Report for the Blackstaff on the events of the 30th of Marpenoth by Researcher Bryseis Asmodaiya

In this report I will detail as best as I can, what I experienced during the events of the 30th of Marpenoth – Liar’s Night – when the dragon Nas’Turik attacked Waterdeep.
After you dispatched us to Mystra’s Arms to investigate the escape of wizard Pentarost, Watchman Daardendrian, with the help of Watchman Naktun’s keen sense of smell, was able to quickly determine that wizard Pentarost had been dug out of his cell by kobolds. Radiant Olana interviewed the staff and determined that nothing had been different about wizard Pentarost leading up to his escape, certainly not anything that would indicate a desire or a plan to escape. Delola and I searched the wizard’s cell. The only possessions we could find were a pair of books about halflings, one being about the adventures of Jenny Windmane, the intrepid adventurer. We were about to leave when Watchman Naktun caught the scent of kobolds down the street, which gave us a direction to head in. Not long after, we came upon wizard Pentarost, who was wearing a mask of the Mad Mage Wizard Blackcloak, and was surrounded by kobolds wearing cloaks and masks. We gave chase down the busy street and managed to do away with the kobolds as we arrived in front of the Tower of Luck. At that moment, Nas’Turik and his army of winged kobolds descended from what we thought was a storm cloud and attacked the city. I must make note that I have never seen blue kobolds before, winged or not. If it weren’t for having seen metallic kobolds first hand I would think that kobolds of any other scale-color than red were an impossibility. In the fray, we were unable to bring in wizard Pentarost to you for questioning because he was carried off by a winged kobold, but it wasn’t trying to kill him, it was transporting him somewhere. If it hadn’t been for the quick thinking of Hunter Karash to put a Hunter’s Mark on him, he would have been lost.
Hunter Karash tracked wizard Pentarost through the city and led us to an entrance to the Warrens. At this point, I must make a complaint about Watchman Daardendrian’s conduct. It was most unbecoming of a member of Waterdeep’s Watch. As is understandable, the Halflings guarding the entrance to the Warrens saw us approaching and would not allow us entry. Watchman Daardendrian tried to enter the Warrens by force, and was ready to attack the guards to gain entry. As an honorable member of the Watch, he would know that he would not be able to enter the Warrens without permission from the Warrens’ guards, or a Magister’s writ of entry, and that to attack the guards is a violation of duty. I understand the stress of the moment and what was at stake, and don’t think that he should be reprimanded too severely, but I would be remiss if I didn’t complain. We might not have ever been able to enter the Warrens if it wasn’t for Delola’s ability to convince Jenny Windmane herself that we meant no harm and needed to enter the Warrens to find a person that could intend great harm to the city. Jenny and Karash led us to a big open cavern next to where there was a tavern and a few other homes before Karash lost the ability to track his quarry. Delola interviewed each of the people who came out to investigate what was going on while we searched the caverns for clues. Eventually, Delola learned from the owner of the tavern called The Whale Tail that there was something weird happening in the broom closet, and that all his brooms were disappearing after he’d put them in there. We went to the broom closet and discovered a secret entrance magically disguised as a false wall. We passed through the illusory wall and immediately found all of the tavernkeeper’s brooms, which we put back into the closet before continuing on. The passage led to a cavern, of which one side was a huge, blue, smooth wall made of wood, but the wooden panels were joined such that one could barely tell that it was wood. I did notice that there was a lock on a doorway in the wall that matched a key that I had found in one of Ahghairon’s demiplanes. We found wizard Pentarost at the end of the cave standing over a magical apparatus that was hooked up to a man, who looked to be a sailor, and draining his life force into a device that looked exactly like the key. Radiant Olana noticed that there was what appeared to be a crown of sorts attached to wizard Pentarost’s head and surmised that he might have been being controlled. She used a magic item to cast a greater restoration spell on him and the crown broke, rendering Pentarost unconscious but alive. I got to work examining the apparatus and was able to determine that it could be shut down, but one incorrect move would cause the device to detonate with enough magical energy to level much of the city of Waterdeep. I knew I was going to need to give it my all, and prayed to Azuth to guide my hands in this task as he has guided me in all my wizardry. To provide a proper sacrifice for such an important prayer, I tore a page from my spellbook and burned it, through tears, sacrificing the knowledge of that spell in that act. As soon as the page turned to ash, there was a flash of blue light and I felt a hand lift my chin. I look up to see the face of Azuth - Azuth himself - standing before me. He told me not to cry, and with a wave of his hand the device powered down. Then, just as he appeared, he disappeared in a flash of blue light.
As Radiant Olana got to work healing the sailor, I received a paper bird with a message that said “Use the key, and save the city. – M.” I took the key out of my satchel, went over to the door in the blue wall, and inserted the key into the lock. The door opened, and we entered into what looked like a ship, but a ship far more advanced than any sailing ship I had ever seen. The only thing that comes close is a vessel that the Giff use to traverse the stars. As we approached the “bridge” of the ship, the crew woke up and explained to us that we were aboard what they called a Spelljammer, and that since we had brought them the key, they could go home. They explained that they were simulacra of the original crew, who were in stasis in an escape pod, and that they had crash landed here on Toril during the Illithid Wars. While they didn’t know how long they had been here, they estimated that they had been there for a period that, to me, adds up to at least 1,000 years. They told us that they were eager to return home, but would grant us a favor in return for bringing back the key, and I asked them if they would be able to use the ship to attack the dragon, Nas’Turik, that was attacking the city. They agreed, and I placed the key in the console. The controls turned on and the crew piloted the Spelljammer through the earth and came out through the harbor, lifting up into the air and hovering over Mt. Waterdeep. At this moment, the Spelljammer began to charge its weapon, I believe it was called the Rune of Drakkar, which I was told acts like a magic missile. At this moment, Nas’Turik landed square on top of the mountain and stared down the Spelljammer. I began to get an uneasy feeling, like that this was what the dragon wanted, but it was too late to stop the events that followed. The Spelljammer launched the blast, and just as the blast was about to hit Nas’Turik, he winked out of existence, and the blast then turned and headed straight for Ahghairon’s Tower, slamming squarely into it and causing the dragon ward to go down. Then the tower flung a blast back at the Spelljammer, hitting it square on and killing all of the simulacra. The Spelljammer then began to fall toward the ground. I told all my compatriots to get to the escape pods and put the control apparatus on my head. I was able to turn the Spelljammer away from the city and out over the ocean. From there, I ran to the escape pods, which could only fit four and two had already jettisoned. Hunter Karash was able to grab my hand and pull me into the last escape pod, close the door, and jettison the pod, which landed on the street in front of the castle.
As Hunter Karash and I exited the pod I looked around and for the first time, really took in the horror of the day. There were so many dead in the streets, gryphons were falling from the sky, and a dragon had landed on the roof of the palace. It was that we ran into Sir Fiego, Sir Skorg, and Lyra, who were going to the castle to meet with Warden Elminster, which brought me back from the brink of breaking down in grief. They asked us if we would join them in their meeting with the Warden, and Sir Skorg informed me that there was an imminent attack from a massive orc army. We made our way into the castle and to the war room to meet with the Warden. Warden Elminster told us that the orcs had opened up a portal north of Waterdeep, and not only was that how such a massive army of orcs had amassed in so quick a time, but that when Nas’Turik disappeared, he had traveled to another plane, and intended to come back through the portal to complete his destruction of the city now that the dragon ward was gone. We took some time to rest and formulate a plan. We speculated that the orcs were being led by Sir Skorg’s cousin Magog, who was known to be working with Nas’Turik’s forces, so Sir Skorg, his driver Grymskull, and Sir Fiego would distract the orcs with a leadership challenge while Lyra and I snuck into the tent to disable the portal. When we were ready, Warden Elminster took us down to a room deep inside the castle that had a mural with beautiful creeping vines in relief on one of the walls. The Warden explained that this mural was actually a gate that led to a unicorn run, and that the gateway could only be activated by a druid. Lyra examined the mural and planted a seed, praying to Rillifane, and a flower grew. This flower matched a spot where there was a missing flower on the vine, and when she placed the flower, a portal opened up in the center of the vines. The Warden told us that this path would take us to an old tree to the north and we stepped through the portal. We came out of the portal into the Feywild. It was so verdant and so green and so beautiful. Lyra was able to find the path that the unicorn had taken and we followed it, narrowly avoiding Baba Yaga, or at least it was a hag who looked like the Baba Yaga of legend in her walking hut. We exited the Feywild through another portal in a large, old tree, and just like that, we were in the woods north of the orc encampment.
We found the tent and Sir Skorg and Sir Fiego enacted their plan. Once the sound of challenge drums began, Lyra silenced her and my steps, and I cast invisibility on us, and we held a length of rope between us to keep ourselves together. We snuck into the tent and hid behind a bunch of crates. Inside the tent were six creatures wearing robes, they looked almost like giant worms, with huge maws, no eyes, and arms, but no legs. They were nothing like I had ever seen before. They were standing surrounding a portal and summoning orcs through it. It was a portal that led to and or from one of the layers of the Abyss, but I couldn’t tell which one. I was able to use my black mouse Astrophel to deliver a counterspell and one of the creatures went down, disrupting the summoning. The orcs began looking around the room but didn’t find us before Magog entered the tent and ran through the portal. The creatures followed, and as the last creature was about to pull the gate ring into the closing portal, I was able to counterspell one more time and the ring cracked. I hope that that would render the ring useless as a gate, but at least that will hold back the dragon and strand the orcs in the Abyss for a while.
If I could draw some conclusions from my experiences of this day’s events, they would be the following. Nas’Turik must have known that the Spelljammer was there under Waterdeep and how its weapons worked. This means that he is at least one thousand years old, if not several thousand years old. He might have even been there when the Spelljammer crashed. He must have known that the origin of the dragon ward was Ahghairon’s Tower. He would have had to have known that the only way that he could travel to another plane while keeping the Rune of Drakkar’s blast focused on something to hit, he would have had to leave a part of his body behind in this plane. He would have known that if he wanted to be on another plane and have the Rune of Drakkar’s blast hit Ahghairon’s Tower, he would have to get a piece of his body inside the tower. When myself and the party I was with met the storm giant Thorsten Tyrdug, he told us that Nas’Turik had given up one of his eyes. But to whom? And how did the eye get inside Ahghairon’s Tower? Also, it was clear that the orcs were working with Nas’Turik, and if the orcs were getting to Waterdeep by traveling through the Abyss, that means that demons are working with Nas’Turk. Why are all of these typically evil and purely self-interested parties working together? What do they all get out of this? Also what does Nas’Turik get out of this? He wants the skull of Tarse, but why? One can presume that he wants it to bring back Tarse as a lich to learn how to bring Tiamat back to Toril, but is that really his motive?
All in all, I can’t help but feel responsible for the loss of the dragon ward. If it wasn’t for my suggestion to the crew of the Spelljammer to use their weapon on Nas’Turik, it never would have caused the dragon ward to go down. The city is now in peril because of those actions. As such, I would like to dedicate all of my research going forward to restoring the dragon ward, so long as you and my advisor Professor Wenbald allow. I promise on my honor that I will work until a solution is found.