Agorn Fuoco sat waiting for the play to begin. This was his tenth viewing of the performance of Blood Wedding and he was as excited tonight as he was opening night - if not more so for by now he knew the play by heart and he anticipated what was to come.
His companion, the priestess Amath Sercent, was less enthused. She continued to look around, "I don't see her! She's late! That washed up pirate wench was supposed to deliver the stone tonight!"
"Shh! She'll be here! Don't worry! Just enjoy the production!"
Amath rolled her eyes. She had no interest in the theater. "Why do you like this stupid play so much?"
"Blood Wedding? What's NOT to love? Its a a play about love, jealousy, and death. In the story, a young woman is brought to a castle by a count, only to fall in love with his younger brother, a man of faith. Her betrayal eats away at the jealous count. He murders his brother on his wedding day and pursues the bride, who hurls herself off the castle battlements in despair. The count is cursed by the gods and transformed into a creature of darkness, damned to live in his castle and feed on blood."
Recounting the plot out loud suddenly gave Agorn an idea.
"What? What's that look for?" said Amath through narrowed eyes.
"I just thought of a solution to my problem at home, a solution to what has been holding me back! A bold act that will sever my ties to my so-called old family and will cement my position within my new family in the Zhentarim! An audatious act that will surely impress Manshoon! It's in the play, you see? It gave me the idea! By the Gods what a masterpiece, like - on so many levels! Yes. Yes, I think I know what I must do."
"Whatever. Shut up. There she is! She looks like she's in a hurry. Ugh, what is she wearing? Here she comes. She'll make the drop and we'll leave. I told my coach driver to be ready."
"We're not staying for the performance?" asked Agorn, dejectedly.
"No! Of course not! Especially if that nautical hussy is being followed. She'll give you the stone and we'll go. Now get ready. Here she comes!"
- Winterfrost of House Silverspear - Neutral Good Moon Elf Noble and Fighter. The daughter of elven diplomats, raised among dwarves.
- Etlenda, aka "Exile" - Neutral Good Eladrin Outlander and Paladin. Exiled from the Feywild and raised by wolves. While exploring the Feydark he crossed over into the Underdark and emerged into the Mortal World.
- Tempus Vegvisir - Lawful Good Human Trade Sheriff and Cleric of Helm. Husband and Father.
- Push-ta Tok - Neutral Half-Orc Former Smuggler and Rogue.
- Kem Hearthfire - Chaotic Good Half-Orc Former Gladiator Priestess of Gond.
Meanwhile...
After the events at the theater, the Mystics of Trollskull Manor returned to their home to rest.
Push-ta summoned forth a flying snake and sent a message to Davil Starsong asking for more information about Agorn Fuoco - the man to whom Vevette handed the stone. Push-ta received a response the next morning. The message read:
Agorn dreamed of becoming a famous bard but he had no success so he decided to devote himself to the Zhentarim, quickly advancing through the ranks thanks to his puppy like devotion to Manshoon.
Mistshore
The team assembled and trudged through the fresh snow towards Mistshore on the other side of Waterdeep. They arrived at the dilapidated neighborhood around mid-morning. Mistshore was a slum that had suffered a large fire a year previous. Much of the neighborhood still lay in charred ruins. The remaining structures were built from partially disassembled ships and boats turned upside down with tarp-like roofs and walls made from canvas sails. The wretchedly poor inhabitants huddled around small fires. Burly toughs leaned against walls on several corners.
The way ahead of them was blocked by a two-horse hire-coach. The coach driver sat impatiently in the driver's seat, rubbing her hands to keep warm.
Push-ta told the others to wait behind the coach. He would scout ahead. He passed his hand over his face and his appearance changed to that of a human, a full foot shorter than his normal 7 foot height but still strikingly tall. Tempus summoned forth his magical bat, Edward, and instructed his familiar to ride on Push-ta's shoulder. In that way, Push-ta could remain in contact with the rest of the team as he explored ahead.
Push-ta took a long route around some nearby structures to get in front of the coach. He walked through the snow-covered neighborhood, listening carefully to conversations and closely observing the attitude of the local toughs.
As he navigated the twisting gaps between the makeshift hovels he overhead a small group of locals mention something about Grinda - that her crazy invention was nearing completion and that she was looking to hire pilots to help her find the treasure. This information piqued Push-ta's interest.
He also saw a heavily damaged ship. On board the deck were nearly a dozen surly looking mercenaries. He recognized the name - Kraken's Folly. It was the home of a group of freelance mercenaries which the Zhentarim sometimes employed.
At the end of the alley, located at the end of an old pier, was a rickety workshop. A sign hung outside - Grinda Garloth - Alchemist and Inventor.
He returned to the others with this information.
The Coach Driver
The team moved around the waiting coach. Etlenda and Tempus engaged the driver in idle conversation. They learned that her name was Rowan Evenwood. She ran a coach-for-hire out of the Castle Ward. She said she was unavailable as her current fare paid her extra to wait for his return - though she was beginning to be impatient as it was very cold.
When asked about the fare she said she picked him up at a walled villa in the Castle Ward, brought him here, and that he went off "that way" indicating a direction towards the Kraken's Folly. She also said that she had picked him and a woman up the night before at the theater. She took them back to the walled villa in the Castle Ward and asked her to come back today for this job.
Rowan gave Tempus her calling card, saying, "If you ever need to hire me, send a messenger to this address with the day and whether you need me first light, mid-morning, high sun, mid-afternoon, etc. I'll be there."
Grinda Garloth
The Mystics of Trollskull Alley deduced that Agorn was meeting with this "Grinda" person to use the Stone of Golorr to help search for "the Treasure". They ventured into the narrow winding alleys of Mistshore and located Grinda's shop. They heard children throwing snowballs at each other on the ice of the frozen bay beneath the pier.They knocked on the door and a woman called out, "Are you here about the advertisement?"
They said yes and soon the door was opened. A woman in her late fifties grinned at them appreciatively. She had unkempt hair, wore goggles atop her head, and a thick leather apron. Her hands were stained with oil and grease and grime. "Welcome! Welcome! Come in! I suppose you'll want to see the machine then!"
It was a large metal machine with a cylindrical body big enough for two people to sit within. It was supported by six heavy metal legs like crab legs. Two manipulators were folded up beneath the front. Several thick port-holes allowed visibility from within as well as a periscope.
DM- My players groaned. An Apparatus of Kwalish? AGAIN? They had one in Ghosts of Saltmarsh and didn't really like it. But that was mostly because they all already had the ability to breathe underwater except for the dwarf. He alone got stuck in the Apparatus and it is not designed to be operated by only one person.
Grinda explained that she designed it to scour the bottom of the bay for treasure. She had previously experimented with smaller devices but ran into problems when a large intelligent shark named Obliteros. So she designed this larger armored vehicle. Now she just needed two pilots to test the vehicle - so she had posted the advertisements in the broadsheets.
She also explained that she didn't have much to offer by way of payment. She had sought funding for her work from the House of Inspired Hands. They denied her the grant she sought because she refused to turn over the finished device to the Temple of Gond.
Suddenly Grinda recognized Kem. Kem was an acolyte of Gond and a volunteer at the House of Inspired Hands. Grinda became suspicious, accusing Kem of being a spy sent to steal her work!
Kem assured her this was not the case.
Although Tempus considered the offer. He asked Grinda how she would deal with the bronze dragon that lived in the bay.
"There's a bronze dragon in the bay?" was her reply.
"Yes. His name is Zelifarn," said Tempus.
"How do you know this?"
"I've met him, " was Tempus' confident reply.
"You've met him - at the bottom of the bay. I suppose you did this using magic potions or some such."
"Of course."
"But don't you see?" said Grinda, enthusiastically, "My device is mechanical. It does not rely on magic. Any regular person can pilot my device to the bottom of the ocean. No magic is necessary! It is my dream to create many such machines! Perhaps machines to replace the horse on the roads - or fly from country to country like the giant roc! This is my dream!"
Tempus considered the offer to test the device but was reminded of their mission.
"Right, of course. Grinda, do you know someone named Agorn Fuoco?"
Grinda rolled her eyes, "Yes. He's a real piece of work that one! Left his poor mother to become an actor or something useless. Never comes back to visit the poor dear. That would be his mother, Marta. She lives a few houses down." Grinda pointed in the direction of the hovels attached to the base of the hulk of the Kraken's Folly.
"Thanks. We're going to have to say no to your job for now, but we might come back."
"Don't wait too long! I have other applicants, you know!"
A Bit of Matricide
The team made haste to the hovel of Marta Fuoco. The entrance was little more than a dirty curtain. They entered and found a well-dressed man smothering an old woman with a pillow. He picked up his pillow to check if she was still breathing. She wasn't. He smiled, "It is done. I am free!"
Winterfrost leaped across the room, kicking the man away from the old woman and shoving him against the far wall. He was outraged, "How dare you? Don't you know who I am? I'm Agorn Fuoco! ACTOR!"
Tempus ran to the aid of the woman, saying a prayer to spare the dying.
Push-ta and Kem ran around the outside of the hovel to cover the rear exit. Etlanda covered the main entrance.
Agorn Fuoco stood up straight, dramatically proclaiming, "You leave me no choice! I will teach you a lesson using the power of - ACTING!" He clutched his heart with his right hand, and thrust forth his left hand into the air. He bellowed, "To BE! Or NOT to be! THAT is the question!" The thunderous wave of his voice pushed against Tempus and Winterfrost with powerful force!
Push-ta countered with a magical shocking grasp attack.
Tempus said a prayer and a sonorous bell pealed around Agorn. He clutched his head in pain.
Kem smashed her hammer against the bard's head. "Not the face!" he protested. Kem followed up with a prayer of healing for the old woman. She began to cough and breathe.
Agorn regained his regal composure and pointed his finger towards the entrance, behind Tempus and Winterfrost and Etlenda. He dramatically declared, "Hark! What light through yon window BREAKS!" and the air shattered, splintering wood and causing Winterfrost to feel as if her bones were cracking.
The team ganged up on the bard, smashing him with hammers and clubs and the flats of their swords. He threw up his hands in surrender, "Okay! Okay! You have bested me! The curtain falls on act one. But surely, I will be saved by deus ex machina in act two!"
Everyone stood still, confused, for a moment. There was silence.
Agorn said again, louder, "I said- SURELY - I WILL BE SAVED BY DEUS EX MACHINA IN ACT TWO!"
Again, silence.
Agorn shouted, "THAT'S YOUR BLOODY CUE YOU MORONS!"
The team heard the sound of tromping boots through the snow as several groups of surly bruisers appeared from the shadows, drawing swords and crossbows as they moved towards the hovel.
Enter Thugs
The approaching thugs had the hovel surrounded - some sent crossbow bolts at Etlenda at the entrance, forcing him to hide behind his shield. Other thugs circled around the hovel towards the rear entrance. Kem moved to intercept while Push-ta harried them with his own crossbow.
At that moment, Tempus heard a loud crack and a splash of water followed by the sound of children screaming. He looked out the back and saw that one of the children playing on the ice had broken through and was drowning.
"Are you kidding me right now?" he said, exasperatedly, as he moved past Kem and climbed down the piling at the corner of the dock to reach the ice.
The road warden moved carefully across the ice and got down on his belly to reach out and grab the drowning boy. He pulled the boy out and dragged him towards the shore where the boy's two friends waited.
Meanwhile, the fight around the hovel had garnered the attention of the mercenaries on the nearby Kraken's Folly. They called out, mockingly, "Oy! Pay us and we'll help you fight!"
The thugs sneered, "Fuck off! We don't need your bloody help!"
Push-ta called up to them, "Hey! I'll pay a dragon for each one of these creeps you kill for us!"
"Yer on!" The mercenaries began peppering the thugs with crossbow bolts.
Tempus sent his bat, Edward, to fly above and behind the thugs by the rear entrance. To everyone's surprise, the bat exhaled a fan of deadly cold white dragon's breath on the thugs.
Push-ta killed one of the thugs with his own crossbow. One of the mercenaries shot a bolt into the floor next to Push-ta. Push-ta called up, "Hey! Attack them, not us!"
"Fuck you! You took my kill! You owe me a dragon!"
"The hell I do!" shouted Push-ta.
"Then the way I figure it. If you got all these dragons to pay us for killing these fellas. How about I just kill you and take all those dragons?"
The other mercenaries paused to consider this.
Push-ta grimaced at the thought. Luckily, he was saved when Edward the bat exhaled another blast of cold dragon breath, killing the last of the thugs.
Fireball
Meanwhile, at the front entrance, Etlenda was holding the line behind his shield as Winterfrost bound and gagged Agorn.
Etlenda said, "They're moving in. I could use some help up here."
She kissed the beads and threw them into the street.
The beads exploded in a great burst of flame, killing all the advancing thugs.
The mercenaries on the deck of the Kraken's Folly instinctively ducked for cover. When it was clear, they rose slowly and began to applaud and cheer.
The snow was now melted. The pier and several of the makeshift hovels nearby were on fire. People were running in terror.
Winterfrost stared in awe at the destruction she had wrought.
Etlenda sheathed his sword and put down his shield, "Don't just stand there. You did this! Put the fire out!"
Winterfrost shook herself back to reality, "Oh, right, the hovels."
Clean-up
Winterfrost and Etlenda set about stomping out the fire. Edward the bat blew cold blasts to douse the flames. Winterfrost rescued a destitute couple who were trapped in their burning hovel. Feeling bad for the situation she put them in, she offered them paying jobs as housekeepers at Trollskull Manor.DM- I unfortunately used the NPCs in the hovel to start a debate with the player - a thing that I acknowledged as a mistake immediately after the game - see below.
Down on the ice, Tempus made a pitch to the children to watch over and help protect Marta Fuoco. The children, being children, showed little interest in the work.
"Street urchins. Would you like to take care of an old lady for me? She's bed-ridden and can't leave her ramshackle hovel in the slums."
The children replied incredulously, "Uh, no? We want to be adventurers like you!" (clacking wooden swords)
Tempus countered, "Well, sure. Well, this is your chance to BE an adventurer like me!"
"Really? Awesome! Do we get to be your squire?"
Tempus said, "Sort of! Okay, to be an adventurer, you have to do the right thing, do what an adventurer would do. And what would an adventurer do?"
The kids replied in unison, "Take all the gold and leave and never come back!"
Etlenda shouted from up on the pier, "They're not wrong!"
A second child said, "Yeah, isn't that what you're about to do?"
The third child said, "Hey, yeah! Why don't YOU stay and take care of the old lady?"
Tempus, loosening his collar, awkwardly cleared his throat and coughed.
The team brought the bound and gagged Agorn Fuoco back to the waiting coach. They told Rowan that they wanted to hire her to take Agorn to the nearest city watch station, then later to take them home.
On their way to a city watch station in the Castle Ward, they ungagged and interrogated Agorn. Agorn told them that he served Manshoon - the founder of the Zhentarim reborn! Manshoon had plans for taking over the Zhentarim in Waterdeep, and eventually all of Waterdeep. He said he didn't know where the stone was, currently.
Agorn refused to answer any questions about his accomplices. However, Rowan said that she had done regular work for Agorn and his companion - a woman named Amath Sercent. Amath was the one who lived in the walled villa and typically hired the coach. Rowan said that she often took Amath from her walled villa to an old tower called Yellowspire.
The team dropped Agorn off at the city watch station. The watch officers asked, "Okay? Who's this guy?"
They explained his crime and how they caught him in the act of trying to kill his mother.
After a short debate about evidence and accusation, the watch took Fuoco into custody.
DM- Again, I must have been in a mood because I inappropriately used the NPC to debate the player's actions. See below.
With that, the Mystics of Trollskull Manor returned home to plan their next move.
To Be Continued...
My DM Mistake
First things first - I do not consider this a big deal or anything. It's just something I noticed I was doing so I want to acknowledge that I realized I did it and I'll try to adjust in the future.
I was punishing my players for success and unnecessarily overcomplicating simple plans.
- Tempus was just trying to get some kids to watch after an old lady in the neighborhood who obviously needed help.
- Winterfrost was just trying to compensate some poor people for the damage his character had done to their ramshackle home and maybe make their life a little better.
- All ya'll were just trying to deliver a bad guy to the proper authorities.
In each instance, I took a simple plan and tried to overcomplicate it with what, in my mind I guess, were mitigating factors that made the action seem implausible.
That was bad-DM'ing and what I SHOULD have done was "Okay, the kids promise to watch the old lady.", "You're offering us a job and willing to pay for damages? Thank you milady!", "We'll see this scumbag gets what he deserves!" and moved on.
I don't know why.
That's not true, I can think of several possible reasons.
Maybe it was because my personal biases see big social problems like poverty and crime as inherently complicated societal issues that are unsolvable by simple solutions so I reacted to simple solutions with knee-jerk implausibility.
Maybe because I'm seeing everything through the viewpoint of the NPCs so my brain is used to thinking what THEY'RE thinking, which is often more complicated and nuanced than what the players are thinking because the players don't have all the info.
Maybe I was just in kind of a weird mood that night. I don't know.
But this is D&D and the players and their characters are the stars of the story and they should be rewarded for decisive action with decisive results, not push-back from the DM - complex social issues be damned!
I'm not saying my push-back was WRONG, mind you -
- those kids just want to run around and play swords - they absolutely would NOT want to spend their day watching after an old lady instead of playing, even if they were paid. I mean, come on, they're like 10 year old kids!
- the poor couple whose house was nearly burned down probably either lack the ability or have no desire to work for rich people in the North Ward - there could be a million reasons why they're poor, ranging from personal history or choices to complex and indirect societal factors - and they might have every reason to be suspicious of this stranger putting out a fire then offering them a job - from their point of view that would be random and frightening
- You can't just drop a prisoner off at the city watch and say "This guy committed a crime!" with zero evidence. Usually, in this kind of setting, you make an accusation against the person and present your case to the magistrate. You might say "He's a witch!". The watch first evaluates, "is this a plausible accusation?" If so, they'll throw the accused in a cell, interrogate and torture them (torture's probably off the table in Waterdeep), then they'll have a trial in which the accuser makes their case using logic, evidence, witnesses, etc. Simply saying "I saw him do it" might not hold up. You need someone NOT making the accusation serve as a witness.
I'm saying I shouldn't have pushed back DURING THE GAME. It absolutely ruined any sense of accomplishment and damaged the flow and pacing of the game.
And for doing that, I apologize and I'll try not to do it in the future.
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