A tale of Dragons - Chapter 1: A Friend In Need Report

General Summary

Gather round everybody as I play you my lyre and sit by me as I tell you a tale of adventurers, dragons, intrigue and mystery. Our story begins on a lovely summer evening in a famous tavern and inn at the heart of Waterdeep. The Yawning Portal, famous for the pit to which the name refers. Our party of adventurers was just about to set off on an adventure. Little did they know this would change them forever. The atmosphere was electric, an adventuring party not much different from the one of our heroes was just about to set off on an adventure to the depths of Undermountain. Patrons all around were taking bets regarding the return of the party and enjoying themselves. The crowd was big and loud. Amidst everything our heroes had found themselves together around a table discussing a possibility of setting off on an adventure together.   As our adventuring party set off, a fight broke loose inside the tavern. This brought our adventurers to action. Two half-orcs Shump and Kargath rushed to the aid of their friend, Yagra Stonefist, in the brawl. The fight was between the Xanathar thugs and a Zhentarim Doom Raider. While there were five thugs they were no match for the strong Doom Raider Yagra. By the time our adventurers made it to the fight, Yagra had already made short work of the Xanathar leader Krentz. Krentz was a peculiar looking thug with eyes tattooed on his head. With him being unconscious the thugs did not know what to do and started to fight with the three half orcs.   While the fight was going on the calmer members of our story made inquiries around the tavern, learning a few facts about this fight. Suddenly the ground started shaking. A deep and strong thumping sound shook The Yawning Portal. It was a troll accompanied by five stirges who emerged from the pit which led into Undermountain. The troll had pieces of what remained of the adventuring party who descended into the pit, in its mouth. Quickly the local bartender Durnan, familiar with the dangers of Waterdeep, sprung into action. He instructed our heroes to focus on the stirges and let him worry about the troll. As a last gasp he yelled to set the troll on fire when they are ready.   Our heroes were quick to storm into action, two half-orcs alongside Yagra ignored what Durnan had told them and instead chose to help with the troll. The drow member of the party, Caiyra, joined the fight with the troll. Tolm the wizard and Kara the bard did not however lose their cool. They listened to Durnan and went for the stirges.   During the fight with the stirges one of them stung Kara quite heavily but she managed to fight off the annoying mosquito and throw it back to the pit. Tolm meanwhile was using his magic to grab a bottle of petroleum off the counter to engulf the troll. After a few attempts he succeeded and threw a match at the Troll for good measure.   By this time the other members of the party, with Durnan’s help, had brought the troll to its knees. Now on fire, Kargath summoned his strength and struck the burning troll, making it tumble down the pit from where it came. Having a chance to catch their breath and recover a bit from the epic fight, our heroes met a rather strange but famous fellow by the name of Volothamp “Volo” Geddarm. Volo, impressed by the feats of our heroes, asked them for help finding his friend Floon Blagmaar. Him and Volo had been drinking at Skewered Dragon. As an incentive Volo offered the party 10 dragons/gp to start and 100 dragons/gp on the successful finish of the quest.   The party agreed and headed towards the Dock Ward. On their way there the party came across an arrest in progress. One of the Xanathar thugs who was being arrested, knowing that if he does not escape, certain death awaits him, tried to flee. Kargath, the strongest of the bunch ruined the plans of the thug and halted him in mid air as by just grabbing him. Hyustus Staget, a City Watch captain, thanked the party and sent them on their way.   The small incident caused the party to take a small detour and they ended up in a peculiar looking store called the Old Xoblob Shop. A wizened deep gnome greeted them and offered them various trinkets. Although various members of our adventuring party perused the shelves, only Shump found something worthwhile - a vial of dragon blood.   The party’s shopping spree was quickly halted when Tolm sensed something off with the store and urged everyone to leave it. Everyone rushed out and headed to the Skewered Dragon which was just a few buildings over. In there they found that not everyone was too friendly but no one was hostile either. They were greeted by a loud dwarf thug named Solomil Silverfingers. He was as cocky as he was loud. He informed the party that he might know what they were looking for. For this information he proposed two challenges: fight him or play a game of Sava with him. Caiyra stood up and took on the game of Sava as she was quite familiar with it.   Having quite easily defeated Solomil, the party learned that a bunch of Manshoon Zhents had taken Floon with another person away to their hideout quite nearby. The party then headed to the hideout. In front of the hideout while Caiyra and Kara were looking for a stealthy approach, Shump took a drink of the dragon blood he had purchased. It really riled him up and he got loud and energetic.   Kara and Caiyra tried to sneak through the hideout when suddenly they were ambushed by four Kenku. This sprawled out a crazy fight which at one point looked really bleak for our adventurers. Luckily an unknown man sprawled into action and rescued them. As it later turned out this man was named Renaer Neverember, and was the one who had been described by Solomil.   Together with Renaer our heroes found refuge upstairs in the offices and decided to have a long rest and tend to their wounds.     To be continued...