Waterdeep and The Children

So it seems like the family name is getting around. Reputation, too. Not sure that I like that. Father accepted some hireling request from the Chandler family. Apparently, they're rich, and dear mommy and daddy don't want them runnin' off to Waterdeep on their own, but apparently can't be assed to stop them themselves. So, you know, why not hire a family of -beast hunters- to watch after them, eh? So, being the renown beast hunters that we are, they decided to ask us for help. Bloody hell. Turns out, Father thought this a great time for me to see some more of the world than just the forests around our lands. So I got volunteered to go. Shouldn't be too difficult, right? Just watch some kids, make sure they don't get killed, that sort of thing. Jesus, was I wrong.
 
Thankfully, in my wisdom, I decided to go see the Church (AGAINST my better judgment) to see the likelihood of getting one of their Paladins on employ to help me out for awhile. After some negotiations (for no pay, and no duration of contract), I managed to enlist the aid of a half-orc Paladin-in-training named Oswald. Lucky me he jumped at the chance to protect 2 'innocent children', because lord knows the 15 gold in my pocket wasn't near enough to actually pay for services, so honestly, I decided to take what I could get. With that in hand, as well as a picture of the children (I say children, but one of them is close to my age. The other barely a man. 15? 16? Young.), we headed out to rendezvous at this upscale Tavern/Inn in some of the richer parts of Waterdeep (The Yawning Portal?) where they were said to be heading.
 
Oswald and I met up with the children right after the younger one, Brynden (was it?), had apparently just summoned a new familiar for himself, blowing all his pocket money on material components to do so. This seemed to make Elaine, the older sister, jealous that he performed the rite first. On top of some other problems she was having. Turns out the boy summoned a fucking -spider-. I hate spiders. Too many legs and eyes. And this one can -talk-. I swear to every God that gets prayed to, I'll kill that little fucker sooner or later. On the topic of Elaine's problems, turns out some dwarf had peddled her some magical book she was expecting, most of which seemed to be one of the reasons the two made the trip out here to Waterdeep to begin with. We met up with the dwarf, who, un-fucking-surprisingly, didn't have her wares. Seems like they were stolen by some local thieves, and the dwarf, Fenri, if I remember his name right, didn't have the balls to go get his property back. Some thieves, though. Fenri knew right where they was in town, but couldn't go it alone, it seems. We were about to be off when he graciously offered us the services of his wife, at no charge. Not sexual services, mind you, but healing-type. Name's Moira Hammersong. Turns out she's a cleric from some other local church. Seems he's been offering her up to any group of adventurers he came across, trying to get her killed. Some shit husband. She happened to walk in on him explaining all this, however. Ol' Fenri ends up giving her the slip while we were talking, but I happened to see where he went. I offered her the info in exchange for her actual services. ...Still not sexual. She's a looker, though. I mean, for a dwarf. Not seen too many dwarf women, honestly.
 
We found ourselves on a street where the local thieves' hideout was located, not sure how to approach the situation. Rich kid decided to just bribe the guards, giving them some gold, and not only did they fuck right off for us, they even told us which house specifically we were looking for. Guess nobility does have a little something going for it, even if you are a rich spoiled brat. Instead of wasting time to sneak in, I entered the home in a most courteous manner, and expressed my need to use their lavatory. Despite looking like one big outhouse, the thieves insisted they had no such facilities, but I knew otherwise. So they proceeded to pull weapons on us, and by rights we had to defend ourselves, forcing us to march into their home and slaughter them systematically. Guess that spider helped out a bit, too. Still gonna kill the fucker. It watches me, I swear it.
 
After a rushed battle inside the house, because wouldn't you know it these asspirates had somehow managed to be keeping a DEMON IN A FUCKING BOX in their place, we left with what we came for, plus some hazard pay. Cracking open one of the crates, sand poured out of it and inside we found a Writ of Passage for a ship called the Gypsy's Fury, along with a note stating that whoever accepts the invitation and makes the journey, they'd be rewarded 4,000 gold. That's a lot of goddamn money. The kids of course were interested, because the girl wanted to buy some more books, and the boy... well, he's a boy, isn't he? My job being to see they stayed alive, if they decided to go I couldn't stop them. I did manage to convince Moira to come with us, thankfully. Her abilities as a cleric was incredibly helpful. And honestly, I think she has a thing for me. I'd almost argue that her being married was a hangup, but let's be honest here, it's clearly a shitshow of a marriage. He was just trying to get her killed off, wasn't he? We'll see how that goes. At the very least, she's better company than the rest of this crew, and seems to be the most level headed. Hopefully she sticks around...