockwork sparrow with which to send him communications.

The party followed leads surrounding the Cult of Bhaal and its connection to Deothar. They managed to get information from a chef, Villus, at a restaurant, the Savory Snail, that the Underlord, Xanthus Warvyn, who had given his lute to Eldrich at the party, had died. His funeral would be that night in the City of the Dead. The party attended, finding Anastahsia herself leading a number of hooded figures with torches, bearing a coffin. Confronted, she acknowledged that the Cult, Deothar, and the tiefling child were linked. The party followed the procession into a small catacomb beneath the cemetery, but were detected. The hooded figures revealed themselves not to be cultists, but Anastahsia’s own vampire spawn; the party fled but the spawn attacked in the graveyard, where the party was able to defeat them with the help of the coming sunrise. Before the spawn perished, they revealed that Raisin had been taken by the cult to a faraway temple to Bhaal known as the Citadel of Ash.

3.3

Learning that the Dragons flew South-East, the party departed Waterdeep in pursuit. Heading back toward Secomber, they traveled south along the Trade Way, stopping along the way at a roadside in called the Farmer’s Furrow, where, in the deep night, they were attacked by a risen, vengeance-bent Snell, whose hatred for Thurmack had brought him back to the world of the living as a revenant. When Snell had fallen again, the party discovered that, due to a kicked-over lamp during the fight, the Farmer’s Furrow was ablaze. Everyone but Mercy helped fight the fire, and the inn was mostly saved. Because of Thurmack’s generous contributions towards its reconstruction, the innkeeper declared the inn would be renamed “Fulger’s Furrow” when repaired. The party then continued to the fortified village of Nightstone, named for the ancient black megalith standing in its square. They visited the temple and met its keeper, Hyral Mystrum, who told them that word was the dragon had continued South. They also visited the Inn, where its dwarven proprietor, Morak, told the party about a problem with suspected Hobgoblins on the road nearest the forest and that a cart from someone who was attacked ended up at Nandar Stables. The party visited the stables, where they discovered that the cart was, in fact, their old friend Ulbeth’s. They searched it and found a hidden compartment containing Ulbeth’s private journal, a few of his maps of the Dessarin Valley, and his life savings: one platinum piece. Believing that Nutmeg was cut loose and may yet be alive, the party ventured into the Ardeep Forest, where they found tracks evidencing a troop of hobgoblins in the area; they followed the tracks and discovered that a terrible slaughter had already befallen the hobgoblins: a huge owlbear lay curled in the camp, asleep, covered in dark hobgoblin blood. Not far away, Nutmeg’s torn halter hung from an iron spike…

3.4

The Lamplighters decided to try to sneak by the sleeping Owlbear, but Luna’s attempt at stealth went immediately awry, waking it. The party tried to avoid confrontation with the beast, but ultimately fell into conflict with the extremely territorial monstrosity; the Owlbear, already wounded, was easily defeated, but when the party discovered its ruined nest and dead mate in a small cave nearby, decided to spare its life; the Owlbear was able to limp away with its last remaining egg held gently in its massive beak.
The party explored the Hobgoblin camp and found horse tracks in the mud near the stream; they followed them up a nearby quarry, where they found a terrified and half-starved Nutmeg trying to hide herself between two boulders. Before the party could leave, however, they were spotted by a scout for a now-regrouped hobgoblin war party which was returning with reinforcements to retake the camp. The party was able to kill all the hobgoblins but one—its chief, who fled—before they were able to return to Nightstone with Nutmeg in tow. Velrosa Nandar, the stablemistress, agreed to nurse the horse back to health, free of charge, while the party conducted its dragon search. The Lamplighters, having read Ulbeth’s journals, hired a courier to take a letter back back to Ilia in Waterdeep, letting her know of Nutmeg’s safety and enclosing Ulbeth’s possessions and savings. Meanwhile, there was quite a buzz around Nightstone; another adventuring party, the Dawnbreakers, had passed through, saying they had been hired to hunt a dragon in the Copper Hills and Mt Ulga not far to the East.

3.5

The Lamplighters followed the path of the Dawnbreakers to a mining tunnel in the Copper Hills to find the dragon which attacked Waterdeep. However, when they actually met with one of the Dawnbreakers, a cleric by the name of Hellas who said that the rest her of the party, including their new fighter, Blundo, had fallen before the dragon, the Lamplighters decided they weren’t ready to face it, either, and promptly turned tail back to Waterdeep. There, they had a nice roast dinner, found an eye carved in the door of Bernard’s Watch, discovered that Gygax has been ousted from the Watchful Order of Magists and Protectors, visited an astronomer, researched revenants, and gained even more confusing information about the Eldrich imposter. Mercy hired a group of mercenaries to investigate the dragon in the Lamplighter’s stead.

3.6

The party, spread out in Waterdeep, all found themselves in difficult circumstances. Eldrich drank too much milk, had ridiculous hallucinations about a flying cart and a handsome, tall, alternate Eldrich who is keen for the puzzlebox to be opened, before finding himself at home where he, apparently, shat himself a number of times. Viola underwent a troubling encounter at the Temple of Lathander which she will not speak to the party about. Luna traveled to the Tower of the Moon, Selune’s temple in Waterdeep, but was deceived and attacked by the Shadow Child lying in wait; she survived and fled. Thurmak searched out Grundo to discuss what had happened to Blundo and Snell but was not, as they say, Well Met; Grundo challenged Thurmack’s honor to bring his brothers’ bodies home to be properly buried. Mercy received a missive from a Red Wizard by the name of Haruk Kazaan, who invited her to a place called Sigmund’s Tower. Arriving, she had to solve three puzzles to find him, who explained to her that it was, in fact, he who had raised her after she had been taken as an infant by slavers. It was he who had conducted the ritual to instill the power of Kossuth in her body in order to battle the undead armies of Szass Tam, the ruler of Thay, and asked her to find the temple where the ritual took place and complete it. He offered her the life of the slaver who had stolen her from her family, and gave her a small pendant containing a red jewel which he said she would need.

With the White Dragon’s trail now cold, Kildrak tried to meet with the Open Lord, but was only able to meet with her herald, Loque, in her stead. Loque did not know where the Dragon had gone or the location of the Citadel of Black Ash, but said he would take the information back to the Open Lord. Loque offered Kildrak a special mission to help the Open Lord–to make contact with one whose business it is to collect information from all over Faerun: the Xanathar. At that time, Kildrak could not say more to the party, having accepted a Geas spell to ensure secrecy. He then took on a small job to recover a shipment of stolen leather for an armorsmith, discovering that Portus Ribald, former Gauntlet of the Eastern March in Loudwater and Zhentarim agent, was the likely culprit, fumbled his way into his hideout, where he was promptly knocked unconscious and robbed. He made a report to two guards who didn’t seem troubled about the crime–to his utter dismay. The party reconvened at Bernard’s Watch, where Kildrak convinced the party to head to Skullport in the Undermountain, The Xanathar’s territory, just as soon as he figured out a way to get his gear back.

3.7/3.8

In the subsequent days, winter fell on Waterdeep, covering it in deep snow. The Mercenaries returned bearing Blundo’s body, interring it at the Temple of Tymora. In the Copper Hills, they’d found the Mountain Hall of Falkirk Steelbeard, a legendary lost dwarven enclave where, in better times, some of the best ales in Faerun were made. On the peak above the enclave, they discovered the remains of an epic battle. They showed the Lamplighters a short large piece of hide cut from the corpse of the apparent defeated bearing one large, silver scale. Itharuus, the dragon who had defended the party and saved Waterdeep, was dead.

Thurmack took the news of Blundo’s body to Grundo. Grundo asked that Thurmack release Snell from undeath, which Thurmack vowed to do. The party then perpetuated a heist on Portus Ribald’s safehouse, a Zhentarim hideout and brothel called the Sisters of the Sword. Inside, they found a number of foes, difficult employees, and at least one ghost. They were able to recover some of Kildrak’s gear, but were detected and after a protracted battle, only partially victorious–the hideout was cleared of Zhentarim, but Portus escaped, and with him, Kildrak’s Wand of Wonder. There was nothing left to do but search for the best way to Skullport.

Click here to continue to CHAPTER 4: INTO THE DARK