Click here to view characters from Chapter 4
4.1/4.2
The Lamplighters discovered a secret tunnel to Skullport through a shut-down tavern called the Blue Mermaid. There, they found a very disturbed tiefling named Friendship who was busy trying to block up an old well in the basement. Mercy managed to convince him to let her and her companions through, promising they would stop whatever foul thing was frightening him so badly. Descending into the dark, at the end of a miles-long tunnel descending deep underground, discovered a mazelike collection of large rooms; perhaps an abandoned duergar fort, later turned slaver’s waystop with the trappings of an auctionhouse which had now become the lair of something far more sinister.
The party found a number of former slaves and adventurers wandering mindlessly through its dark chambers and tried to help them, but were soon turned upon and found themselves boxed in. The Lamplighters fought hard and were near victory when a Mindflayer emerged along with a pack of intellect devourers. Luna was thrown into a brine pool brimming with parasitic creatures, one of which burrowed under her skin. The thralls and Intellect Devourers were defeated, and the Mindflayer appeared to flee, only to trigger the facilities’ security mechanisms, closing and locking all of the barred gates, separating the party. The Mindflayer then came after Eldrich Mandelion, who barely managed to survive. When the party to split up to search for a way to open the locked doors, Kildrack and Thurmack remained with Eldrich, in case the Mindflayer should return, while Mercy, Luna and Viola hunted for the release mechanism. Instead, they found a room in which the Mindflayer appeared to have discarded its victims’ posessions, as well as those of other adventurers who may have come before. While the three examined the items, however, the Mindflayer came back…the three fought valiantly, but the bloodied Mindflayer fell upon Mercy, savaging her with its tentacles before opening her skull and devouring her brain in front of her horrified friends….
4.3
Mercy, dead, was brought to a place of serenity by Asmodeus, King of the Nine Hells, who told her that the soul of Kossuth within her would be used as a weapon, bringing great suffering to Faerun, unless she accepted his offer of a place as a great warrior in his eternal battle against the hordes of Demons from the Abyss. She nearly accepted, but her companion, Luna, used the Life Ruby to revive her before she was able to shake on the deal, disappointing Asmodeus, who lamented her hesitation. Mercy returned to the world of the living, unsure if she had made a friend or an enemy; her resurrection, however, came at a cost; in order for the necromantic magic to work, the Ruby drained part of Luna’s life force away.
The Lamplighters, having killed the Mindflayer, found their way out of that dark place and descended to Skullport itself, a vast, subterrranian undergound city, where they met Voor, a renegade Drow guarding the sealed door to the Mindflayer’s lair from the other side. Voor offered to help them and instructed them to do their best to blend in with the local malcontents, but he refused to say for whom he worked. The party made their way to the Dragon and Flagon, a tavern and inn, where they met a friendly tavernmistress named Cal’al Caldani who eventually sold them rooms at a reasonable price. After a rest, they set out to explore Skullport; near Gyuud’s Distillery, where the local alcohols were made, they found a lost Flumph hiding in a barrel. Not long after that, they got into a fight with an extremely nimble Svirfneblin, or deep gnome, named Glibberfloom, who made a serious blunder with some less-than-reputable magic powder which nearly cost him his life; Glibberfloom had murdered an orc four times his size, in whose hand the party was able to find a Charlatan’s Die–a weighted die which always lands on 6. The party then stopped near Thimblewine’s Pawn Shop, which was mostly filled with fourth-hand goods. While there, however, Mercy spotted a familiar face passing outside: Vara, the ex-Zhentarim agent she freed from the jail in Loudwater. Vara, owing Mercy a favor, agreed to help the group access the High Tide, an invitation-only establishment. In the middle of their conversation, however, far below, a magical beam suddenly blasted through the rock wall of the giant stalagmite on Skull Island, just off Skullport’s lowest level, and a strange, frightening voice echoed through the high vaults of the cavern: “Where is my fish?!”
4.4
The denizens of Skullport, though surprised by the blast, paid it no serious attention. The Lamplighter came across a fortune teller who, for a price, informed them that Raisin is in “the black place where the fire was” and informs them that the blast’s source was The Xanathar. They found a number of abandoned buildings and market squares, including one belonging, purportedly, to a merchant named Tor whose brain had been eaten by a mindflayer.
At a tavern called the Black Flagon, the party encountered a minotaur who had been hired as security for a wedding between two duergar clans but who was visibly uncomfortable with the rising tensions inside. Eldrich, promising he could defuse the situation, got the minotaur to allow the party in, where in spite of Eldrich’s best efforts, things quickly escalated into a huge, pell mell brawl.
The party were drawn in, and among the many flying fists, managed to knock twenty nine underdark country bumpkins clean out before the fray was brought to a close and the minotaur, with romance in his heart, was able to reconcile the two clans, who had disagreed over a cake-related issue.
Moving on, the party the party detected an odd croaking coming from a nearby boarded up shop. Within they found, a golden froglike humanoid in a cage who looked as though he had not had enough water for some time. Eldrich touched it and, though he could now understand the frog’s rude croaks, was also immediately charmed; the frogman told Eldrich he was Zubzub, King of Grungs and ordered that he should be returned to his tribe on Chult at once. Eldrich, now the grung’s best friend, opened the cage immediately, and when Mercy tried to catch the golden grung, she, too, was charmed, and nearly murdered Thurmack when he threatened to squash the grung with his hammer. Kildrak used his Mage Hand to lift the grung high into the air and negotiations were finally able to take place. During this time, Kildrak noticed a Wanted poster with his face on it–“Wanted for Treason” against his home city of Zanhoriloch.
The party managed to convince a young halfling quartermaster aboard a ship to touch the golden grung and take him aboard.
Kildrak received a message via Gygax’s sparrow that things in Waterdeep had worsened and not to come back; that all was compromised and to destroy the sparrow. The party, he said, should find out what “X” is planning.
At last, the party traveled to the High Tide, where, after greasing the palm of a half-dragon doorman, found Vara and a duergar named Bittern in possession of a large goldfish in a big, heavy bowl. The fish, Sylgar, was the Xanathar’s pet–and the only thing he loved. Vara had been expecting Kildrak, and revealed that the Xanathar was an extremely powerful and intelligent beholder, but that, like many beholders, is also insane and highly paranoid. The Xanathar had powers of perception which were second to none, with only one exception: he could not tell one goldfish from another, and bringing him his pet fish, who had been “stolen”, was the only way to get the party to meet him face to face. For this, they enlisted the help of Ott Steeltoes, whose job it was to recover the fish–or replace it when it dies–without revealing their true intentions.
The party agreed, and were blindfolded and taken into the Xanathar’s secret lair. Once there, they were brought before a large, glowing cube filled with dancing lights from which a booming voice seemed to emanate. Kildrak quickly surmised that this was illusory, and that the real speaker was somewhere nearby, but invisible. The voice referred to itself often in the third person as “the illustrious Xanathar”. The Xanathar informed the party that it has been expecting them for some time–that it knew the Open Lord would send her servants to him sooner or later–which is why he marked their house with his sigil; so they might know and see his total wisdom and intelligence. He believed Deothar wants to destroy Waterdeep, and relayed that in a world without the steady hand of Waterdeep, the power vacuum would be incredible; other cities, powers, and factions would vie to fill the huge gap left by the loss of this economic and military powerhouse. This, he said, was not in the Xanathar’s interest.
He went on to state that The White Dragon attack was only a test—a proof of concept that it could be done. Did the wards function? No. Did the Giant Statues awaken to defend the city, as the people believed they would? No. People’s faith was shaken—in the watch, in the Open Lord, in the Gods themselves—a dragon attacking Waterdeep, until that day, seemed impossible. Deothar had shown the world that Waterdeep was vulnerable, and every faction in Faerun was scrambling to see it meant and how the Open Lord would react. Nobles were referring to it as “The Garden Crisis” in private circles. The Xanathar, who believed himself the world’s smartest beholder, revealed that he knew the location of The Brightgarden’s citadel and that it was in both of their interests for the party to seek out and destroy their mutual enemy.
The Xanathar was sending a ship—the Green Flame–and invited the party to go aboard where his envoy, Nil, on a separate mission, already waited. He ordered that in exchange for transport to The Citadel of Black Ash, somewhere in the faraway nation of Tymanther, they should assist Nil in any way he asks.
The party hastily agreed and were given a Map of the World, as well as a pair of Sending Stones with which to communicate over long distances; the Green Flame would be leaving in less than three days.
4.5
Last time, the party spent their last night in Skullport. After a meal, they debated reporting back to the Open Lord, and decided that the best way to do this is to tell everything they’d learned to Vara. Using the map given them by The Xanathar, they surmised that the nation of Tymanther is nearly three thousand miles East as the crow flies.
On their way back to The High Tide, they were intercepted by a warlock named Bliss and her companion, a goliath named Lo Kag, bounty hunters who were pleased their quarry, Kildrak, had fallen right into their lap. Their fight was interrupted by the mad deep gnome, Glibberfloom, and by the Revenant Snell, who had tracked Thurmack all the way to that bleak city in the caverns far below Waterdeep. Bliss and Glibberfloom appeared to perish in the fight, but Lo Kag was nowhere to be found when it was over.
At last, The party boarded the Green Flame. Nil, Xanathar’s envoy, a cloaked figure wearing a bronze mask, was already aboard. The ship departed under the command of Captain Eira and sailed through one of the portal gates carved into the cavern walls surrounding Skullport and appeared in a storm-tossed sea, directly in the path of a huge wave.
LAMPLIGHTERS ADVENTURING PARTY 