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6.1

Key events:
-A strange Warlock fell from the sky and joined the party.
-The party learned that The Harper Organization in Mintar, working with a local group of rebels known as the Consortium, is under dire threat from the occupying Zhentarim.
-With the help of a former Kobold slave named Boot Heel, the party learned that an “item of rare and exceptional origin” is available on Mintar’s Black Market.

—–

The Green Flame docked in Mintar, on the North Shore of the Lake of Steam, to resupply for the voyage to Tymanther, where Deothar apparently waits in the Citadel of Ash.

The party explored the colorful, humid city and took rooms at the Blossom and Bead. There, they gambled with a few locals in a game of 38s before being interrupted by a terrible crash outside; a warlock named Harper Miriam had, apparently, fallen from the sky and smashed through a flower stall, surviving only by the grace of piles of cut daffodils. Kildrak and Luna helped her into the B&B, while Thurmack eavesdropped on the Inn’s proprietor, a tabaxi named Sack of Beans, and learned that the Harper Organization in Mintar is on the verge of being uncovered by the Zhentarim, stating, “The Zhents are hunting the last enclave of those filthy Harpers. Then the city is as good as theirs; the Consortium is toothless.” He also mentioned that word of “an item of rare and exceptional origin”, the verbal code for a high-value piece of merchandise on Mintar’s Black Market, is being sought.

Worn out from the journey, the party rested in their rooms, but deep in the night, Luna was visited by the shadow which has long haunted her steps; this time, it intimated that she and he were connected, stating, “you are the daughter; I am the son”, and demanding to know “what ‘she’ was like” before losing patience and trying to murder Luna. Cedric came to the rescue, taking on a blinding ethereal form. This enraged the dark hunter, who vowed to kill both Luna and Cedric once and for all before being driven back into the darkness from which he emerged.
In the morning, Viola awoke to find Boot Heel in her room, offering help to find the item of rare and exceptional origin. The party set out, Harper could only remember a terrible whiteness where her memory of the previous few weeks should have been. What she had been doing before that time, she either couldn’t remember or refused to say. Boot Heel led the party to Usuusaraast’s Antiques, where “Suu” admitted that she was aware of the buzz about the item on the Black Market. She knew that the item was stolen and from whom, but would only exchange the knowledge for the recovery of her page from the Black Book of a local gnome trader named Fleebleflox. Boot Heel knew the gnome’s location and led way, but en route the party ran into Rizzo, The Travelling Potionado, who was so cool and hip they could hardly stand it, and when Rizzo asked for their help winning a Platinum Spoon in the Nine Hells Chili Eating Contest at a saloon called the High Noon, they couldn’t say no.

The party accompanied Rizzo and took part in the contest. Kildrak bested the Gnome with No Name, the former champion, but not was all as it seemed. The Gnome with No Name, upon closer inspection, bore an uncanny resemblance to the party’s own Eldrich Mandelion.

6.2

Key Events:

-The party undertook a chain of favours for various Mintarese denizens, trying to track down the Item of Rare and Exceptional Origin.
-Viola encountered refugees from her home region, the Smoking Mountains, in Tymanther, whose homes had been lost in the war with Unther.

The Lamplighters left Eldrich and Harper with the Gnome with No Name, returning to the Mercantile District where they found Boot Heel waiting.

Boot Heel led them to Fleebleflox’s Curious, a magic component and item shop, where Luna attemped to steal the Black Book from Fleebleflox’s back pocket. She was successful, but upon opening it, was struck by a magic trap preventing any would-be snoopers from snoopin’. Fleebleflox, ever the businessman, made two proposals: First, for a small fee, he would not report the party’s activities to the Zhentarim. The party, after some haggling, paid the fee. Second, that he would be happy to provide the page–in exchange for a better secret enabling him leverage over someone more important than Suu, namely Jovash the Lucky, assistant to the Captain’s Assistant in the Zhentarim encampment. The party eventually agreed, but not before Boot Heel accidentally knocked a rare phial of mercury vapor to the floor, shattering it,. Fleebleflox demanded the party pay 50 gold for it; they refused, and though the businessgnome still agreed to exchange Suu’s page for dirt on Jovash, he barred them from purchasing any of his magic items.

On their way to the Encampment, Viola was stunned to see a breadline of dragonborn refugees, many wounded, all disconsolate. Feeding them was a blue dragonborn with a bronze birthmark on his face named Kivarras Phyrros, who was from Viola’s home, a village called Arush Vayem in the Smoking Mountains. He said that by now, Unther—the nation at war with Tymanther–had conquered it, or would at least do so soon. She approached but he greeted her coldly, accusing her of dereliction of duty to chase some intangible faith after ignoring the summons she–and all dragonborn of the region–received at the outbreak of conflict. He remained unconvinced by her justifications, coldly requesting she direct them to the widows, the wounded, the children all waiting for a meager cup of thin broth. She donated all of her silver pieces to those in the breadline, who fell to the ground to collect them as she retreated from his withering gaze.

The party proceeded to the encampment, where they spotted a familiar guard–Lydiana Welt, with whom they’d played 38s at the Blossom and Bead and who remembered them from the Sword Sisters Brothel back in Waterdeep. She seemed to have no particular respect for Jovash, but said she knew where he’d be at dusk that evening–and she’d share that information with the party in exchange for one small favor. They simply needed to proceed to the wine merchant Amber Sunrise and retrieve an already-purchased but not-delivered bottle of pre-Spellplague Luskani Spiced Spirit. To Amber’s they went, led by Boot Heel, but inside found candles out and the cellar trapdoor open.

Below, in the cellars, they encountered a fleeing Sack of Beans before confronting Amber herself–and her husband Red–both of whom had been possessed by Dybbuks. Mercifully killing them both, the party found the Spiced Spirit and returned to Lydiana, who happily told them that Jovash would be visiting the business place of woodworker Orgonne Shaftsbury around dusk. Boot Heel, of course, knew the way there…

6.3
Key Events:

1. The party learned that the item of Rare and Exceptional Origin is a Dragon’s Egg which, on the eve of being sold to the Zhentarim, had been stolen by an agent of the Consortium.
2. Eldrich found his sister, Ephemera, with the Consortium. She is a Harper and revealed some hard truths about Eldrich’s origins.
3. The tensions between the Zhentarim and the Consortium erupted into violence.

The Lamplighters reached Shaftsbury’s Hardwoods, where Orgonne Shaftsbury not only revealed Jovash the Lucky’s Secret, (that he had a prosthetic dong which he needed regularly repaired,) but also a wide understanding of the situation in Mintar.

Orgonne revealed himself to be a Harper informant, Three agents from The Harpers, he said, had been supporting a group of local rebels called the Consortium to undermine the Zhentarim. but two of the Harpers, a tiefling named Happenstance and a human named Goldfallow, were missing. He suspected they had been captured by the Zhentarim and were being held in a secret location. He asked the party to speak with the third agent–Ephemera, a name Eldrich immediately recognized as belonging to his sister–and save the others. He also said that the Item of Rare and Exceptional Origin was in fact a Dragon’s Egg, which the Zhentarim were on the cusp of finding. The acquisition of a dragon into the Zhentarim ranks would solidify the Black Company’s power across the entire region.

Jovash and his entourage then arrived; as the shop was meant to be closed, the party hid, but were revealed by a sneeze from Boot Heel. A fight erupted, but Jovash, embarrassed, quickly retreated.

The information about Jovash’s “wood” satisfied Fleebleflox, who then provided Suu’s Page from his Black Book; Suu, in turn, revealed that the the one most likely to know the whereabouts of the Dragon Egg was Madhu Gurvish, a mustachio’d caravaneer in the Warrens, the poorest district of the city and territory of the Consortium.

Arriving in the Warrens, the party were taken to Madhu by Consortium Agents, where they found him preparing for battle alongside Ephemera, and dozens of Consortium rebels.
Madhu revealed that it was his own niece, Miq’it, who had stolen the Dragon’s Egg after learning that the Zhentarim planned to acquire it. He said that only she knew where it was now, and that she had been captured and imprisoned in the Old Bathhouse; the party quickly surmised that this was the same location to which the Harper agents, Happenstance and Goldfallow, had likely been taken.
At the same time, Ephemera and Eldrich had a strange reunion. Ephemera repented her past behavior, but could not speak for Memoria, their other sister. Although it didn’t seem like the right time or place, she told Eldrich a hard truth: that he was not, strictly speaking, real. That he had come into their lives spontaneously–as had numerous others at seemingly random intervals–as though he’d grown up and lived there all along. Eldrich, she said, was the only one who’d been different, though. Where the others had all appeared and “set out” on the same day, Eldrich had remained at home for a full year.
Interrupted by Madhu, the beleaguered Eldrich and co learned that the Consortium was taking the fight to the Zhentarim under the presumption that Mi’qit and the Harper agents had been subjected to torture and forced to reveal the identities of the Consortium leaders, as well as the location of the Dragon Egg. It was inevitable the Zhentarim would soon annihilate their small rebellion, but if they acted now, perhaps they could avert that disaster–and rescue Miq’it and the others in the process if possible. The party agreed to join the fight and rushed into the streets, where Consortium rebels had already begun guerrilla assaults on platoons of Zhentarim mercenaries.

The party reached a crossroads: in one direction, they could see Consortium Rebels losing the fight against entrenched Zhentarim outside the gates of the Old Bathhouse. In the other, down a sloping hill leading to the water’s edge, they saw their ship, The Green Flame, making way under Zhentarim colours , begin to glide past, not far from shore and not yet out of reach. On its deck Nil appeared to be surrounded, fighting Captain Braak and a number of Zhentarim .

The party had to decide which way to go–to the Bathhouse, or to the Green Flame. Or would they split up?

The party’s arbiter, Kildrak, made the decision: the Lamplighers could find another way to get to Deothar’s Citadel of Ash in Tymanther. Let Nil take care of himself and the Flame. The party had already satisfied their obligation to him and the Xanathar. .But not everyone agreed, and it it was unclear whether the party would honor their Arbiter’s decision…

6.4

Key Events:
1. The Lamplighters agreed to help the Consortium free their Harper allies and rescue the girl who stole the dragon egg; they attacked the prison where their allies were being kept but got their asses kicked by the Zhentarim.
2. Kildrak used the Gate Crystal as an arcane focus, winning the battle but cracking the crystal.

The Lamplighters chose to head to the Old Bathhouse to liberate the Harper agents therein, however, they were confronted by a strong contingent of Zhentarim mercenaries and fought a protracted but ultimately losing battle. Near defeat, Kildrak used the Gate Crystal as an arcane focus, multiplying his magic power; the resulting lightning bolt annihilated a number of the enemy and those remaining, terrified, fled into the night. Upon inspection, however, the Gate Crystal had a small crack in it as a result.

6.5

Key Events:
1. The Lamplighters freed the Consortium and Harper prisoners.
2. The Dragon’s Egg remained in Mintar
3. Mercy learned a key detail about her mother
4. Harper recalled that she had been in Mintar before
4. The Green Flame sailed away under a Zhentarim flag.

The Lamplighters entered the Old Bathhouse, where they discovered a urn for offerings with a hole in the bottom. Boot Heel fell into the hole, and the party saw that there was a huge amount of gold and silver coins far below in a cavern…but something big was moving around down there, too.

The party explored the bathhouse, discovering a pair of Zhentarim uniforms and a clutch of enchanted arrows before navigating into the main chamber, where they discovered the prisoners in hanging cages over a large, ornate and beautiful ancient bath filled with refuse and excrement clearly used by the Zhentarim soldiers as a rubbish tip. A number of creatures slid about in the muck, but the party managed to free the prisoners without disturbing them.

One of the prisoners, a tiefling named Happenstance, revealed that as a girl, she’d met Mercy’s mother years before in an orphanage in the city Gheldaneth. Mercy’s mother, Amaia, had been searching for Mercy. The other prisoner, Miq’it, niece of Madhu Gurvish, claimed she was the one who’d stolen the Dragon egg. The third Harper, Goldfallow, had not survived.

Harper discovered a secret door leading to the caverns below; there, the party found Boot Heel hiding from a ferocious hydra. During the battle, Harper remembered that she had, some months before, been in Mintar; she remembered tracking down a necromancer and killing him, finding the first of her black blades, Byzrihir, and that afterward, her Book of Shadows had directed her East, toward the Smoking Mountains in Tymanther, They party slayed the beast and claimed the vast sum of silver and gold on the cavern floor, years’ worth of offerings through the urn in the bathhouse.

Afterward, they discovered that the Consortium and the Zhentarim had reached a stalemate, but that the Zhentarim had withdrawn to their encampment outside of the City. Mi’qit bargained with the party that she should keep the dragon egg, that it might defend her city with the Consortium evermore. The party agreed, though Thurmack warned that the egg would only be trouble if a chromatic dragon hatched from it. Mi’qit could not be swayed, however; in thanks for the party’s efforts, she gave them her Luckstone. The party returned to the Blossom and Bead, now run by Boot Heel, for a well-earned rest before setting out on foot toward Tymanther.

Click here to continue to CHAPTER 7: THE WILDS